Mega Music Publisher
Mega Music Publisher
Germany's innovative new publisher combining educational music publishing and music technology, transforming how music is composed, published, taught, learned, and performed.
© 2018 by Rainer Langhans & Marcel Langhans.
Mega Music Publisher
Germany's innovative new publisher combining educational music publishing and music technology, transforming how music is composed, published, taught, learned, and performed.
© 2018 by Rainer Langhans & Marcel Langhans.
Mega Music Publisher
Germany's innovative new publisher combining educational music publishing and music technology, transforming how music is composed, published, taught, learned, and performed.
© 2018 by Rainer Langhans & Marcel Langhans.
Mega Music Publisher
Germany's innovative new publisher combining educational music publishing and music technology, transforming how music is composed, published, taught, learned, and performed.
© 2018 by Rainer Langhans & Marcel Langhans.
Mega Music Publisher
Germany's innovative new publisher combining educational music publishing and music technology, transforming how music is composed, published, taught, learned, and performed.
© 2018 by Rainer Langhans & Marcel Langhans.
Lesson 1
Introduction to Music Notation
IMPACT KS3 Music Curriculum
IMPACT is a progressive ensemble curriculum designed for mixed-ability, mixed-instrument classes. Students develop instrumental technique, performing, listening, notation, theory, composition, creativity and musical independence through repertoire that they perform together. Learning begins from a shared pulse and common pitch, with musical and technical demands expanding gradually as students become more confident and independent.
The numbered IMPACT units represent a progression of musical skills rather than fixed year levels. Each unit combines a musical piece with its corresponding worksheet and may be taught over approximately one to three lessons, depending on the needs and progress of the ensemble. The milestones below therefore indicate an achievable pathway for a new KS3 cohort. Classes may move at different speeds, individual students may progress ahead of the class, and earlier units can be revisited whenever consolidation is required.
UNIT RANGE
MUSICAL DEVELOPMENT
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Units 1–29
Students begin from one shared pitch and gradually expand through G, F–G, E–F–G and D–E–F–G to the five-note range C–D–E–F–G. By Unit 18, the complete C major scale is introduced. Students develop a secure pulse, understanding of note values and rests, fluency in treble and bass clefs, basic major and minor harmony, simple chord functions, melodic contour, motifs, sequences, phrases and forms such as question-and-answer and A–A′. Quavers (eighth notes) and later semiquavers (sixteenth notes) expand rhythmic fluency, while melodic, harmonic and rhythmic parts become increasingly independent within the ensemble.
Students should be able to prepare and perform a defined ensemble part with increasing independence, maintain the pulse through rests, read basic notation, recognise simple harmonic and formal features, and create short rhythmic or melodic ideas.
Units 30–56
The pitch range expands beyond the initial C major five-note range, first adding A and then completing the C major scale. Students then work in A minor before moving into F major and D minor. They develop understanding of cadences, chord inversions, slash chords, dominant sevenths, relationships between major and minor keys, dotted rhythms, ties, triplets, wider metres, articulation, dynamics and phrasing. The units introduce variation form, rounds, melody-and-accompaniment texture, straight and swing interpretation, blues and increasingly independent ensemble roles.
Students should perform with greater control, expression and ensemble balance; recognise harmonic, cadential and formal relationships; read increasingly complex scores; and make informed choices about interpretation, accompaniment and composition.
Units 57–78
Students move into G major, E minor and the use of accidentals before applying their musicianship to a broad range of historical repertoire and styles. Learning includes wider key signatures, the harmonic minor scale, chromaticism, dominant-seventh harmony, inversions, compound metre, ornaments, simple intervals, treble, bass, alto and tenor clefs, transposition and more advanced score reading. Formal understanding expands to include binary form, canon, rondo-like structures and sonata-form functions.
Students should increasingly rehearse and perform independently, identify key, metre, harmony, form, texture and style in scores and recordings, maintain an individual part within a layered ensemble, and use appropriate musical vocabulary when listening, performing and reflecting.
Units 79–88
Students who progress more quickly can continue into the final IMPACT section, where previously learned skills are applied to lead sheets, popular music and jazz. The units introduce chord-symbol performance, seventh and extended harmony, ii–V–I progressions, 12-bar blues, walking bass, comping, riffs, fills, improvisation, Motown, rock, soul, jazz and bossa nova. The final units also introduce irregular 5/4 metre through Take Five.
Students who complete the full IMPACT pathway should enter IGCSE Music with substantial experience in independent performance, listening analysis, chord-symbol reading, composition, improvisation and ensemble rehearsal.
KS3 Musical Progression
Tone range provides the technical spine of IMPACT. Students begin with a common pitch accessible across the ensemble, and the range gradually expands as instrumental control develops. Each stage also introduces new learning in rhythm, harmony, notation, form, listening, expression and composition.
Across KS3, students progress from ensemble foundations in Year 7, through developing musicianship in Year 8, towards increasingly independent rehearsal and musical decision-making in Year 9. Students ready to progress further can follow an extension pathway that bridges into IGCSE Music through listening, performing and composing.