Year+4+Music

Year 4 || = Musical structure =
 * MUSIC


 * Information ||

Objectives
• To know that dance music is a contemporary style of music which is heavily dependent on the electronic layering of sounds • To know that sounds are often repeated and ordered into a clear structure to make a piece of dance music, with separate sounds laid down on separate tracks • To understand that silences in compositions are as much a part of the overall piece as the sounds themselves • To compose a piece of music that makes effective use of the features of contemporary dance music

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • have used a drag-and-drop style of software to compose music (in this Example, //Super Duper Music Looper//) • have saved a sound file; • have acquired a basic understanding of musical structure, particularly the structure of dance music; • be aware that in an orchestral score one line of music (stave) is used to represent one instrument.

Vocabulary
texture, sequencing, structure, samples/sampling, layering, editing

Resources
• data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a laptop • ICT suite or set of laptops • drag-and-drop software for musical composition (in this Example, //Super Duper Music Looper//) • speakers • an extract from an orchestral score • dance music, e.g. //Donny X// from the album //Outrospective// by Faithless BMG entertainment ([|www.faithless.co.uk] ), or Moby, Morcheeba, De La Soul, Smoke City, St Etienne

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • use drag-and-drop software for composing music.

Preparation for this lesson
Prepare: • a limited selection of .wav files for pupils to use in their composition (these could come from a preset range in a drag-and-drop program); • one or two examples of finished compositions for demonstration in the lesson. Before the lesson, set up the relevant software and files on the shared area of the network or on the computers that the children are to use. Prepare the software on your own computer ready for display. Prepare a set of help cards, or prompts and diagrams, to help children to remember what to do when they are using the software.


 * Lesson extract ||

Introduction
Explain to the class that in this lesson they will be looking at musical structure. If possible, use an interactive whiteboard. Ask the class: Q How do we start up and load the software? Use a brief question and answer session to remind children how to select instruments and sounds and how to drag and drop samples (.wav files). Demonstrate how they can undo their choices and how to listen to a sample before placing it on the track. Stress how important it is to keep one type of sound or instrument on one track. (Children will quite commonly select a drum sample and immediately follow it with a voice and then with a guitar – all on the same track.) Refer to an orchestral score and indicate how the instrumentation is laid out. Emphasise that you are hoping to see clear structure in their compositions, to include an introduction, a middle section that builds up the layers and tension, and an ending. On screen, display some previously saved examples of finished compositions, noting how the tracks become gradually more dense before coming to a clear and definite end. Listen to a piece of dance music and discuss how the texture builds up, e.g. //Donny X// from the album //Outrospective//. This piece builds up very slowly over two minutes without any vocals. Discuss how loops, sound effects, reverb and echo are used.

Main activity
Compose a piece with the assistance of the class, asking children to choose sounds from the categories available. Drag and drop the samples (.wav files) in a disorganised pattern until three or four tracks have been used, up to about 20 bars. When ready, play what you have. Ask the children to evaluate the piece critically. Q Would this piece be good to listen to on the radio? Why not? Q Would people buy this piece of music? Why not? Q Could you dance to this music? Why not? Q Does the piece have a recognisable structure? What is missing? Q Does the texture build up in an organised way? Why not? What would you do to improve it? Next, edit the composition by selecting favourite samples or chunks of sound and reorganising them onto separate tracks. Delete samples you don’t want. Make it clear that repeated sounds are very common in dance music and remind children of music they have listened to in this and in previous lessons. Include repeated silences between samples so that children become aware that silence is as much a part of music as sound. Organise the class in pairs or small groups. Ask the groups to use the software and the range of files you have prepared to compose their own dance-style piece. Remind the groups that they can use loops and cutting and pasting, to develop an organised texture like the one they explored as a whole class.

Plenary
Listen to the pupils’ compositions. Ask them to evaluate the effectiveness of each composition and compare them to the dance music that they have listened to. Recap the vocabulary that has been learned, e.g. texture, sequencing, structure, samples/sampling, layering, editing.

Next steps
Refine and edit the compositions. Publish them on the school’s website. Alternatively, use a CD to store children’s compositions and performances during the year. This would allow them to take their work elsewhere and play it, perhaps in an assembly or to another class.


 * Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Music Unit 10: Play it again – exploring rhythmic patterns QCA Music Unit 11: The class orchestra – exploring arrangements National Curriculum programme of study for music for Key Stage 2: 2a, 2b, 3a, 3c, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5c, 5e

Subject links
Pieces of music created as in this lesson can be linked to work in dance, PE, art, and creative language work. For example, children could use digital images to create their own CD cover.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • ICT allows children to compose, play, refine and record music, building complex layers in ways that would not otherwise be possible. The ability to modify their music gives children confidence to explore sounds and create more complex pieces. • ICT gives children access to sound effects and musical instruments that would not normally be available in the primary classroom.

Year 4 || = Musical recordings =
 * MUSIC


 * Information ||

Objectives
• To know what timbre, voice percussion, loops and sound effects are • To explore the timbre of their voice, including vocal rhythms • To compose and record their own sounds onto a digital device • To know how to transfer these recordings for use in composition software

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • have had some previous experience of composition; • have listened to dance music; • have had some experience of recording their own voices and manipulating the sounds.

Vocabulary
vocal percussion, timbre, .wav file, sequencing, samples/sampling, recording, import, edit, copy, paste

Resources
• data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a laptop • ICT suite or set of laptops • drag-and-drop composition software (in this Example, //eJay//) • speakers (optional) • microphone and mini-CD player • dance music and music that uses vocal percussion and effects, e.g. //Build it up –Tear it down// from //You’ve Come a Long Way Baby// by Fatboy Slim //Unfinished Sympathy// from //Blue Lines// by Massive Attack //Speaking in Tongues 1// and //2// from //Weaving my Ancestor’s Voices// by Sheila Chandra, Real World CDRW24 ([|www.realworld.co.uk] ) //Breaths// by Sweet Honey in the Rock (Cook CD008, Cooking Vinyl)

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • use software for recording and composing music.

Preparation for this lesson
Before the lesson, set up the relevant software and files on the shared area of the network or on the computers that the children are to use. Prepare the software on your own computer ready for display. Prepare a set of help cards, or prompts and diagrams, to help children to remember what to do when they are using the software.


 * Lesson extract ||

Introduction
Listen to some music that uses vocal percussion and effects, such as: • //Speaking in Tongues 1// and //2// – Sheila Chandra was raised in the UK by South Indian parents. //Speaking in Tongues 1// is a piece of spoken percussion that draws on patterns of rhythm used in South Indian dance. Vocal percussion is a teaching device for drummers and has become an art form in its own right. //Speaking in tongues 2// uses vocal percussion with reverb and delay. • //Breaths// by Sweet Honey is unaccompanied singing (a cappella) and vocal percussion. Listen to some contemporary dance music that uses vocal and other sound effects with drum loops and riffs, such as: • //Build it up –Tear it down// from the album //You’ve Come a Long Way Baby//, which opens with vocal effects using a single word sound and loops; • //Unfinished Sympathy// from the album //Blue Lines,// in which the texture builds up. Ask the class some questions. Q How do these pieces use voice and sound effects? Q How could we change the sounds using a computer? (e.g. speeding up, slowing down, reversing the sound, adding echo, reverb, pitch bending)

Main activity
The lesson involves importing sounds into composition software. To do this the children could use an audio recording program such as the preinstalled sound recorder for Windows. Remind them that the buttons work in the same way as a CD player or VCR and that a certain amount of manipulation of sound is available. As a whole class discuss how to explore the timbre of the voice by making a smooth sound, a scratchy sound, percussive sound, … Try out some of the vocal percussion effects discussed in the introduction to the lesson. Get children use their voices to create a repetitive rhythm, such as ‘dum, dah, dum, dah-dah’ (to the rhythm ‘slug, slug, slug, beetle’). Record and change the vocal rhythm by speeding it up, slowing it down and adding effects. Ask pairs of children to invent their own sounds to import into a dance track. This could be a dance track that they have already created or one that you created for them, or an example included in the software. Use various stimuli as starting points for the creation of the sounds, e.g. poems, photographs, vocal percussion, sound effects, or short riffs sung or played into the microphone. Save the sounds and import the files into your composition software. Stress that a computer has many ways of transferring information from one program to another – this is just one of them. Encourage children to appraise the effects these extra samples have and to be critical regarding their choices. Make it clear that composers evaluate and refine their work until they achieve exactly the effect that they want.

Plenary
Refer the children to the quality of their recordings. Ask: Q Are some of the sounds more effective than others? Why? Q Why did these sounds work, but not others? Q Was using a microphone tricky? What seemed to be the best way of positioning it and timing what you do?

Next steps
Build up a new bank of loops and sound effects that any children in the school can use in their own composition. Publish these on the school’s intranet. Collect samples, loops and sound effects from the Internet to create an additional resource bank.


 * Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Music Unit 10: Play it again – exploring rhythmic patterns National Curriculum programme of study for music for Key Stage 2: 2a, 2b, 3a, 3c, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5c, 5e

Subject links
Pieces of music created as in this lesson can be linked to work in dance, PE, art, and creative language work.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • ICT allows children to capture, compose, refine, play and record a wide variety of high quality sounds, building complex layers in ways that would not otherwise be possible. The ability to modify their compositions gives children confidence to explore sounds and create more complex pieces. • ICT gives children access to sound effects and musical instruments that would not normally be available in the primary classroom. • The Internet gives access to a much wider range of information and resource material than is offered by the traditional print resources in a school.

MUSIC Year 4 || =Minimalism=

Information ||

Objectives
• To understand the use of words, pulse and repeating patterns in the opening of //Einstein on the Beach// by Philip Glass • To be able to create, use and edit these features to create an effective composition • To evaluate some features of music using appropriate musical vocabulary

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • be able to copy a rhythmic pattern clapped by the teacher.

Vocabulary
cut and paste, minimalism, texture, pulse

Resources
• data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a laptop • ICT suite or set of laptops • audio recording software • drag-and-drop composition software (in this Example, //Cubasis VST 4.0//) • recording of the opening of //Einstein on the Beach//, an opera by Philip Glass

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • use audio recording software; • use drag-and-drop composition software.

Preparation for this lesson
Listen to the recording of the opening of //Einstein on the Beach//. You may wish to prepare a template for the drag-and-drop music program with some sounds already available so that it is easier for children to start the main task in the lesson. Before the lesson, set up the relevant software and files on the shared area of the network or on the computers that the children are to use. Prepare the software on your own computer ready for display. Prepare a set of help cards, or prompts and diagrams, to help children to remember what to do when they are using the software.

Lesson extract ||

Introduction
Get the children to chant these numbers to a regular pulse and no pauses, going straight from one line to the next: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Try the same activity again but miss out number 1 in the second and third row. Try the activity again, adding rising pitch stepwise (starting on A) to each note: A A A A B B B B B B C C C C C C C C Add sustained notes using an amplified keyboard to accompany the chanting, this time with falling pitch: A____ G_______ C___________

Main activity
Listen to the opening of the opera //Einstein on the Beach// by Philip Glass. This piece was premiered in France in 1976. It is a piece of minimal music. The whole opera, which lasts about 5 hours, consists of only a few repeating patterns and themes. Ask: Q What did you notice about the opening? It starts with the phrases that the pupils have just performed: • there is a slow bass organ line of three notes; • singing starts as repetition of the words one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, six, and so on; • a woman’s voice is then heard reading some text over the top of these repeating patterns; • the texture builds up slowly; • there are lots of overlapping parts made up of the repeating phrases. Organise the class in pairs or small groups to work in groups at the computers and to use a drag-and-drop composition program to create a piece that explores and develops these elements (use the sound recorder facility in this or a similar program). Tell the groups that their piece should: • be minimalist (lots of repetition, minor changes); • start with a number pattern and steady pulse, which might be spoken or sung using one note or a combination of notes; • have overlapping voices speaking, chanting or singing; • have some sustained notes. Once the pieces have been created, ask the groups to explore how they can move ideas around and adjust the tempo. This enables them to make changes to the piece easily and appraise the effect.

Plenary
Ask the class: Q How did the use of ICT help you with your composition? Q Would Philip Glass have had the same resources available to him?

Next steps
Pupils could use the Internet to research minimalism and opera. They might want to find out about other compositions by Philip Glass, e.g. //1000 Airplanes on the Roof//, and to use these as a starting point for some more composition. They could publish their composition on the school’s website.

Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Music Unit 10: Play it again – exploring rhythmic patterns National Curriculum programme of study for music for Key Stage 2: 2a, 2b, 3a, 3c, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5c, 5e

Subject links
Possible links can be made to work in dance or drama.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • ICT allows children to compose, play, refine and record music in ways that would not otherwise be possible. It also gives children access to musical instruments and more sophisticated sounds that are unavailable to them on the school music trolley. In this lesson, ICT encourages the quick development of large complex pieces. All children are able to build a sense of making real music which is contemporary and not just something you hear at school.