A live music project with the BBC Concert Orchestra
DeeP Music has been contracted by Norfolk Music Works to provide pre-concert support through teacher workshops in King's Lynn, Great Yarmouth and North Walsham in January/February 2008.
The concert
performances will take place during the week begining 10th March 2008
Activity
1 - The Symphony Orchestra
Activity 2 - Conducting
Activity 3 - Refuge by Howard Goodall
Activity 4 - Practical Activity - Trépak
Activity 5 - Other Themes in the Concert
Other BBC Music Web Links
Extract from notes on these concerts by Peter Hayward of the BBC Concert Orchestra
Making Tracks
with the BBC Concert Orchestra, presented by CBBC's Rani Price and conducted
by Robert Ziegler
Main Hall, Stevenage Arts and Leisure Centre Tuesday 11 March 2008 at
13.45
Meres Leisure Centre, Grantham Wednesday 12 March 2008, 10.45 and 13.30
County Showground, Norwich Thursday 13 March and Friday 14 March 2008
10.45 and 13.30
Preparation for the concert
These notes are for guidance only. Detailed preparatory work in school is not essential for the children to enjoy the concert, but clearly the more they are familiar with the learning objectives of the concert the more they will get from it. Please ensure, however, that at the very least children are prepared for the singing and conducting parts of the concert. If you do not have time to explore the ideas below before the concert, I recommend you use them for follow up material after the event. Indeed, any follow up work you can do will consolidate and enrich the learning experience for them.
The concert will be lively and entertaining, with audience participation, but please impress upon the children the importance of quiet, focused listening during the musical items. Teachers and school adult helpers are responsible for children's welfare and behaviour at all times during the performance.
It is not necessary for you to bring any instruments or song lyric sheets to the concert - the words of the song will be displayed on the big screen.
Learning Objectives and Outcomes
The learning
objectives for the concert are as follows:
· To introduce the Orchestra and its instruments
· To illustrate the range and excitement of live orchestral sound
and orchestral repertoire
· To develop children's awareness and understanding of orchestral
music
· To provide a memorable, high quality, interactive musical experience
The learning
outcomes for the concert are as follows:
Children should learn
- To identify the sections and instruments of the Orchestra
- To recognise the expressive potential of musical elements
- To recognise the ways in which musical elements are combined and controlled in orchestral music
- To enhance awareness of the influence of time and place on musical compositions
- To understand the importance of playing as an ensemble and the role of the conductor
- To listen with enjoyment, concentration and attention to detail.
(see Activity
1 )
(contrast, for example the exuberance of the movement in "Pedal
Power" with the serenity of movement in "The Swan")
(see Activity 4)
(compare, for example, the dance devices employed by Tchaikovsky in Trépak e.g. rhythm, importance of regular line length, easily definable, repeated sections - with those used by Rob Lea in Pedal Power - e.g. his mixing of a mechanical pulse with subdivided beats, syncopated Afro-Cuban rhythms and the off-beat techno-style cymbal in the "tunnel" section; you might also contrast, for example, the ways melodies are developed in each piece)
Preparation session for teachers
Activity 1 - The symphony orchestra
Set out chairs in orchestra formation.
Give pupils a card or label with the name of an instrument and see if they can work out where to sit. A list of instruments for printing on sticky labels can be downloaded from here.
Important
To the best of my knowledge all the following links are safe, However
you are responsible for ensuring you have adequate internet security
general information about the orchestra
see how the orchestra has developed over time
"Discover
the Instruments of the Orchestra" small format posters available
from this
supplier
While all conductors develop individual styles they all start out learning something similar to the patterns found in the link.
The orchestra will be looking for young conductors to conduct the theme music by Elmer Bernstein from John Sturges' film, "The Great Escape".
Hopefully one of these links should still be there if you want to use the film to practise your conducting. Unfortunately, you will have to look at this on your home computer since school computers do not seem to have access to You Tube.
As a last resort, here is someone's MIDI transcription of the theme. It may not sound like a real orchestra playing, but you can still practise your conducting to it (and there are far worse versions out there!).
Activity 3 - Refuge by Howard Goodall
Song recording, lyrics, related information and activities
Another source of information about the song
Practical work with instruments based on ideas taken from the concert programme
Activity 4 - Trépak from The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky
Preparation for the teacher:
- Listen to the music
- Practise your 2/4 conducting skills!
- Notice how the music falls mainly into eight-bar sections:
- Tune 'A' finishes either with the melody turning upwards at the end or settling downwards on to the "home" note. Some people refer to this effect (ie the unfinished/finished effect of making the tune sound sometimes like a yet to be answered musical question and sometimes like an answer to a question) simply as "question and answer phrases".
- After twice through tune 'A's question and answer sequence, a new melody (Tune 'B', also 8 bars long) is introduced. This is played twice and leads into another 8-bar section, a linking passage, which brings us back to tune 'A'
- Tune A played twice the second time leading into a repeating pattern that continues into a coda
- The last four bars of the coda get faster through to the end.
Working with your pupils (groups of three):
- Play a regular pulse on a single (low) note
- Compose a tune that fits within 16 pulse beats.
- Can you make your tune finish on your pulse (home) note?
- Practise
so that it sounds the same each time
- in your 3s, one person to play the drone pulse, one to play the melody and one to keep the count going (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | 2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8)
- Change the end of your tune, so that sometimes it sounds like a "question" by making the melody turn upwards
- Make an arrangement of your question and answer tunes.
Projected
learning outcomes:
Most pupils should be able to compose a tune that fits with the pulse
in both question and answer versions with some continuity of key.
Some pupils will not make so much progress and will compose a tune, more
or less matching the pulse.
Some pupils will be able to compose and perform their music to 16 pulse
beats in both question and answer forms.
A few pupils will be able to incorporate one or more of the ideas for
further development into their music.
Further
possible ideas for development:
Exercise for the whole class
To a regular pulse
- Clap on the beat
- Clap in the gaps
- Practise clapping eight times on the beat and eight times in the gap as a sequence
Return to the music created in groups:
- Let the "counter" add an eight-on-and-eight-off-beat part to the pulse and question/answer tunes.
- Add a contrasting section
- Make an arrangement or sequence of the original ideas and the new contrasting section
- Orchestrate the arrangement by sometimes changing instruments when a section is repeated (this may need two groups to work together).
- Compose a clear ending
- Does it maintain the same tempo or does it change?
- Do the sections need linking passages?
- Record the music
- Listen critically. Does it sound as lively as possible yet still under control?
And finally …
- Allow pupils to listen to Trépak.
- Can they hear similarities and differences with their own compositions?
This activity
fits in with the national curriculum when pupils are:
Controlling sounds through singing and playing performing skills
1b) play tuned and untuned instruments with control and rhythmic accuracy
1c) c) practise, rehearse and present performances with an awareness of
the audience.
Creating
and developing musical ideas composing skills
2 b) explore, choose, combine and organise musical ideas within musical
structures.
Responding
and reviewing appraising skills
3 a) analyse and compare sounds
3 c) improve their own and others' work in relation to its intended effect
Listening,
and applying knowledge and understanding
4 a) listen with attention to detail and to internalise and recall sounds
with increasing aural memory
4 b) how the combined musical elements of pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo,
timbre, texture and silence can be organised within musical structures
Projected learning outcomes:
- Most pupils should be able to compose a tune that fits with the pulse in both question and answer versions with some continuity of key.
- Some pupils will not make so much progress and will compose a tune, more or less matching the pulse.
- Some pupils will be able to compose and perform their music to 16 pulse beats in both question and answer forms.
- A few pupils will be able to incorporate one or more of the ideas for further development into their music.
Activity 5 - Other themes in the concert
Machines
Pedal Power by Rob Lea
Preparation for the teacher:
- Listen to the music
- Practise your 2/4 (or 4/4) conducting skills!
- Notice the
structure of the music in repeated and contrasting sections:
- Read the interview with Rob Lea as he discusses the piece.
Working with your pupils:
- Discuss machines - you could begin to classify them according to size and function, for example make a graph of heavy/light, stationary/moving machines
- What elements are common to machines and music (discuss, for example, pulse(s), rhythms, tempo, dynamics, repetition/contrast …)
- What is the difference between listening to a machine do its work and listening to music inspired by machines (is the machine "doomed" to its life of functional repetition while a composer can use, for example, additional elements of melody and texture creatively?)?
- Approach the idea of machines through movement (solo, partner and group work)
- Find the
pulse in the work of the machine
- are there faster and slower pulses (halving and doubling the pulse)?
- Add rhythms that lock with the pulse
- Double one or more rhythms on a melody instrument to create melodic ostinati.
Marvellous Machines
Use the Making Tracks link and click on the fourth box, "Machine" to explore the effect of building up a piece with ready made ostinati.
Music for Film and Television
"The BBC Concert Orchestra regularly records music for film and television
- for example, Blue Planet, Wild Down Under, Planet Earth. The concert
will include some well-known music from BBC Television. We will model
a piece of music for television and demonstrate how the musical ideas
reinforce and support the drama on screen." (PH - BBC Concert
Orchestra)
Suggested activity
Try watching short clips of film with the pupils. Listen with the picture turned off or watch with the sound turned down. Think about the effects of adding music to film. Often music enhances a mood or atmosphere intended by the director in the action and the script.
Try taking a "silent film" (or better still, making one) and creating your own soundtrack. Bear in mind the overall mood you wish to create. Look out for any obvious places in the film where the action might need special emphasis. Could you change the effect of the director's original intention by creating a different mood in the music?
- musical
games and challenges from the BBC orchestras' Play! page
- musical
games for younger children from CBBC
- short examples
of music to illustrate musical concepts, elements and contexts
- Genres,
historical overview and instruments in classical Music
- Music in the home and as a career
Making
Tracks
Musical
games
Music
extracts
Radio
3 Guide
Information
for parents
Project supported by Orchestras Live and by local Councils in King's Lynn & West Norfolk, North Norfolk, South Norfolk, Great Yarmouth, Norwich, Broadland, Breckland, Forest Heath, Mid-Suffolk, Norfolk County Council