GCSE Music CIRCLE OF FIFTHS

This lesson focuses primarily on the Circle of Fifths, and this includes both the major and minor keys up to and including 4 sharps and flats. Students are taken through the information with both an information sheet, and a step-by-step PowerPoint. 14 x written/ notation tasks develop students’ knowledge of how keys are organised. This is not just a lesson in ‘what’ the Circle of 5ths is, students are taught how to create the circle from scratch. This reinforces understanding, and it also incorporates revision of major and minor scales, with a focus on how major scales create accidentals which become key signatures for major and relative minor keys.

Students also discover relationships between keys on the Circle of 5ths as a foundation to appropriate/ most common modulations: Dominant keys to the right/ Subdominant to the left/ Relative Major or Minor inwards or outwards on the rings. There are 10 x listening questions to conclude the lesson, in which students’ ability to distinguish between major and minor tonalities is tested. By the end of the lesson students will have a secure knowledge of the topic, and you – the teacher – will have more than enough scope to set additional activities as homework should you wish to, and suggestions are included in the teacher notes on the PowerPoint.

All of this comes with a 28-slide animated and beautifully-presented PowerPoint, annotated with detailed teaching guidance notes, to make delivery of the lesson smooth and efficient – plus a 4-page student information sheet, 4-page activity sheet and 4-page detailed answers sheet. With regards to the listening questions, MP3s are provided (and they are always my own compositions), and you may well want to insert the audios into the slide rather than use media player.

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