Lesson video

Hi there everybody, and welcome back to our Compose and Create unit, Recording our Musical Ideas using a Graphic Score.

Now today's lesson is called, Reading Graphic Scores, so we're going to be exploring different symbols and shapes we can use to describe how music sounds.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to say, "I can read and play from a simple graphic score." Let's begin by looking at today's keywords.

The first two are quite similar, so we have notate.

To notate is to write music down.

And notation, that's one way of writing music down.

We also have graphic score.

This is another way of writing music down, a way of notating music using symbols, shapes or images.

And symbol, like a mark or a drawing that represents something.

I'm sure you all know how important it is to warm up so that we can all play our music together.

In fact, Sam says, "when we warm up, it helps us focus, helps us focus on each other, and about the pulse and about moving in time to the music." And all of these things combined help us to make good music together.

So, I'd like you to begin by joining in with these warmups.

Here they come.

(upbeat piano music) (upbeat piano music) (upbeat piano music) On your screen are three more warm-up games.

We have, Do as I'm Doing, Echo Body Percussion, and Timbre in a Box.

Do those where you are and I'll see you in a moment.

Off you go.

<v ->Ready, steady, off we go.

</v> ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ If I do it high or low ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Ready, steady, off we go ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ If I do it high or low ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing and follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Ready, steady, off we go ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ If I do it high or low ♪ ♪ If if do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Ready, steady, off we go ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ If I do it high or low ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ <v ->Let's do some body percussion.

</v> We're going to clap for ta.

We're going to stomp our feet for ta di.

And we're going to pat our knees for ta ta di mi.

Okay, so, I'll start and then you join in with the echo.

♪ Ready, steady, off we go ♪ ♪ Ta ♪ ♪ Ta di ♪ ♪ Ta ta di mi ta ♪ ♪ Ta ♪ ♪ Ta di ♪ ♪ Ta ta di mi ta ♪ ♪ Ta di ta ta di mi ta ta ♪ ♪ Ta di ta ta di mi ta ta ♪ ♪ Ta di ta di ta ♪ ♪ Ta ta di mi ♪ ♪ Ta di ta di ta ♪ ♪ Ta ta di mi ♪ ♪ Ta di ta ta ta di mi ta ♪ ♪ Ta di ta ta ta di mi ta ♪ (mellow) ♪ Here is a box ♪ ♪ Lift the lid ♪ ♪ I wonder what inside it is hid ♪ <v ->Are you ready for music?</v> If you are, you might feel a bit like Jacob does.

His body's feeling warm and relaxed and ready.

Laura is listening and Andeep is feeling more focused now.

So let's press on and look at today's learning cycles.

The first one is introducing graphic scores.

So we're going to find out what they are.

And in the second part we're going to read and play from some graphic scores.

First one though, introducing our graphic scores.

Let's be reminded of the music we've been listening to.

This is "Carnival of the Endangered Animals" composed by Debbie Wiseman and in this music she describes animals and the environments they live in.

She notates her compositions like this.

You can see there, there's a picture.

It says blue whale at the top from the "Carnival of Endangered Animals," and it is written for all of the instruments down the side.

There are a lot of them.

If we zoom in a bit here, I can see there's two lines which says horns in F and someone's written in horns beginning.

And we can see that the conductor has to follow all of that to know when each instrument is about to start or stop.

The score helps that conductor direct the whole orchestra.

When we write music down, we call it notation.

Ah, Lucas reminds us we write music down so that we can remember it for another day.

It can be played again.

And Jun also says, "music can be written down to share.

We like to share our music with other people." Now, there's many ways that we can write music down.

We can notate in different ways.

Sofia is introducing us to something called a graphic score.

Now this is a way that we can write music down and to do it, we use symbols and shapes or images, and there's an idea of one in the box there with some small dots getting bigger and a wiggly line.

The glockenspiel in polar bear creates an icy sound with low and high notes.

Let's just watch the clip of that (musician playing the glockenspiel) On the screen now you can see that sound captured as a graphic score.

There are symbols representing something.

Let's zoom in.

We can see if we trace the direction of that pitch that it gets higher and lower.

Some symbols are written higher up and some are written lower down.

If you read the symbols left to right, just like reading a book, it says low, high, low, across low, high, low.

And that keeps repeating with the lower and higher pitches.

It also has little lines coming outta the dot, which sort of says, let that note ring out when you play it.

So if we are playing it on a glockenspiel, we'd let that sound ring out.

Right, quick check.

When music is notated using symbols or shapes or images, what do we call it? Do we call it stave notation? Do we call it a graphic score? Or do we call it rhythm grids? When we're using symbols, shapes, or images? Is that A, B or C? I'll give you a moment.

Very well done.

It is B, using a graphic score, and that's what we're using today.

A graphic score creates a written picture of the sound a composer wants.

Have a watch of this clip playing the claves, and then you can see there is a picture of it captured as a graphic score.

Here comes the clip.

(musician playing claves) So if we look at the graphic score showing that sound that we heard, there are five taps that are close together and some of those taps are a bit further spread out.

And so it seems that the ones not right next to each other, there's a gap or a slower tap.

This next piece shows a drum being scraped and that's captured on a graphic score too.

See that graphic score there? I wonder if when you watch the clip now, this is how you imagine that drum to be played.

Here it comes.

(musician scraping drum) So looking at the graphic score symbol, the sound is made by the fingers on that drum moving outwards in a spiral pattern.

And we're sort of shown that by it's a spiral and we can see the arrow showing the direction.

I wonder if that matched what you thought was going to happen in the video.

Now as a quick check, I'm going to play three different sounds and you are going to match them to the graphic score symbols.

So we've got the first one, the swirl, the second one, those crosses, some together, some with a gap, and then those dots with the lines coming out lower and higher.

Okay, here comes A.

(claves tapping) Okay, hold that one in your mind.

Here comes B.

(mellow glockenspiel music) And here is C.

(drum scraping) So hopefully you've been able to work out which one goes with which symbol.

Let's have a check to see if you were right.

A was the claves being played.

B was the glockenspiel.

And C, our drum.

If you've got all those right, very well done.

You are already reading graphic score symbols.

Here is your task.

There are four graphic score symbols coming up.

There's two on this page and two on the next.

Against each of them there are a choice of three sounds it could be representing, okay? So if we take number one, there's a dot and then an arrow from it going down, three more dots, then an arrow going up.

And you'd listen to A, B and C and think, "ah, that graphic score symbol matches that sound." Okay? And you do the same for number two.

And then there's three and four, okay? So allow yourself enough time to listen to each one and decide which one is matching the graphic score symbol.

And we'll come back in a moment to see how you did.

Okay, off you go.

Fantastic.

Let's look at each one of these in turn to see how you did.

Here is the sound for number one.

(upbeat music) That was B.

And as Alex says, "you can hear the pitch getting lower, then the three single notes.

And then the pitch getting higher again." Let's look at number two.

Izzy tells us, "you can hear these three swirling sounds and then there are two short sounds and then there's a swirling sound again." And that was A.

Let's have a listen.

(maracas rattling) Now number three.

If we have a look at number three, I'm going to put the clip on and follow it and see if it makes sense to you.

Now here it comes.

(claves tapping) And as Andeep says, "you can clearly hear five fast taps, followed by two slow taps, then five fast taps, and another one, slow tap." Let's have a listen to the last one.

(tambourine shaking) And as Laura points out, "you have four taps getting louder," where we can see those dots getting bigger and then a long shake of a tambourine.

And that's that wiggly line along there.

If you've got all those correct, really well done.

It's time to move on to the second half of our lesson where we're going to be reading and playing from graphic scores.

Which animal do you think this music is describing? Here it comes.

(orchestra music) That piece of music from Debbie Wiseman's "Carnival of the Endangered Animals" was describing the red panda.

Let's have a closer look.

<v ->Red panda.

</v> Look at the flutes and the clarinets.

That lovely scurry movement, I was trying to imagine the red panda scurrying up and down the trees and musically depicting that energetic, acrobatic bouncy animal.

<v ->Now much like the red panda, the music is quick moving.

</v> It's playful, it's cheerful, it's quite bouncy, it's acrobatic, that's a good word.

It's active and it's jumpy.

So these words are describing the music as well as the animal.

Now we're going to respond to that music again by moving.

So before you pause the video, I'd like you to think, how does a red panda move? And then imagine it running across tree branches, jumping from one tree to the other, running up and down.

And then when you are listening to the music, respond to how fast and slow the music's moving, what does it feel like, and that'll help you to move like a red panda.

Pause the video, off you go.

So how did we do? How did you choose to move and why was that? Jacob says, "I made sudden movements, like I decided I was gonna run up that branch and then I jumped and ran up a different branch instead." And Aisha said, "I changed between high and low movements." So I can tell they were listening and responding to the music.

This graphic score here has been created to describe the red panda, okay? Have a look at the first box, two dots, arrow going up, two dots, arrow going down, two dots.

Second one, a cross, a gap, two together, a gap and one by itself.

And then that one that we remember from the tambourine, the small dots getting bigger and the wiggly line.

Here is one way that this could be played.

Have a watch of the clip.

(musician playing glockenspiel) (musician playing claves) (musician playing tambourine) So we heard that being played by a glockenspiel, claves, and tambourine.

We are going to explore this graphic score symbol using our body percussion.

So our claps, our stomps, and our taps will help us.

So have a careful look at that graphic score and work out how you would play it on body percussion.

Pause here.

So how did you do? How did you show the different fast and slow sounds with your body percussion? I wonder if it was a bit like Laura who said, "I stamped for the slow sounds." Aisha says, "well, I tapped my thighs quickly for the quick sounds." Lucas said, "I kept to one sound," but he changed how fast and how slow he made that sound.

And Andeep clapped his hands at different speeds.

So when those crosses were closer together, he was clapping quicker and when there was a gap, he would clap slower.

It's now time for our last task of this lesson.

You're going to work in small groups.

Three is a good number because you're going to choose three graphic score symbols and you can recreate these symbols on an instrument of your choice.

For this task, we're going to be inspired by the red panda.

So here's what you do.

Number one, choose three graphic score symbols that you like in your group.

Then you choose three instruments to use and make sure you know who's going to play which one.

Then put those symbols in an order that you are all happy with.

Then you try to create the sounds like the movement of the red panda.

So we're thinking about our symbols.

How does that describe how a red panda moves? Here's some ideas.

These are the various symbols that we can choose.

And there's a cute little red panda in the middle and you're going to put three of them in the order that works for you to tell your story of how that red panda moves in his environment.

Off you go and I'll see you in a moment.

Welcome back.

I hope you've had a chance to create your red panda compositions.

Now you chose three graphic score symbols and you recreated them on an instrument of your choice.

Let's listen to what people did here and let's see if it's similar for you.

Lucas said they picked three wooden instruments that made us think of the red panda in the trees.

So they were thinking about the timbre of those instruments and how they could bring those score symbols to life.

Aisha said she wanted to create high and low sounds, so they needed an instrument that could do that.

And Laura said we decided to play lots of quick sounds 'cause that was showing the scurrying of the animal.

I hope you've all had chance to play your pieces and that you were all happy with the order that you put your symbols in and how you brought those symbols to life on the instruments you chose.

Really well done.

If you need to play again or play to each other, you can always pause the video here.

And that's all we have time for for today on reading graphic scores.

Let's have a recap on our learning.

We know that composers can create music that help us imagine.

Imagine animals, characters and stories.

Moving to music can help us to imagine those stories that the composer is trying to tell us and share with us.

Music can be notated, that means written down and remembered for another day.

A graphic score is just one way that we can read and write notation.

Percussion instruments, they can be played in many different ways and we can use them to create the imagery of an animal or of an environment.

You've done lots of exploring today.

Really well done and I'll see you next time.

Bye-bye.