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- Hi, everyone, my name is Mr. Palekar, and welcome to music.

Now, this unit is all about percussion.

Now, don't worry if you don't know what that is yet, we are going to explore it today.

Now, in this lesson, we are going to, of course, explore what percussion is, we are going to play some pitched percussion, we're going to explore pencil case percussion, and we are going to compose and form our very own percussion piece.

For the session, you'll need some headphones if you have some.

If you don't, don't worry, just make sure you are somewhere quiet where you won't be disturbed and where you can practise music.

You'll need a couple of bowls and some pencils.

So I've got two bowls of different sizes.

Make sure that you ask an adult, a parent, or a carer to help you find some which aren't going to break.

And you'll need a couple of pencils or if you're like me, I've got a couple of wooden chopsticks, which work just as well.

And you will need your pencil case with bits inside as well.

You'll find out a little bit later as to why.

What is percussion? Well, the short answer is percussion is any instrument that you can make a sound with when you hit it, when you shake it, when you scrape against it.

I'll say that again.

So percussion is any instrument that you can make a sound with when you hit, shake, or scrape.

Hit, shake, or scrape, that is percussion.

And percussion can often be divided into two types of percussion.

And for those, to understand those, we need to understand the second word called pitch.

Now, pitch is how high or how low a sound is.

So these are my high notes, these are my low notes, my low sounding, low pitch notes.

If I go higher, and higher, and higher, and high, and high, and high, and high, that is my pitch and I'm changing how high or how low the sound of my voice is.

So let's take a look at these two different kinds of percussion.

Pitch percussion.

Pitch percussion can make different pitches.

That means it can have different height sounds.

You can have high pitch sounds, you can have low pitch sounds.

A couple of the examples that you can see are our big timpani, our big drum on the left.

We've got our chimes, which each of the chime bars has a different sound.

We have our glockenspiel, and we have our steel pans where if you tap and hit different parts of the steel pan, it produces, it makes different pitches, different sounds.

The opposite to pitch percussion is non-pitched percussion.

A non-pitched percussion simply means not pitched.

Not pitched, it doesn't have a pitch.

And examples of that is like our big bass drum on our drum kit, for example, a tambourine, some maracas, they don't have a pitch, and some bongos, which tend not to have a pitch if it's a single bongo.

Bongos are a funny one and I wanted to throw that in there because, because you have two bongos, sometimes they can be pitched slightly differently.

So they can have a bit of a crossover between non-pitched and pitched.

Pitched percussion exercise.

Now, for this, you are going to need your two bowls.

Now, mine are of two different sizes and you'll find out why in just a moment.

Please make sure you ask an adult, a parent, or carer to help find some for you.

And also, you will need some sticks.

Now, I'm using chopsticks, but you can use pencils.

It's not a problem at all.

If you need to pause the video now so you can grab them, do that now.

Otherwise, let's get started.

So I have my two bowls and if I tap one, it has a certain pitch.

Let's see if I can tap my second bowl and see if it sounds the same.

Okay, so my little bowl has a higher pitch and my bigger bowl has a lower pitch.

Great, okay, so I've got my pitched percussion.

Brilliant.

We can make some music now.

If for whatever reason you have bowls which are of the same size, you can just fill one of the bowls with a bit of water, just about half way through with a little bit of water, and that should change the pitch.

Okay, let's see if we can use our grid method to learn some pieces of music using our pitched percussion.

So I've got my low sound, and I've got my high sound.

And because I've got two sticks, I'm gonna have my, one of my hands over my low sound and one of my hands over my high sound, my high pitch.

Okay, so if a circle is at the top of the box, it is our high pitch.

If it is at the bottom of the box, it's our low pitch.

Okay.

Let's see if we can count to eight, first of all.

I'm sure you can.

Let's try it.

Ready, steady, here we go.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Good, next time, we're gonna do it, but we're gonna give a louder one.

Ready, steady, here we go.

Now one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Great job.

As you can see, I've got on our screen, I've got my high notes to begin with and that goes on one, two, three, four, and then my low notes on five, six, seven, eight.

Shall we try it? We're gonna count to eight, and then we're gonna start.

Ready? Here we go.

Now, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, Very good, one more time, but we're gonna say our numbers in ahead.

Ready for the count of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and.

Great.

One more time, but we're gonna do it four times in a row.

Ready? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and.

And again.

Third time.

Fourth time.

Good job.

Okay, fine.

Too easy for you, no problem.

Superstars that you are, let's change it up.

Let's introduce a brand new rhythm, a brand new pattern of sounds.

Okay, so we've got our high, high, low, low, high, high, low low, okay? Let's try it.

Nice and slow after eight and only once.

One, two, three, here we go.

High, high, low, low, high, high, low, low.

I missed one, which means I need to concentrate harder on making sure my stick touches my bowl.

One more time.

One, two, three, here we go.

High, high, low, low, high, high, low, low, That's good.

Let's try all four times in a row.

Ready? One, two, three, here we go.

Second time.

Third time.

High, high.

Last time.

Great job.

Some of you are telling me, "Okay, that's way too easy." Fine, okay, let's do a new rhythm.

A new pattern of sounds.

Okay, are you ready? Ooh, okay.

Beat three looks a little bit different.

Okay, so it beats one, two, three and four, that's all on the high.

So one, two, what do you think happens on beat number three? Yeah, we've got two close together.

So one, two, three and four.

Okay, let's try that.

Let's just try beats one to four.

One, two, three, here we go.

One, two, three, and four.

And I'll say, in your head, ready? One more time.

Very good.

And let's see.

Beats five, six, seven, eight, we've got low, low, low, low, low.

So long, long, short, short, long.

Try it on your low bowl.

Ready? Here we go.

Okay, I think we can read it through.

Let's see if we can give it a go, ready? Starting with which pitch? The high pitch or the low pitch? Good, the high pitch.

One, two.

Ready, one, two, and off we go.

Once again, but we're gonna do it four times in a row.

One, two, three, here we go.

Second time.

Third time.

Last time.

Okay, some of you are still screaming at me.

You're saying, "Actually that's way too easy, Mr. Palekar." Not a problem because I have a challenge for you.

Ooh, okay.

So we've got, let's say it first.

We're gonna say high for the high pitched and low for the low pitched, ready? After four beats.

One, two, three, here we go.

High, high, high, low, low, high, high, high, low, low.

Good, let's try it one more time.

Ready, one, two, three, here we go.

High, high, high, low, low, high, high, high, low, low.

Let's try it with our bowls.

Ready? 1, 2, 3, here we go.

High, high, high, low, low, high, high, high, low, low.

Good.

Four times in a row, but say it in your head.

Ready? Off we go.

And again.

With third time.

Last time.

Stop.

Good job.

Okay, right.

I think we're ready for our next rhythm.

Interesting, this one.

Okay, so we've got, let's say up for one, two, three, four.

High, high low, low, high, high, low, low.

But have you noticed there's nothing, there's nothing written on beats five, six, even, eight? That means we don't play at all.

So we're gonna count the five, six, seven, eight in our heads.

Let's say it out loud to begin with, ready? One, two, three, here we go.

High, high, low, low, high, high, low, low.

Five, six, seven, eight, One more time, say it out loud.

High, high, low, low, high, high, low, low.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Good, let's put it on our bowls.

Ready? Start with high, and off we go.

Low, low, high, high, low, low.

Five, six, seven, eight.

We are gonna do it four times, but say it in your head.

Ready? Off we go.

Shh, two, three, four.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Great job.

Pause the video now so that you can practise with our pitched percussion one more time.

Rewind the video and practise playing each of the rhythms again.

If you would like to create some rhythms of your own, you can decide where you play the high-pitched bowl or the low-pitched bowl.

When you're ready to continue, click the play button.

Pencil case percussion.

Now, for this activity, you will, of course, need your pencil case, and a stationary that you might need.

I'm going to be using things that I have in my pencil case.

So I've got a little bottle of hand sanitizer there, I've got some pencils, I've got a pen, I've also got a ruler as well because we're gonna use that in a little while.

So if you need to pause the video now and go and get those things, do that now.

Otherwise, let's continue.

Okay, so I have my bottle just here and I need to figure out how I'm gonna make this into percussion.

Okay, let's do it together.

So I've got my bottle.

If you have got a bottle, great.

If you don't, don't worry, just use a different piece of percussion.

It's not a problem.

So the easy way of making this into percussion, do you remember our three words? You can hit it, you can shake it, or you can strike it, okay? So if I hit it, if I use one of my pencils or pens, that's a really easy way of making percussion.

What happens if I shake it? Can you hear that? It's got a gloppy sound to it.

Or I could scrape it.

Three different sounds Have an exploration, see if you can explore the different types of sounds that you can make with your bottle.

Now, I've decided that with my bottle, I'm gonna use the cap, the lid of it, and I'm gonna go open, open, close, open, close, open close.

It'll sound like this.

One, two, three, four.

Good, if you are using a bottle, see if you can do it with me.

If you're not, you can use your percussion once you're after four, ready? One, two, three, here we go.

One.

One, two, three, four.

Great, that's my bottle.

Tick, let's put my bottle of hand sanitizer just down here.

What other piece of percussion could I use? Okay, I wanna use my pen, definitely.

Okay, so I'm gonna get my pen out of my pencil case.

Great.

And I think I'm gonna want to use the lids.

Okay, let's start with the lids.

What could I do? Well, let's find out what we can do.

So I can hit it.

Yeah, that's the easy way of doing it.

Right, okay.

The lid I can maybe play with the little part that comes off it.

The plastic holder.

I could scrape it.

I could scrape the lid with, against the the body of the pen.

Okay, but actually, what I want to do, what I think I'm gonna do is I'm going to use the pen lid and make a sound like this.

So let me go on, which is gonna be my down arrow, and then I'll think I'm gonna give it a bit of a scrape against my table, and then I'm going to take it off.

So that means I'm gonna lift it up, okay? Now, let's turn it the other way around.

So I'm gonna go start with the open.

Close the pen, scrape it, and open.

So it'll go one, two, three, four.

Close.

Open, close, scrape.

Open, close.

That's what I'm gonna do with my pen.

So on my screen, I've written it down so I remember that I need to bring my pen down.

I've written a zigzag line so I know that I'm gonna scrape it, and I know that I'm going to open it, so I'll put an arrow up.

If you want to use your own symbols, that's absolutely fine.

So that's my pen.

So I've got one for my hand sanitizer bottle and one for my pen as well.

Okay, what else could I use? Okay, I think, ah, I'm gonna use the actual pencil case.

I'm gonna use the zip.

Can you hear that? Where do I want it in my music? Which beats? Okay, I'm just gonna have it on beats three and four.

So one, two.

One, two.

One, two, three, four.

One, two.

That's what I'd like to do with my pencil case, but you might think of something else.

You might think, actually, I wanna scrape against the side, like that.

Why I want to drop it and make a hitting sound.

I've decided I'm gonna scrape it.

What you gonna do with yours? Okay, interesting, interesting, interesting.

Let's have one more sound.

Okay, I am gonna use my ruler.

My ruler, great way of making a sound because you can change the pitch a little bit.

Okay, so what am I gonna do with my ruler? I'm gonna do it a bit of sound over three beats, which means I'm gonna need to use my table.

I'm going to swing it, and I'm gonna bring the ruler closer in to the table.

So I hold it down, I twang it, and bring the ruler in.

So it's gonna be one, two, three, four.

One, two, three.

And again, one, two, three.

And again.

Great, I've got my different parts of my piece.

So I've got my ruler, I've got my pencil case zip, I've got my hand sanitizer bottle, and I've got my pen lid, opening, close, and scraping as well.

So what would it sound like if we put it together? Okay, let's put it into our grid of four beats this time.

So we've got our numbers at the top one, two, three, four.

Okay, so for my bottle, I've got my bottle here.

Let's see what sound that's gonna make.

So we've got our one, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

And that's gonna carry on as an idea, as a musical idea.

So I've got my bottle here.

Right, my pen.

Okay, can you remember how we used our pen? Had the lids started, it's off.

The lid was off from the pen.

So we went down and closed the lid, scrape, and then lift up.

Let's put it on our screen.

So we've got one, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Great, so I've got my pen, we've got our zip.

So the zip on my pencil case I'm gonna use.

Okay, it's a bit flimsy sometimes, so I'm gonna see if I can just use, maybe just a little part of it, maybe the end of it.

Okay, so we've got, cool.

It's gonna go like this.

It can go shh, shh.

Shh, shh.

So one, two, three, four.

Shh, shh.

And so on.

I'm gonna repeat that idea over and over again.

And finally, I've got my ruler.

I'm going to twang it off the edge of our table, and bring it into the table so it changes pitch.

It goes from a low, low note to a high note.

And remember, we were doing on beats one, two, and three.

So it's one, two, three, four.

One, two, three.

And one, two, three.

One, two, three.

And again, one, two, three, Cool.

Now, you might be using different pencil case percussion.

You might be using a razor, you might be using some coloured pencils, you might be drawing it.

See if you can find out different ways of making sound using the different bits of pencil case percussion.

If we are using the same instruments as I'm using, so a ruler, a bottle, a pen, and a zip, it might sound like this when we start to layer them up.

Which means I'm gonna start with just my bottle, keep that idea going, and then I'm gonna have a friend or a partner come in with a second instrument to the pen, and then a third friend come in with a zip, and another friend come in with the ruler.

We're gonna layer it up just like a cake.

We'd start with our bottom layer, and then keep on bringing in new flavours, new ideas.

Let's see what that would look like.

Here we go.

One, two.

Ready, one, two, three, here we go.

One, two.

One, two, three, here we go.

One, two.

Ready? One, two, three, go.

One.

One, two.

One, two, three, here we go.

One, two.

One, two, three, here we go.

Ready, and stop.

Well done.

Pause the video now so that you can practise creating your own percussion piece using different types of percussion.

Try with a partner, some friends, awesome family members.

And if you would like to practise again together, rewind 20 seconds.

When you're ready to continue, click the play button A huge well done for all of your work today.

And from today's lesson, you can now understand different types of percussion and play both pitched and non-pitched percussion, and you have composed and performed your own pencil case percussion piece.

If you would like to share any of your work with Oak National, ask a parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and tag @oaknational and #LearnWithOak.

Again, a huge well done for all of your work, and I look forward to seeing you in our next lesson.

Goodbye.

I've finished the video