Edexcel GCSE: Brandenburg (3 lessons)

These three lessons serve as an introduction to the first piece in the GCSE Edexcel music syllabus.

• Lesson 1: straight into the detail of the piece
• Lesson 2: the bigger picture of Baroque
• Lesson 3: instrumentation & structure
• Two homework sheets which fit in between the lessons (one research task and one musical literacy task)

Also included is a Sibelius file ‘If Vivaldi Used Sibelius’ which imagines how life would have been much easier for Baroque composers and their extensive use of sequences if only they have computer technology (Copy and Paste!). I’ve found this quite an effective way of highlighting sequences.

The YouTube video is for homework 2 where they have to fill in the missing notes, time signature, etc.

Some final points:

• These lessons could be swapped and taught in any order.
• The links to many YouTube videos are embedded within the PowerPoint.
• The PowerPoint was created with the SmartBoard in mind so some slides have blank manuscript ready to be filled out by the teacher or a student in real time as opposed to the answer fading in.