Crew Robson and Crew Godley – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

We began our new unit ‘Swing-a-long with Shostakovich’ by listening to the piece of music and moving using a swaying motion. We tried to keep in time to the beat, thinking about not moving too fast or too slow. We chanted 1, 2, 3 as we did it to try and keep us in time. We discussed that this was called a 3-time beat.

In the second section of the song, the beat changes slightly. To show this, we tapped our knees on 1, then clapped our hands on 2. We found out this was called a 2-time beat.

We talked about the composer of this piece and how Dmitri Shostakovich was a famous composer who wrote jazz suites made up of dances. One piece called ‘Polka’ has a 2-time beat, whereas the ‘Waltz’ has a 3-time beat. We listened to both pieces and counted out loud to recognise the difference in beats, before we began to move our bodies to both beats.

We then became musical detectives and looked at how you could create 2-beat and 3-beat rhythms using body percussion. We listened to a selection of short pieces of music and used body percussion to help us decide whether the piece has a 2-time beat or a 3-time beat. We were really good at this and it shows we have a good ear for recognising patterns in music!

Crew Marsh – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

We began our new unit of music ‘Cat and mouse’ by warming up using a song called ‘Three little mice’. We used our bodies to create actions, as well as our voices to capture the characteristics of cats and mice.

To practise our listening and appraising skills, we watched a recording of ‘Duetto buffo di due gatti (cat duet)’ and shared our thoughts on what we liked or disliked about the performance, whether the singers used words, and how they communicated a message. We talked about how the characters told a story through the sound of a cat and used their bodies and voices to tell the story.

We then played a game called ‘The old grey cat’ to get us thinking about how cats and mice move. We listened to the audio and tried to make movements in time with the music before joining in with the singing.

We finished by listening to our song ‘What do you want to eat little mouse’. Once we had listened, we tried to clap the words whilst thinking about the lyrics carefully. We thought of some alternative lyrics for the song and had a go at using these lyrics to see what they sounded like alongside our clapping.

Crew Marsh – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

In our final lesson of our unit ‘Nautilus’, we began by following a listening map to warm our bodies up whilst thinking about how music can make shapes.

We then discussed opinions and how it was important to have your own opinion on something. We talked about how your opinions can be different to those of other people but both were valid. Not everyone will have the same opinion about a piece of music and that is okay.

The piece of music ‘Nautilus’ has been used to create different types of art, an animation, a ballet and an advertisement. We watched videos of each of these art forms and formed our own opinions on whether we liked the story that was being told. We discussed how even though the same piece of music was used in each, the videos and visuals helped to create a different story each time.

To finish, we had a vote on which one was our favourite. The winner was the ballet!

Crew Marsh – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

Continuing our work on ‘Nautilus’, we started by making large and small shapes with our bodies. This was a good activity to get us thinking about how music can make different shapes using different beats and length durations. We repeated this activity only this time we had to make a big shape, and become a small shape over 8 counts. We worked hard to make sure that we were all taking our time so that we all became smaller shapes at the same time. We then repeated this again, only this time we started as smaller shapes and we had to grow to become bigger shapes, again over 8 counts.

We then moved on to explore sounds as images and how the shapes used within the animated music video match closely with the sounds used within the piece of music. We noticed that the shapes at the beginning of the video looked like jaws opening and closing and they moved in time with the music.

We then looked at examples of music graphic scores and talked about how images and marks on a page might tell a story of how the music changes or how a piece of music is played and performed. We listened to ‘Nautilus’ again and created our own music graphic scores to match the sounds we could hear and the shapes we thought the music was making.

Crew Marsh – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

We began our next unit of music ‘Nautilus’ by learning all about the composer Anna Meredith. She composed the piece of music ‘Nautilus’ and her music covers lots of different styles. We listened to the music with our eyes closed whilst thinking of the following questions:

Whilst continuing to listen to the music, we explored feeling the beat using our bodies to move in time with the music. We listened carefully for any changes in the music and considered how we would use our bodies to show that change. We worked as a crew to follow a listening map that matched the music as it changed throughout.

Crew MW – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

To continue with our unit on ‘Down there under the sea’, we recapped our physical warm up from the previous lesson. We then reminded ourselves of the lyrics to our song and used picture prompts to help us think about the content of each verse.

We then listened to the sounds of the sea being made using percussion instruments and thought about how we could use the instruments in our classroom to create similar sounds.

We represented seagulls, crabs and waves using different percussion instruments and performed as a class to create a seaside soundscape.

We finished the lesson by looking at the notes C-D-E on the glockenspiel. We worked hard to keep in time with our partner to play each note.

Crew MW – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

We began work on our new unit of work called ‘Down there under the sea’ by first of all warming our bodies up, thinking about making big movements with our arms and legs to represent different activities you would do at the beach – swimming, surfing, making sandcastles, and jumping over waves.

We discussed lots of different sounds that you might hear at the beach, and thought about how we could represent or make similar noises using our voices. We talked about the noise of the waves, seagulls, a rain storm out at sea, as well as a foghorn blaring to help keep ships safe! We worked together as a crew to create short soundscapes for each of the sounds.

We then listened to and responded to a piece of music that represented being underwater. It was accompanied by a video that showed lots of different sea creatures and how they moved in the water. We responded by moving our bodies to the music in different ways and at different speeds.

We finished the lesson by listening to and beginning to learn our new song ‘Down there under the sea’. We listened carefully to the words and started to try singing along at the same time as the song, thinking about how we moved our voice up and down to sing different notes.

Crew Mcloughlin – Music

17th April 2024Sarah Mcglone

Today, we finished our work on ‘Twinkle Variations’. We began by recapping what we had previously discussed around variations and how they can be altered through tempo, rhythm and pitch. We were introduced to passacaglia, which is a repeating bassline and composers often use passacaglia as the basis for their variations. Working with a partner, we chose a short section of ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’ to use as the bassline. We spent time perfecting this short section on the glockenspiel.

We then looked at how we could adapt it further. We started by changing the rhythm to make it sound like a happy, dancing passacaglia. We found this quite tricky as it required us to play at a faster tempo and required more notes.

We then looked at adapting the same section, only this time taking away the rhythm and slowing it down to create a more solemn passacaglia. This was easier in terms of the amount of notes, however, it required us to think more carefully about keeping in time and remembering to rest between notes.

Once we had practised different passacaglia options, we split the class into 2 groups. One group played a passacaglia bassline whilst the other group layered an improvised piece. The group who were improvising were allowed to make their own decisions about what they wanted to play, however, they needed to consider fitting in with the bassline, playing at the same speed as the bassline, starting and stopping at the same time, and staying within the correct pitches.

Crew Robson and Crew Godley – Music

16th April 2024Sarah Mcglone

We finished our unit on ‘Trains’ by layering up different rhythm notations to create a whole class piece of music that represented the movement of a train. We split into 3 groups, drums, shakers and guiros. Each instrument represented a different rhythm notation and we practised our individual rhythms before playing at the same time and creating a layered piece.