Describing the timbre of instruments
I can describe the timbre of instruments and understand that an instrument’s materials affect its timbre.
Describing the timbre of instruments
I can describe the timbre of instruments and understand that an instrument’s materials affect its timbre.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- We warm up before playing so that we can focus our mind and bodies and be ready to play.
- Composers can choose instruments because their timbre helps to tell a story or to represent something, like an animal.
- An instrument’s materials affect the unique sounds it makes.
- We can listen to instruments and identify them by their timbre.
- Timbre is the unique tone an instrument can make.
Keywords
Warm up - a sequence of exercises used to prepare the mind and body for playing instruments
Composer - a person who creates music
Timbre - a description of the sound or tone of an instrument
Material - what an object is made from
Percussion - an instrument played by striking, scraping or shaking
Common misconception
Timbre alone creates a musical story.
All the musical elements need to work together to create a musical story. A glockenspiel can be many things depending on how it is played - not just a polar bear.
To help you plan your year 2 music lesson on: Describing the timbre of instruments, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 2 music lesson on: Describing the timbre of instruments, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 1 music lessons from the Compose and create: recording our musical ideas using a graphic score unit, dive into the full secondary music curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
A variety of classroom percussion with boxes and labels to sort these. A box with a lid that can fit multiple instruments inside.
Licence
Lesson video
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Starter quiz
4 Questions
the regular, steady heartbeat of the music
the playing or showing of the steady pulse like the ticking of a clock
the pattern of sounds that we play and sing
Exit quiz
4 Questions
