Key Stage 1 music · Interrelated dimensions of music

KS1 music: pitch and duration, a guide for parents

Pitch and duration are two of the building blocks of music, which the curriculum calls the interrelated dimensions. Pitch is how high or low a sound is, and duration is how long or short it lasts. In Years 1 and 2, children are taught to experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using these dimensions, starting with the simplest questions: is this sound high or low, and is it long or short?

Pitch and duration, explained

The curriculum lists seven dimensions of music: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture and structure. They are called “interrelated” because they always work together: every note has a pitch and a length at the same time. In Key Stage 1 they are taught through play rather than definitions. A teacher might ask children to move their hands up high for a high sound and down low for a low one, then to stretch their arms out for a long sound and clap for a short one. Pitch and duration are usually taught together because between them they make a tune.

Pitch is explored with voices first. Children slide their voices up like a siren, squeak like a mouse and rumble like a bear, and sort sounds into high and low. They discover that a tune can go up, go down or stay on the same note, and that notes can step to the next one or leap across several. They then find pitch on instruments: on a glockenspiel the short bars are high and the long bars are low, and on a keyboard high notes are on the right. Some schools use pictures or lines on paper to show a tune rising and falling.

Duration means how long a sound lasts: a tap on a woodblock is short, a ringing triangle or a held hum is long. This is different from the beat, which is the steady pulse underneath the music. Children learn to play long and short sounds against a steady beat, for example four short claps and then a long sound held for four beats. Many schools use word patterns or rhythm names, such as “ta” for one beat and “ti-ti” for two shorter sounds in a beat, to help children say and remember rhythms. Silence is part of duration too, and children learn to leave a gap on purpose.

Putting the two together, children create their own short pieces: a tune that rises to a long high note and falls with short low ones, or a pattern of long and short sounds on a single drum. They choose sounds, combine them and talk about why. The curriculum does not require them to read standard notation in these years, so schools often use pictures, lines and shapes, called graphic scores, to record ideas. What matters is that children can hear a difference, show it and make deliberate choices.

Words your child will hear

Pitch: How high or low a sound is.
Duration: How long or short a sound lasts.
Note: A single musical sound with a pitch and a length.
Beat: The steady pulse in music that you can clap or march to.
Rhythm: A pattern of long and short sounds.
Rest: A gap of silence in the music.
Graphic score: A drawing that shows sounds with lines and shapes instead of standard music notes.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 1 says:

Pupils should be taught to experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the interrelated dimensions of music
Aim: pupils understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

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

Try it: drawing and playing a bird song

A child wants to make a short bird-song piece using a glockenspiel or their voice, with high sounds and low sounds, long ones and short ones. How can they plan it and record it?

Decide the plan in words. “First a long high note, like the bird calling. Then three short low notes, like it hopping. Then a sound that slides down, like it flying to the ground.”
Draw it. High is drawn near the top of the paper and low near the bottom. A long note is a long line; a short one is a short dash. So the plan is a long line at the top, three short dashes near the bottom, and a line sloping from top to bottom.
Play it. On the glockenspiel the child chooses a short bar for the high note and lets it ring for four counts, then taps three longer bars with short, quick taps, and finishes by sliding a beater down the bars from short to long.
Listen and check. The child asks a friend to look at the picture and play it, and sees if it sounds the same. If the friend plays the dashes too slowly, the child might use shorter dashes or add numbers above the shapes.
Change one thing. They swap the long high note for a long low one and decide which sounds more like a bird. This is selecting sounds on purpose.

The finished piece has three parts: one long, high sound; three short, low sounds; and a slide from high to low. The child can explain how the picture shows pitch (up and down on the page) and duration (length of the line), and can play it twice the same way.

Common mistakes and how to help

Mixing up pitch and volume: thinking a high sound is a loud sound

In everyday speech “high” and “low” are used for many things, and adults even say “turn the volume up” for louder. A high-pitched shriek is often loud too, so the two ideas blur.

What helps: Play the same high note loudly and then quietly, then the same low note loudly and quietly. Ask which thing changed each time. Pitch is how high it is; volume is how loud.

Thinking a long sound is a slow sound, or a short sound is a fast sound

Duration and speed both involve time, so the words get swapped. A long note can be played in a fast piece and a short one in a slow piece.

What helps: Keep a steady beat going and play a long note and short notes on top of it. The beat doesn’t change, but the sounds do.

Believing that a bigger or longer instrument always plays higher

Children expect size to link to “more”. In fact, longer bars, longer strings and bigger instruments generally play lower notes.

What helps: Compare a big drum with a small one, or the long and short bars on a glockenspiel, and listen. Ask your child to work out the rule for themselves: big is low, small is high.

Not including silence as part of the music

Children focus on the sounds they make. The gap between sounds feels like “nothing” or a mistake.

What helps: Play a pattern with a rest in it and ask your child to keep the beat during the silence. Name it as a rest, and explain that silence is also part of how long and short sounds are arranged.

How to help at home

Siren and rumble. Use your voices to slide from very low to very high and back again. Take turns guessing whether the other person’s voice is going up or down with eyes closed.
High and low hunt. Tap things around the house and sort the sounds into high and low, and long and short. A spoon on a saucepan, a book on a table and a wooden spoon on a cardboard box all sound different. Ask your child which is highest and which rings longest.
Long and short with a steady beat. Pat a steady beat on your knees while your child plays a long sound (humming for four beats) and short sounds (clapping on single beats). Swap, and make the pattern a little harder each time.
Draw a sound picture. Make a short pattern with your voice, such as a long high note, two short low ones and a silence, and ask your child to draw it using lines and dashes. Then swap and play from their drawing.
Spot pitch in everyday sounds. Notice a car horn, a doorbell, a bird and a clock ticking and decide whether each is high or low, long or short. It trains the ear to listen on purpose.