Lesson video

Hello and welcome to your music lesson with me, Miss Miner.

I'm really, really excited to be teaching you this unit all about timbre.

Now you may not know what timbre is just yet, but by the end of the six lessons in this unit, I'm sure you will be an expert.

So without further ado, let's begin.

What will we cover in this lesson? We will start off with a warm up song called Captain go Sidetrack your train.

Then, we will learn about the families of an orchestra.

Following that, we'll understand how instruments can be sorted.

And finally, we'll find sources of sound at home.

A challenge will be for you to classify instruments based on timbre.

In this lesson, you will need some paper, or the worksheet provided, a pencil and your body.

If you haven't got a pencil and the worksheet or some paper, pause the video and go and get it now.

If you're already ready, please take a moment now to clear away and distractions including turning off the notifications on any apps or conversations you have running if you know how to.

Finally, if you can, try to find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed during the lesson.

When you're ready, let's begin.

The warm up we're going to do today is called Captain go Sidetrack your train.

I'll sign it for you first so you know what it sounds like.

Listen out for the train.

♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ Let's learn it, my turn, then yours.

♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ Super, let's try it together.

My turn first and then the second time round, I'd like you to join me.

♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ How did you get on? This time as we sing, I'm going to be doing various body percussion patterns to the pulse.

I'd like you to try and copy me and pick it up as quickly as you can.

You're going to sign with me.

Off we go.

♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in one time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ Try this pattern.

♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ Try this one.

♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ Did you pick it up? Let's do it a little more slowly.

It goes boom, click, clap, click, boom, click, clap, click, boom, click, clap, click, boom, click, clap, click.

Let's try it.

♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ ♪ Number one in line ♪ ♪ Coming in on time ♪ ♪ Captain, go sidetrack your train ♪ Well done.

Pause the video to practise the song.

If you feel really confident, you could improvise your own body percussion pattern underneath, or choose one of the ones we did in the warm up.

When you're ready, press play and we'll continue.

So where could you find all of these instruments? I would like you to pause the video now, get your paper and pencil ready and think about the following questions.

What family do they belong to? Are they all played in the same way? What similarities and differences do they have? Make some notes now.

When you're ready, press play.

Now we're moving on to think about classifying instruments such as the orchestral families.

Now you may have come across classifying or sorting before in subjects such as science where you might have had to classify plants or animals.

The same thing happens in music, especially when we're thinking about the orchestral families.

The first family we're going to look at is the woodwind family.

We can split this word up into wood and wind.

You may be thinking, why is it called the woodwind family when I can see clearly that the flute's made out of metal? Well, it's called the woodwind family because originally, all of these instruments were made out of wood.

The wind part of woodwind tells us that to create a sound, we need to blow through the mouthpiece.

The woodwind family of instruments includes, from the highest sounding to the lowest, the piccolo, flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon and contrabassoon.

Another family of instruments in the orchestra are the string family.

Now although you might be thinking, well these all look like they're made of wood too, another thing they have in common is their strings and it's the strings vibrations that create the sound.

The strings can be played in lots of different ways, for example by bowing, or by plucking.

Instruments you're likely to see in the string family are instruments such as the violin, the voila, the cello, the double bass or perhaps the harp.

Yep, you've guessed it, this is called the brass family.

And that's because the instruments are in fact made out of brass.

Like the woodwind family, brass players use their breath to produce sound, but instead of blowing into a reed, you vibrate your own lips by putting them against the metal cup shaped mouth piece.

Instruments you might see in the brass family are instruments such as the French horn, the trumpet, the trombone or maybe even the tuba, the largest member of the family.

So which family is missing? It's the percussion family, and it's the largest family in the orchestra.

Percussion, meaning musical instruments played by striking them, scraping them or shaking them, including drums, cymbals, xylophones, gongs, bells and rattles.

Percussion instruments like to keep the rhythm and make special sounds and add excitement and colour into the orchestra.

We're going to be looking at the percussion family a little bit more closely, so here we go.

Get that pen and paper ready.

I would like you to pause the video now to list as many percussion instruments as you can think of.

Ready, steady, go.

So what does percussion mean? Is it musical instruments played by striking, scraping or shaking? Or is it musical instruments that produce sounds from vibrating strings? Well done, it's musical instruments played by striking, scraping or shaking.

So which of these instruments is not in the percussion family? Is it the woodblock, the guitar, cymbals or the timpani drum? Point to the instrument you think does not belong to the percussion family.

Well done, that would be the guitar.

The guitar belongs to the string family.

So how can we sort instruments in the percussion family? Instruments such as the woodblock, the tambourine, the triangle, the bongos, maracas, timpani drums, Güiros.

How could we possibly sort them into groups? Pause the video now and have a go at sorting these instruments into groups.

I'm very interested to see how you sorted them.

Perhaps you decided to sort them based on their size, or the length of their name, or the country they're originally from? There are so many options and there is certainly no wrong answer, but here are some ways you could have sorted them.

How are the played? Do they make a sound by striking them, by shaking them or by scraping them? You could have chosen to sort them like this.

What are they made out of? How do their materials affect their sound? Well you could have sorted them like this, but the tambourine would be a tricky one because it has metal on it as well as it being made out of wood.

You could have sorted them based on what sound quality they have.

So you could have sorted them like this.

The Güiro, making a scraping sound.

Shaking sounds from the tambourine and the maracas, metallic rounded sounds from the timpani and the triangle and wooden, more hollow sounds from the bongos and the woodblocks.

However, these instruments you can play in more than one way.

For example, you don't just need to shake the tambourine, but you could in fact tap it, which would send it into another group.

Just like the Güiro, you might decide not to scrape it and you might decide to hit it instead, and that would affect it's timbre too.

It's far more complicated than that.

So I've had a really fun time trying to find as many sound sources as I can in my home.

Now, I started off in the kitchen and found the following.

And I've experimented with using the same equipment to make lots of different sounds or timbres even though I'm not changing the instrument.

So that's my saucepan and wooden spoon from my kitchen.

I also loved the sound that my cheese grater made.

And I found depending on the side that I used, it made a slightly different sound, or timbre.

And I found if I change my wooden spoon for something else, possibly something metal, it made a different sound again.

Continuing in my kitchen, I also found some old takeaway boxes.

And I found it really interesting to see how plastic sounded so much different to those other materials such as metal or carboard.

And depending on where I tapped on the takeaway box, I could make a different sound.

I also raided my recycling bin and found an old milk bottle.

And I found I could also make different sounds on here.

I loved exploring the textures in my kitchen and found this on the inside of my fruit bowl, which made a lovely sound when using my whisk.

But of course, I could also use it a bit like a gong.

I found some pan lids.

They sound very different to cymbals you might hear in the orchestra.

But nevertheless, still had a great timbre.

And I loved this texture on this chopping board.

Which again, made a different sound depending on what I used to scrape it.

I also raided the cupboards and found a bag of pasta, which I found you could shake to make lots of different noises.

I could also use the plastic to change the timbre.

And almost the speed or the tempo of the crunches.

Looking elsewhere, aside from the kitchen, I found my plastic bags, which made some fun sounds.

And also, a large cardboard box.

Which reminded me of a bass drum.

I wonder what you can find in your home.

Pause the video to find five different sound sources in the home with different timbres.

When you've collected them all, come back and press play.

Now here's your challenge.

I would like you to now sort your sound sources in your home into groups depending on their timbre, on their sound quality.

Now this is trickier than you first think and I had to think really long and hard about how I would group the instruments.

Then, I described the timbre of each group and made a note, just like you can see in my picture.

If you're stuck for some adjectives to describe the timbre, have a look at the word bank on the side.

Good luck.

So that brings us to the end of the lesson.

A really big well done on all the fantastic learning you've achieved in this lesson.

I've got two final things I'd like you to do now.

Firstly, think back and identify one key thing you've learnt today.

It's totally up to you what it is.

Secondly, if you'd like to, please take a picture of your work and ask your parent or carer to share it with your teacher, so that they can see all the fantastic things you've learnt.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Now don't forget to complete the end of lesson quiz.

Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you, take care and enjoy the rest of your learning for today.

Bye.