Key Stage 1 music · Listening

KS1 music: listening to recorded music, a guide for parents

In Years 1 and 2, children are taught to listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music. Recorded music is how most children hear music at home, so lessons teach them to move from hearing it as background noise to listening to it on purpose: noticing what instruments play, how loud and fast it is, and how it makes them feel, and finding words to say so.

Listening to recorded music, explained

The curriculum asks for a range of high-quality music but names no pieces, so schools choose. In a typical Key Stage 1 programme children hear short pieces or extracts from many periods, styles and traditions: classical music by composers from different centuries, folk music, jazz, music from other countries and cultures, music from films and the theatre, and songs and dance music of today. The overall aim of the curriculum mentions the works of the great composers and musicians, so children meet some well-known composers. The point of “high-quality” is music that is skilfully made and interesting to listen to, in any style, rather than a particular type.

Listening with concentration is a skill that has to be taught. Teachers ask children to listen to a short piece, often one to three minutes, with full attention: to sit still or move quietly, close their eyes if they wish, and think about what they hear. They may listen more than once with a different job each time: first for the feeling, then for the instruments, then for how the music changes. Short, repeated listening is more useful at this age than one long piece, and children are told that there is no need to like everything, though they should be able to say why.

Understanding begins with the building blocks of music, called the interrelated dimensions: pitch (high and low), duration (long and short), dynamics (loud and quiet), tempo (fast and slow), timbre (the sound of different instruments), texture (how many sounds happen at once) and structure (how the piece is organised). At this age the focus is on the easier ones: is it loud or quiet, fast or slow, high or low, and which instruments can you hear? Children respond in many ways. They might move like an animal that fits the music, draw lines or colours to match it, or choose describing words such as “stomping”, “floating” or “mysterious”.

This early listening feeds into later work. In Key Stage 2 children are expected to listen with attention to detail and to recall sounds from memory, and the habit of listening carefully, learned now, is what makes that possible. Teachers also use recorded music to give children ideas for their own playing and composing. A class that has noticed how a piece gets louder step by step may try the same in their own work.

Words your child will hear

Composer: A person who writes music.
Orchestra: A large group of musicians playing together on instruments such as strings, brass, woodwind and percussion.
Instrument family: A group of instruments that make sound in a similar way, such as strings or brass.
Mood: The feeling music gives, such as calm, excited or mysterious.
Pulse (beat): The steady beat you could tap along to.
Gets louder / gets faster: Words for dynamics and tempo changing during a piece.
Style: A kind of music, such as folk, jazz or classical, with its own typical sounds.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 1 says:

Pupils should be taught to listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music
Aim: pupils perform, listen to, review and evaluate music across a range of historical periods, genres, styles and traditions, including the works of the great composers and musicians.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: listening to a piece in three steps

A teacher plays a short extract that starts quietly and slowly and gradually gets louder and faster. Many schools use pieces like this; one well-known example is “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, written by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in the 1870s for a play. How do children listen to it?

First listening: just listen. No talking, no writing. The teacher asks children to notice how the music makes them feel and to keep the thought to themselves for now.
Second listening: move or draw. Children creep like a mouse at the start and then march faster. Others draw a line that goes slowly across the paper and then speeds up and gets thicker as the music grows.
Talk using the music words. The teacher asks, “What happened to the volume? What happened to the speed? Which instruments did you hear at the start, and which joined in later?” Children answer: “It started quiet and slow. Then it got faster and louder. At the end everything played together.”
Link to a feeling or story. Children suggest what might be happening, such as a creature creeping through a cave who realises he’s being chased. There are no wrong answers as long as the child can point to something in the music that gave them the idea.
Third listening: listen again for one new detail. This time the job is to notice which instruments play the tune first (low, deep ones: plucked strings and bassoons) and to put a hand up when the whole orchestra joins.

A strong answer uses the music words and points to evidence: “At the start it was quiet and slow, so I thought of someone sneaking. It got faster and louder, so I thought they were being chased.” The child listened more than once, described changes in dynamics and tempo, and linked them to a mood.

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking listening means sitting perfectly still and silent

Children are told to listen and assume it means doing nothing. Some can’t sit still, or find it hard to focus when there is nothing to look at.

What helps: Give them a job: tap the beat very quietly, move one finger to the pitch or draw while listening. Active listening is real listening.

“I don’t like it, so it isn’t good music”

Young children usually judge music on whether it is familiar or whether they can dance to it. Unfamiliar styles can seem odd at first.

What helps: Ask for one thing they noticed before one thing they didn’t like. Come back to the same piece a few times; liking often grows with familiarity.

Believing music always has to tell a story or have words

Children are used to songs and to music in films and cartoons, where it supports a story, so they expect every piece to “be about” something.

What helps: Try a piece with no story and ask only what it sounds like. Explain that composers sometimes write a story and sometimes just play with sounds.

Thinking there is a right answer to “what is the music about?”

Children assume that, as in other lessons, the teacher wants one correct answer. They may copy a friend’s idea instead of trusting their ears.

What helps: Say “Tell me what you heard that made you think that.” Different ideas are welcome as long as they are based on the sounds.

How to help at home

One piece, three listenings. Choose a short piece and play it three times: first just to enjoy, second while your child moves or draws, third to spot one detail, such as the first instrument. It takes less than ten minutes.
Loud or quiet, fast or slow? Pause a piece a little way in and ask: is it loud or quiet, fast or slow, high or low? Then play on and ask if anything changed. These are exactly the words used at school.
Share your music. Take turns choosing what the family listens to, from your childhood favourites to grandparents’ music, dance music or something from another country. Ask each person to say why they chose it. This builds a wide range of listening.
Draw or move to what you hear. Play a piece with a strong mood and ask your child to draw the sound with crayons, or move like an animal that fits. Afterwards ask what they were thinking.
Listening time without a screen. Put the music on during a car journey or at bedtime without a screen. Ask your child to tell you one thing they noticed, which is the start of listening with attention.

Leads on to

Key Stage 2: Listening and aural memory