Lesson video

Hi everyone, I'm Ms. Boyd, and I'll be your music teacher today.

In this lesson, we are going to learn about polyphonic textures.

In today's lesson you will learn how to recognise polyphonic textures.

You'll have a chance to perform as part of a polyphonic texture and you'll be able to describe what the polyphonic texture is.

To prepare for this lesson, you will need an exercise book or a piece of paper and a pencil.

But before we get started, should we begin with a hello song? ♪ Off we go ♪ ♪ Hello, hello, it's good to see you ♪ ♪ Hello, hello, it's good to see you ♪ ♪ I must say, you've made my day ♪ ♪ Hello, hello, hello.

♪ So what is polyphonic texture? When you listen to a piece of music, there can often be many layers to it.

That's called texture.

All the different layers of music, all the different sounds, create a different type of texture to a piece of music making it sound interesting.

Now, today we are going to learn about polyphonic texture.

Now 'poly' means many and 'phonic' means sounds.

So polyphonic means 'many sounds'.

If you hear a piece of music and there are many musical patterns happening at the same time, it's called polyphonic texture.

Let's have a listen to some examples.

Just like the picture here on my screen, the pasta represents different lines in a piece of music that are all doing different things.

Have a listen to this piece of music.

Different instruments start at different times and they're all doing different things.

There were loads of sounds in there wasn't there? And they were all doing loads of different things.

That is polyphonic texture.

Could you hear loads of sounds in there? Me too.

And they were all doing loads of different patterns, loads of different musical patterns happening at the same time sounded really interesting and combining to make one big polyphonic texture.

Many sounds in the texture.

Let's listen to another example.

Now for that the example, we were listening to a choir, lots of voices.

But could you hear there were different groups of voices singing really different patterns, all at the same time.

Polyphonic texture.

For our performance activity today, we're going to sing a song that is great for polyphonic texture.

Have you heard of "London's burning"? It's a great song.

First of all, we'll sing it together.

If you've never heard this song before, have a listen.

If you know it sing along.

♪ Off I go ♪ ♪ London's burning, London's burning ♪ ♪ Fetch the engine, fetch the engine ♪ ♪ Fire, fire, fire, fire ♪ ♪ Pour the water, pour the water ♪ Should we sing that together again? ♪ Off we go ♪ ♪ London's burning, London's burning ♪ ♪ Fetch the engine, fetch the engine ♪ ♪ Fire, fire, fire, fire ♪ ♪ Pour the water, pour the water ♪ Okay, now, now that we know the tune, the main melody, the tune, I'd like us to have a go at singing this as a polyphonic texture.

The ways to do that is to sing around.

We heard of around before.

It's when one person starts and then another person sings the same thing but a little bit later and someone else sings the same thing a little bit later after that.

It creates one big combination of lots of different musical patterns happening at different times.

It creates one big pattern.

It creates one big combination of musical patterns happening at the same time, just like polyphonic texture.

We're going to sing along with some students who also know this song.

We will start first and then they will join in singing after us, making it polyphonic.

Making the texture polyphonic.

Let's have a go.

♪ London's burning, London's burning ♪ ♪ Fetch the engine, fetch the engine ♪ ♪ Fire, fire, fire, fire ♪ ♪ Pour the water, pour the water ♪ How was that? Pretty crazy, wasn't it? Lots of things happening at the same time.

What we're going to do now is try and sing this song three times all the way through.

So we'll sing it once and again, and then again.

Each time as you're singing the main tune, have a listen, if you can, to the other singers that are singing with us.

They're singing the same thing but a bit later which makes the whole song polyphonic.

Let's have a go.

♪ London's burning, London's burning ♪ ♪ Fetch the engine, fetch the engine ♪ ♪ Fire, fire, fire, fire ♪ ♪ Pour the water, pour the water ♪ ♪ London's burning, London's burning ♪ ♪ Fetch the engine, fetch the engine ♪ ♪ Fire, fire, fire, fire ♪ ♪ Pour the water, pour the water ♪ ♪ London's burning, London's burning ♪ ♪ Fetch the engine, fetch the engine ♪ ♪ Fire, fire, fire, fire ♪ ♪ Pour the water, pour the water ♪ For this last activity, I would like you to pause the video.

Have a go at drawing, painting or making something to represent a polyphonic texture.

Remember to ask an adult if you need help.

We're at the end of our lesson now, but well done.

You've been able to recognise what polyphonic textures are.

You had the opportunity to perform as part of a polyphonic texture.

And I think you can describe what polyphonic texture is.

But before we go we have to say goodbye properly with our goodbye song.

♪ Off we go, goodbye, goodbye ♪ ♪ It's time to go now ♪ ♪ Goodbye, goodbye ♪ ♪ It's time to go now ♪ ♪ I must say, you've made my day ♪ ♪ Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye ♪ If you'd like to share some of the music we've made together today, feel free to ask your parent or carer to share your work on social media.