Crew MW – Music 🎶🥁

19th February 2024Sarah Mcglone

Today we listened to a story called ‘Hippobottymus’ that introduced us to a number of animals who make different noises to create music. We talked about how we could represent some of the animals using the untuned percussion instruments. Working in small groups, we decided who was going to be each animal before carefully choosing an instrument from the box that best represented that animal. We then performed together as each animal before then creating a soundscape that added a new animal each time, building up to a whole class performance, showcasing all the animals from the story!

Crew Shields – Music 🎶 ✨

12th February 2024Sarah Mcglone

We began our new music unit ‘The Doot Doot Song’ by joining in with a warm up called a stomp canon. This enabled us to warm up our voices as well as adding actions to warm up physically too.

We then looked at the structure of ‘The Doot Doot Song’, thinking about the fact that songs are built using different sections and structures.

We began to learn the song by focusing on the chorus. Although the lyrics are not tricky, they are syncopated (goes against the rhythm/beat) and some of the words need to be staccato (short and detached). We then discussed what chords and triads are before trying to identify the chords used in the song.

We then continued to learn how to play the recorder, this lesson we were introduced to the note ‘G’.

Crew Hamill and Crew Thompson – Music 🎶 ✨

12th February 2024Sarah Mcglone

We have started a new unit of music called ‘Latin Dance’. We started by learning the basic steps of salsa dancing, making sure that we kept the rhythm so that we all did the correct steps at the same time.

We then discussed that different songs are structured in different ways. We listened to our song ‘Latin Dance’ and identified how the song is structured. Once we had recognised the structure, we began finding the beat of the bar, adding some basic footwork from the basic steps we looked at at the beginning of the lesson. We then added in a further action on beat 1 to represent a two quavers (jogging duration).

We finished off the lesson by beginning to learn the chorus.

We then continued to learn how to play the recorder, this lesson we were introduced to the note ‘G’.

Crew Godley and Crew Robson – Music 🎶 ✨

12th February 2024Sarah Mcglone

During this lesson, we warmed up by recapping walk (crotchet) and ‘jog’ (quaver) durations before looking at 4-beat rhythms. We discussed rhythm grids and looked at the symbol for ‘rest’.

Once we had practised reading the rhythm grids, we then created our own 4-beat rhythms. We practised the rhythms we created with our partner using untuned percussion instruments before then swapping grids with another pair and having a go at playing their rhythm too.

Crew MW – Music 🎶🥁

8th February 2024Sarah Mcglone

This week we have continued with our music learning by practising the song ‘Shake My Sillies Out’. We made sure we included the actions we had looked at in the previous lesson and continued thinking about how we keep in time with the beat of the track. We did a great job of this!

We then talked about how you can use instruments to keep the beat and so we chose an untuned percussion instrument from the box and practised at playing the beat, being sure to keep in time with each other. We worked extremely well as a crew and it sounded wonderful!

Crew MW – Music 🎶🥁

8th February 2024Sarah Mcglone

We have been looking at a song called ‘Shake My Sillies Out’. We have been practising warming our voices up whilst building our beat-finding skills by singing ‘Jelly On A Plate’, adding a new verse called ‘Ghostie In The House’. We had to make sure we were staying in time with each other and only clapping on the right beat, not on every word.

Once we were warmed up, we then started by learning the lyrics to ‘Shake My Sillies Out’ before adding in some actions to help with our performance. It was really tricky because we had to remember to do our actions on the correct beat so that we were all doing them at the same time. We worked hard at it though and we followed instructions so that we all ended up doing them at the right time together!

Crew Mcloughlin – Music 🎶💃🏻🕺🏻🪩

8th February 2024Sarah Mcglone

We have been having a lot of fun with our current unit of learning in music. We have been looking at the song ‘You To Me Are Everything’ by The Real Thing. We explored the genre of music and even practised some disco dance moves from the 70s. So that we knew a little more about the band and their music, we discussed information and researched answers to help us to understand their story a little more. We then looked at the song in more detail, discussing the meaning behind it. We found out that the song was released in Summer 1976, and that year was particularly memorable to those that experienced it because it was a very hot summer and therefore this song became a soundtrack to the glorious weather. We ended the lesson by getting to know the lyrics and melody more by learning the words and trying to sing it at the right pitch with the correct notes. As an added challenge, we then added in some of the 70s disco dance moves that we had practised earlier in the lesson.

The following lesson, we talked about cover songs and how different bands and artists can take a song that already exists and do their own version of it – a cover. Discussions were had around how covers can have similarities and differences to the original version. We listened to three covers of ‘You To Me Are Everything’ (by Sonia, Anthony Strong, and The Overtones) and talked about how there were elements of similarities but also very clear differences. Once we had listened to them all, we took a vote on which was our favourite cover – it was a draw between The Overtones and Anthony Strong. We then ended the lesson by looking at the first verse of another disco song ‘Celebration’ by Kool and the Gang, before continuing to learn ‘You To Me Are Everything’.

Crew Godley and Crew Robson – Music 🎶

1st February 2024Sarah Mcglone

We have been looking at a song called ‘Grandma Rap’ in our music lessons. We began our learning by finding the beat to the song using body percussion. Then, to help us learn the lyrics, we created actions for different parts of the song. We listened to the performance track of the song and practised using our actions at the right moment.

In the following lesson, we started by recapping the actions we had created before looking in more detail at the lyrics. We were incredibly quick to pick them up and we think that is because we created actions to help us to remember them! We focused hard on keeping in time with the backing track, and with each other – talking about how a crotchet is a ‘walking’ duration.

As a snapshot, to showcase our skills, we practised a song called ‘Hi lo chicka lo’. It teaches us all about how our voices move up and down. We added some hand actions in to match the pitch of our voice and performed these with a partner. We found this quite tricky but we persevered and tried our best regardless! Well done everyone! ✨