Lesson video

Hello everybody, my name is Miss.

Kilpatrick and welcome to my music room.

So what will we cover in this lesson? We're going to warm up with some ostinato body percussion.

We'll recap, the ostinato pattern from Mars, The Bringer of War, and we'll compose some rhythmic ostinato patterns inspired by the same piece.

In this lesson, you will need your homemade instruments from lesson two, your body, a piece of paper and a pencil, and you can pause the video now to go and collect any of those things.

It would also be worth turning off any conversations on apps you might be having and finding a quiet space where you won't be disturbed.

An ostinato is a repeated pattern or phrase and we're going to use it with body percussion in a song for a warmup today.

The song we're going to learn today has very simple lyrics, but the body percussion patterns get a little bit more complicated.

Let's start with the song, it goes like this.

It's just supposed to be a nonsense song.

Supposed to keep you in a happy mood.

So let's try and learn it.

It starts, so my turn, your turn.

Let's try it again, my turn, your turn.

Let's try it all together.

♪ One, two, off we go ♪ Now let's add the body percussion.

The first ostinato starts like this, two knee pats, two shoulders, two knee taps and two shoulders.

That's the pattern all the way through.

Let's just give it a go.

♪ One, two, off we go ♪ Next one, a little bit more complicated.

Knee tap, shoulder, knee tap, shoulder, knee, cross, knee, click.

Knee tap shoulder, knee tap shoulder.

Knee, cross, knee, click.

If you need to go back and practise that a few times, you can do that.

Let's start with a song.

♪ One, two of we go ♪ Next one, a little bit easier, two swipes of the hand, shoulder, shoulder.

♪ One, two, off we go ♪ The next one is just head shoulders, knees and toes.

♪ One, two off we go ♪ And the very last one is jazz hands.

One here and one here, all the way through.

♪ One, two off we go ♪ And as a challenge in the final verse, we do a mixture of all of the ostinato patterns, one after the other, a little bit faster.

♪ One, two off we go ♪ Your challenge is to create your own body percussion ostinato pattern that would go with the song.

That you can add in as another verse, pause the video now to create your own body percussion ostinato pattern, have a go with the sun and press play when you're finished.

We're going to listen to a piece of music.

Do you recognise any musical features that we've talked about in previous lessons? Listen really carefully to the snare drum.

Here we go.

What did you recognise while you were listing? What was the snare drum playing? If you said that the snare drum had the ostinato all the way through, then you would be correct.

Maurice Ravel's Bolero uses a steady ostinato pattern, played by the drum and taken over by some other instruments throughout the piece.

Well done.

In the last lesson, we learned the ostinato pattern to Mars, The Bringer of War, from the Planet Suite by Gustav Holst.

Let me remind you how it goes.

One, two, three, four, five.

♪ Soldiers are marching off to war ♪ ♪ Soldiers are marching off to war ♪ Well, today we're going to use the inspiration of Holst's piece to create our own ostinato patterns.

Take your piece of paper and a pencil.

And I want you to think about all the words you can, related to the theme of battles and war.

Use those words to create your sentence.

Just like I did for the Holst one.

When you've got your collection of words, see if you can put them into an order that sounds rhythmical and that you like.

So you can turn it into a rhythm using your instruments, your homemade instruments from lesson two.

Pause the video to create an ostinato pattern of your own that you're happy with.

Once you're finished, you can press play.

Who wrote the music Mars, The Bringer of War from the Planet Suite? Was it Hans Zimmer? Was it Miss, Kilpatrick? Was it Maurice Ravel or was it Gustav Holst? Point to the answer you think is correct.

Yes, it was Gustav Holst.

And what is an ostinato? is it a rhythm pattern where stress notes are placed off the beat? Is it the heartbeat of the music? Is it making sounds using our bodies or is it a repeated pattern or phrase? Point to the one you think is correct.

You're right, it's a repeated pattern or phrase.

Now you're going to perform your ostinato, match your rhythm to the ticking metronome clock in the soundscape that you'll hear.

The soundscape should echo the tension of the war sounds created in Holst's piece.

And you're going to match your ostinato to that ticking clock so that we feel the repeated buildup of tension as you play.

Add in a gradual crescendo to build that tension.

If you can, add some battle sound effects using your voice or any other body percussion sounds as you play.

And when you get to the end, create some kind of explosive ending to your piece, just as Holst does, I'm going to play the soundscape now.

Take some time to think about and match your ostinato pattern to the ticking metronome of the clock.

So you can really match the tempo.

When you're ready and have rehearsed, you can go back to the beginning of the piece and perform it to somebody in your household.

Here we go.

The soundscape is strange, isn't it? Don't forget, you can go back and rehearse as many times as you need to, to make sure that you get your ostinato to fit the pattern and add in the crescendo at any other sound effects that you think would add to your piece.

So what is a crescendo? Is it gradually getting softer? Is it the heartbeat of the music? Is it gradually getting louder or is it a repeated pattern or phrase? Point to the answer you think is correct It is gradually getting louder, well done.

I hope to hear some of that in your piece.

Thank you for your hard work today.

I've really enjoyed learning alongside you.

If you'd like to, you can ask your parent or carer to share some of your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational with #LearnWithOak.

I'd love to see some of the things that you've got up to.

I'll see you again soon for another lesson, bye bye.