Practice: Relationship to the Programmes of Study

Practice strategies may relate to the Programmes of Study in the following ways:

A: Listening and internalising

  • developing aural and critical listening
  • singing/playing by ear familiar tunes
  • memorising a piece
  • remembering what was done in lessons when practising pieces
  • using notational skills when learning new pieces or sections

B: Making and controlling musical sounds: Developing technique

  • using appropriate warm-up exercises
  • developing physical strength and stamina
  • consolidating and extending sound technical habits
  • repeating technical work to sing/play with increasing fluency
  • practising technical exercises allied to pieces being learnt

C: Creating and developing musical ideas

  • improvising on given musical ideas or stimuli
  • composing pieces

D: Singing/playing music

  • attending to expressive and stylistic features
  • revisiting pieces already learnt
  • practising sight-reading new pieces where appropriate
  • practising individual parts of an ensemble
  • experimenting and making interpretative decisions

E: Singing/playing music with others

  • checking intonation, e.g. tuning of chords
  • improving the ensemble, e.g. rhythmic coordination, balance between parts
  • discussing interpretative elements

F: Performing and communicating

  • refining a piece ready for performance
  • practising performing to others