Lesson video

Hi there everybody.

My name is Mr. Croughan and I'm delighted to welcome you to this new compose and create unit, recording our musical ideas using a graphic score.

Today's lesson is about describing the timbre of instruments and we're going to explore timbre and what it means together.

Here we go.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be describing the timbre of musical instruments and you'll understand that an instrument's material, what it's made of, will affect its timbre.

Let's begin by looking at today's keywords.

We start with warm up.

A warm up is a sequence of exercises used to prepare our mind and our body for playing, for playing music and musical instruments.

A composer, a composer is a person who creates music.

Timbre, timbre is a description of the sound or the tone of a musical instrument.

Material is what an object is made from.

And percussion, an instrument played by striking, scraping, or shaking.

In today's lesson, we have three learning cycles.

The first one is warming up, so we're ready for music.

Then we'll move on to exploring how composers choose instruments, and then we'll look at the material and timbre of a range of musical instruments together.

Let's begin with our warm up.

We know how important it is to warm up our voices and our listening ears, and also our playing hands.

We need to make sure that we're watching and concentrating so that we can be focused and ready to play music together.

It's gonna help keep us in time to feel the beat and to listen out for different musical instruments.

We're gonna start by warming up our bodies, following the actions to the pulse of the music.

As Sam says, "When we warm up, it actually helps us to connect together with each other as a class and make sure that we're playing in time together." I'd like you to now join in these body warm ups.

Here they come.

(upbeat music) (feet stomping) (upbeat music continues) (hands tapping) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (hands thudding) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) Very well done.

Now we're going to join in a warm up chant called "Do As I'm Doing." <v ->Ready, steady, off we go.

</v> (hands clapping) ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ 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 high or low ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ 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 ♪ ♪ 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 high or low ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ 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 ♪ ♪ 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 high or low ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Ready, steady, off we go ♪ ♪ Ready, steady, off we go ♪ (hands clapping) ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ 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 high or low ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ If I do it fast or slow ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ ♪ Do as I'm doing, follow me ♪ <v ->And now in your classroom,</v> you can choose an action leader and they can choose the actions for everyone to copy to a steady pulse.

So pause the video and be ready to play, "Do As I'm Doing" where you are.

Off you go.

Nicely done, everyone.

Good stuff.

Okay.

Two people have got two different opinions here, Aisha and Sofia.

I'd like you to see who you agree with.

Aisha says, "We can warm up for playing and singing together by doing warm up exercises that can develop our sense of pulse and rhythm." Sofia says, "Well, we only warm up our voices in music 'cause these are the muscles we need to protect.

We don't need to do other musical warm up exercises." Just wonder what you found so far and who you agree with.

So you can point to either Aisha or Sofia.

Point now.

Yeah, I agree with you.

Yeah, Aisha I think is right because we are doing warm up exercises that are helping us play music together.

We're developing our sense of pulse and rhythm, so we stay in time and we sound good when we play together.

The next few slides have a series of four beat rhythms on them.

These rhythms are made up of Ta, Tadi, and Takadimi.

We are going to represent those rhythms with some body percussion.

Ta is represented with a clap.

Ta.

(hands clap) Tadi is represented with two stomps using our feet.

Tadi.

(feet stomp) And with our hands on our thighs, Takadimi is represented by four thigh slaps.

Takadimi.

(hands slapping) So that first one there says Ta Ta Takadimi Ta.

And we'll represent that as, Ta Ta Takadimi Ta.

(hands slapping) Then the next one.

Again, uses Ta and Tadi.

Remember that Tadi is with our feet.

Tadi.

(feet stomp) So this one would go, Ta, Tadi, Tadi, Ta.

(feet stomping) Then you move on.

We have Takadimi Ta, Takadimi Ta.

Takadimi Tadi, Tadi, Ta.

Tadi Ta, Ta, Ta.

And then, Tadi Takadimi Tadi Ta.

So I would like you to run through these slides.

You're going to pause the video and master each one of them using your body percussion for each one.

Very well done with your claps, your stomps, and your taps.

Let's see how well we did with those body percussion rhythms. Lucas is asking, "Did you keep to a steady pulse?" And you can tell that if everyone in your class was doing the same actions at the same time without getting quicker.

Aisha asks, "Did you chant the rhythms correctly?" So were you saying Ta, Tadi and Takadimi whilst you were doing the actions? And lastly, Laura asks, "Did you remember which body percussion action to do with which rhythm?" So claps for Ta, stomps for Tadi and thigh slaps for Takadimi.

If you did, fantastic, you can pause the video here to check in with yourself and maybe if you can improve on what you did, have another go.

Okay, pause the video if you need to.

We're now moving on to our second learning cycle.

It's a really exciting one because we're going to find out how composers choose instruments.

Now we know that a composer is someone who makes new music, they're creating it from their own brain and they're making lots of exciting choices as they go along.

A composer gets to think, well, what instruments would I like to use? What would I like my audience or listener to hear? And they can also choose whether those instruments should play just one at a time or many instruments together.

Debbie Wiseman is a composer who believes that she has the best job in the world because she gets to create and tell stories using music.

In 2020, Debbie composed a piece of music called the Carnival of the Endangered Animals, and it tells stories through music of animals and the environments where they live.

Here is a clip with Debbie.

<v ->People often say to me,</v> "What is it like to be a composer?" Well, I think it's the best job in the world.

You create musical stories, people tell you stories, but then your job as a composer is to create that story in music, bring it to life, use the instruments of the orchestra, maybe guitars, pianos, strings, percussion.

It's a huge world of music out there.

Just enjoy it and love every moment of making music.

<v ->Debbie Wiseman uses music to create the imagery</v> of animals and their environments.

And the four that she's looked at are blue whale, orangutan, polar bear, and red panda.

And today, we are going to be listening to polar bear.

The track will come on in a moment, and I want you to listen to this piece.

It's called "Polar Bear." It's by Debbie Wiseman.

And I'd like you to ask yourself, can you sort of hear a cold frozen landscape as you are listening? Here comes the track.

(air whooshing) (suspenseful dramatic music) (suspenseful dramatic music continues) Beautiful.

Jun says, "I can hear shimmering sounds and the sun sparkling on the ice." And Sofia says, "I can hear bell-like sounds that remind me of icicles." Every instrument has its own special sound and tone, and that's what we call timbre.

An instrument's timbre is the way it sounds and it helps us identify that instrument and it also gives that sound a special colour.

Debbie chose to use the harp as one of the instruments for "Polar Bear." Have a watch of this clip.

(air whooshing) (suspenseful dramatic music) (suspenseful dramatic music continues) I think its timbre helps us to imagine a frozen landscape.

How can we describe the timbre of the harp in this clip? If you need to, pause the video, watch the clip again and come up with a range of words in your class that describe the timbre, the sound of the harp in the clip.

Off you go.

Fantastic, I wonder if you got some of the same words that we discovered.

So we found mysterious, cold, beautiful, crisp, shimmering, golden, bright, clear, and glassy.

If you've got any of those same words or whichever words that you got, I'm hoping you're starting to think I can describe quite creatively what that instrument makes me feel.

What colours do I see? What sounds and images come to my mind? Can you think of any more? Maybe pause the video and see if you can now add to your list, off you go.

And a few more from the Oak class, Andeep says, "Chilly." Sofia says, "Frosty." Izzy says, "Glittering." And Jacob says, "Magical." I hope Now you've got plenty of words in your word bank.

And it's not just timbre that helps create a musical story or feeling.

All of those musical elements come together to help create this.

So as Aisha reminds us, high and low sounds can create very different feelings too.

And when we're talking about high and low, we're talking about pitch.

Laura says that music can be loud or quiet, and that's called dynamics.

And changing from quiet to loud or having a big burst of loud sound or lots of quiet sounds, that can really help create a mood.

Sofia reminds us, music can be fast and music can be slow and it can change.

She says that that could help create an image of an animal, thinking about maybe how that animal moves.

And Jacob says, music with many layers feels very different to music with just one layer of sound.

Okay, quick check-in.

True or false, all the musical elements work together to create a musical story.

Is that true or is that false? You can point to the one on your screen that you think is right.

And yes, it is true.

How high or low, loud or quiet, fast or slow, thick or thin the sounds are will help to create a musical story.

It's not just timbre by itself.

Debbie Wiseman also chose the glockenspiel as another one of the instruments in "Polar Bear." Its timbre can also help us imagine a frozen landscape.

I wonder what words you could use to describe the timbre of the glockenspiel in this clip.

Here it comes.

(suspenseful dramatic music) (suspenseful dramatic music continues) Now I'd like you to pause the video.

You can play that clip again where you are, and we're going to start to write down as many words that come to mind to describe that timbre.

Remember, there's no wrong answer.

It's what is imagined in your head, what that music makes you feel, what it helps you to see, what it reminds you of, okay? So pause the video, listen again, and jot some words down to describe the timbre of the glockenspiel.

Off you go.

Brilliant, how did we do? How did you describe the timbre of the glockenspiel? I wonder if you used any of these? We had sparkly, jagged, shimmering, shiny, bright, ringing, tinkly, glistening, and magical, metallic, silvery and cold.

Were there any matches there between our words and yours? Hopefully you're developing a great word bank to describe the timbre of a glockenspiel.

Very well done, we're already at the last learning cycle of today's lesson, and this is about material that an instrument is made of and timbre.

So all instruments are made of different materials and Sam says, well, the material of an instrument that it's made from, that's going to affect how it sounds, the sound that that instrument produces.

So we're gonna play a sorting game.

I'd like you to find, play and recognise some metal percussion instruments, some wooden percussion instruments and some percussion instruments that have a skin.

Okay, if you'd like to, we're gonna pause the video now, there is a clip there if you'd like to watch some other children doing this.

And I'd like you to have a go at sorting.

So pause here and have a sort of the instruments that you have.

Great stuff.

Hopefully some neat piles of instruments.

Good sorting.

We're gonna listen to the sounds that these instruments make now.

We're going to listen to some wooden sound of the claves.

We're going to listen to the metal sound of a glockenspiel and the skinned instrument of a drum.

If you don't have these instruments where you are, there are audio clips for you to listen to.

So first we will listen to the wooden instrument, the claves, sometimes called clave or claves.

(claves tapping) And now the metal instrument, which is the glockenspiel.

(glockenspiel tinkling) And finally, the skin instrument, the drum.

(drum thudding) And if you have these in your classroom, you can explore them where you are.

Now we've had an explore of those instruments made of different materials and we've had a listen to the timbre they make.

We're going to have a little check.

There are three sound buttons, A, B, and C.

One of them is an instrument made of wood.

One of them we can hear an instrument made of metal and one has a skin like a drum.

So I'm going to play each of them in turn.

And you are going to decide if it's made of wood, of metal or of skin.

Here comes A.

(upbeat percussive music) And here comes B.

(energetic percussive music) And here comes C.

(lively percussive music) Okay, hopefully you've been able to decide which materials those instruments are made of.

Let's see if you were right.

A had a skin.

If you got that right, very well done.

B was a wooden instrument that you heard.

And C was our instrument made of metal.

Well done.

Now the material that an instrument uses affects the quality of its sound, the sound that it produces.

We know it's gonna sound different.

That helps us go, ah, ah, I know what that instrument is.

I think that instrument is a woodblock or a tambourine or a triangle.

The material affects the instrument's timbre, that's what gives it its unique sound and that's why a composer might choose it.

How would you describe the timbre of these instruments? We have the woodblock and the wooden agogo.

Have a listen to the woodblock first.

Here it comes.

(woodblock tapping) And now here is the wooden agogo.

(lively agogo music) I wonder what words you came up with to describe their timbre.

What I'd like you to do is pause the video here.

You can listen again or you can play those instruments in your classroom and create a word bank and see what different ideas people have to describe the timbre of those instruments.

Off you go.

I wonder if you had any of the same words that we did.

We came up with dry, hard, rough, knocking, hollow, popping, and grinding.

I wonder if any of those were the same words that you came up with.

We're now going to move on to some metal instruments.

I'm going to play you a triangle followed by some jingle bells.

Again, we're going to think about how to describe their timbre, here they come.

(triangle rings) That was the triangle.

And now the jingle bells.

(bells ringing) And again, you might want to pause the video here.

You could play those again.

You could play those instruments where you are and explore their sound and jot down some words to describe their timbre.

Maybe you found some of the words that we did.

We had ringing, jingling, sharp, tinkly, piercing, bright, sparkling and twinkling.

Maybe there was some words that you had there too.

We're now going to look at skin instruments.

These are the hand drum and the djembe drum.

Again, think how you would describe their timbre.

Here comes the hand drum.

(hand drum tapping) (hand drum tapping continues) And here is the djembe.

(lively djembe music) (lively djembe music continues) Pause the video here and jot down some of those words that in your class you are using to describe the timbre of the skin instruments, the hand drum and the djembe.

Off you go.

And I wonder if this time there was any crossover with the words that we came up with and you.

We found strong, round, deep, full, hard, dry, booming and heavy.

There are so many words that we could use to describe timbre.

And I hope you've got a good selection where you are.

Quick check in then, I've got three questions for you.

The first one is, how can we sort instruments, maybe choose a way that we could sort instruments into categories, into separate piles? Then how can we identify instruments? What ways could we identify an instrument? And then thirdly, how does an instrument's material, what it's made of, affect its timbre? So three questions.

Pause the video, have a quick discussion in your class, there may well be more than one answer to these questions and that's fine.

Pause now and I'll see you in a moment.

Great stuff.

So looking at that first question, how can we sort instruments, there's loads of ways we can sort instruments.

One way is by sourcing them by the material that they're made of.

And we've explored a bit of that today.

The second question is how can we identify instruments.

Again, many ways to identify them.

We could feel them, we can listen to them.

And one of the ways is listening to the unique timbre, that sound that that particular instrument makes.

And lastly, how does an instrument's material affect its timbre? There's lots of different ways that you may have come up with to describe this.

We thought that different materials help make different sounds.

We know that to be true.

So a wooden instrument would sound very different from a metal instrument, for example.

And I imagine you've got lots of creative answers for that where you are.

Really well done.

We're now going to learn a game called Timbre in a Box.

There is a song of three lines.

Sofia's already singing it.

Here is a box.

Lift the lid.

I wonder what inside it is hid? Here comes a clip of children playing the Timbre in a Box game.

(mellow music) ♪ Here is a box ♪ ♪ Here is a box ♪ ♪ Lift the lid ♪ ♪ Lift the lid ♪ ♪ I wonder what ♪ ♪ I wonder what ♪ ♪ Inside it is hid ♪ ♪ Inside it is hid ♪ (instrument rattling) <v ->What could it be?</v> Yeah, come on up.

<v ->I think it's a tambourine.

</v> <v ->Let's see.

</v> (tambourine shaking) <v ->Let's have a look and see what's next.

Are you ready?</v> (mellow music) ♪ Here is a box ♪ ♪ Here is a box ♪ ♪ Lift the lid ♪ ♪ Lift the lid ♪ ♪ I wonder what ♪ ♪ I wonder what ♪ ♪ Inside it is hid ♪ ♪ Inside it is hid ♪ (instrument tapping) <v ->Yes.

Come have a look.

</v> <v ->I think it's an agogo.

</v> <v ->Let's lift the lid and see.

</v> You're right.

It was a wooden sound.

Can you see what it is? <v ->A wooden block.

</v> <v ->It's a wood block.

Amazing.

</v> What does it sound like? (wood block tapping) Brilliant.

(footsteps thudding) Let's see what's next.

(mellow music) ♪ Here is a box ♪ ♪ Here is a box ♪ ♪ Lift the lid ♪ ♪ Lift the lid ♪ ♪ I wonder what ♪ ♪ I wonder what ♪ ♪ Inside it is hid ♪ ♪ Inside it is hid ♪ (instrument rattling) <v ->Come and see what you think it could be.

</v> What do you think? <v ->I think it's a shaker.

</v> <v ->Let's lift the lid.

</v> (shaker rattling) <v ->So now you understand the concept and how we play it,</v> play this game in your classroom where you are.

Off you go.

So how did we recognise the sound of the instruments? Laura said, "I tried to remember different sounds of musical instruments that I'd heard before." And Aisha said, "Well, I thought about the materials that I could hear." Did it sound wooden? Did it sound metallic? Did it sound like it had a skin? And Lucas said, "I thought of the timbre of the instrument." What is that unique sound? Hopefully you are able to identify those instruments in the box too.

Really well done.

And that is all we have time for for today.

We have been describing the timbre of instruments.

Here's a recap on our learning.

We know that we warm up before playing and that helps us focus our mind and our bodies and be ready to play well.

Composers can choose instruments because of their timbre.

That timbre might help tell a story or represent something like an animal.

And an instrument's material affects the quality of its sound.

The unique sound it makes is going to change if it's made of wood, of metal, with a skin, or something else.

And we can listen to instruments, and by listening, we can identify its timbre.

And lastly, that word timbre is the unique tone or sound and instrument can make.

Fantastic work today.

Great exploring, great playing, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye-bye.