Starters and Plenaries for Music

Families and Ensembles

Format	card sort/presentation
Concepts	instruments

Starter

Copy the following onto card and cut out around the dotted lines, forming 31 separate cards, and shuffle them so that they are not in order. Make sure you have enough cards/sets of cards for every student/group in your class. You may wish to laminate these for future use:

Families and Ensembles: Cards

This starter reinforces students’ knowledge of musical instruments and the families and ensembles into which instruments are often arranged. There are a number of different ways of using the cards; it is possible to use the same resource over a number of lessons, each time taking a slightly different approach. Students could:

organise the cards into ensembles

Students could organise the cards into groups to make the following ensembles: string quartet, jazz trio, rock band, brass band and wind band. This activity uses all the cards.

Answers: String quartet: violin, violin, viola, cello; jazz trio: double bass, grand piano, drum kit; rock band: drum kit, bass guitar, electric guitar, voice; brass band: cornet, flugelhorn, tenor horn, baritone horn, trombone, euphonium, tuba; wind band: flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, trombone, euphonium, tuba, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals.

group the cards according to instrument families

The instrument families would be strings, brass, percussion and woodwind. Remember to remove the ‘voice’ card, and duplicate cards (‘violin’, ‘drum kit’, ‘trombone’, ‘euphonium’ and ‘tuba’) for this activity.

divide the cards into orchestra/non-orchestra

Students could divide the cards into two groups: those instruments which one would expect to find in an orchestra and those which are not normally found in an orchestra. Remember to remove the ‘voice’ card, and duplicate cards (‘violin’, ‘drum kit’, ‘trombone’, ‘euphonium’ and ‘tuba’) for this activity.

Answers: Orchestral instruments: violin, viola, cello, double bass, trombone, tuba, flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, trumpet, French horn, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals; Non-orchestral instruments: grand piano, drum kit, bass guitar, electric guitar, voice, cornet, flugelhorn, tenor horn, baritone horn, euphonium, saxophone.

arrange the cards in order of the physical size of instruments

This could be from the smallest to the largest instrument. Remember to remove the ‘voice’ card, and duplicate cards (‘violin’, ‘drum kit’, ‘trombone’, ‘euphonium’ and ‘tuba’) for this activity.

The chosen task could be done by individual students, in small groups/pairs (with one set of cards each), or as a whole class. All the suggestions are provided on the following presentation. You could select the appropriate task for a lesson and display it on a whiteboard/OHP:

Families and Ensembles: Tasks

Plenary

Students could make a list of as many instruments in each ‘family’ (ie percussion, brass, strings, woodwind, etc) as they can – not just those which featured on the cards in the starter.