Lesson video

Hello everybody.

My name is Miss Kilpatrick and welcome to my music room.

Today, we're going to be thinking about how music can create an image or tell a story in your mind.

The quality of the sound the instruments make helps to make that picture.

In music, we call that timbre.

The quality of sound that an instrument can make.

The piece we're going to listen to you today really tells a story.

So let's get going.

So what will we cover in this lesson? As a warmup, we're going to learn a repeating pattern in 5/4 time.

We're going to understand how music can set the scene and the role that percussion instruments can play.

We're going to learn the ostinato pattern from Mars: The Bringer of War.

And we're going to perform a piece using the dynamic features of Mars: The Bringer of War.

In this lesson, you will need your homemade instruments from lesson two.

You'll need your body and you'll need a piece of paper and a pencil.

You can pause the video now to go and collect any of those things that you'll need.

And take this time to turn off any conversations on apps you might be having and find a quiet space where you won't be disturbed.

Now you might remember, I mentioned that the ostinato we would be learning today was in 5/4.

That means there are five beats to every bar.

It's quite an unusual time signature and we'll talk a bit more about that a little bit later.

But to get us in the mood for counting into fives, we're going to begin with a little song.

The words are very easy.

You just need to be able to count to five.

I hope you can all do that.

Should we give it a go? One, two, three, four, five.

That's it.

Let me show you how it goes.

♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ Do you get the idea? You're just counting to five, but due to the nature of the syllables in each line, the numbers one to five, get a bit mixed up.

Let's do it a little more slowly together.

I'll do the first line and you'll repeat it after me.

♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ So far so good.

♪ One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three ♪ Let's try verse two, we start with four.

♪ Four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one ♪ Are you getting the idea? Let's try the next one.

♪ Two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one, two ♪ Let's try the last verse together.

Off we go and, ♪ Three, four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ Excellent.

Let's try singing the whole thing.

We won't go too fast, so listen to the tempo of the piano.

♪ Ready, steady off we go ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Five, one, two, three ♪ ♪ Four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, two ♪ Nice and fast.

♪ Three, four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one, two ♪ ♪ Three, four, five, one ♪ ♪ Two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ Music that tells a story or sets a scene or creates an image in your mind is called programme music.

For this next exercise, you're going to need your piece of paper and a pencil and I'd like you to fold your piece of paper in half and then in half a game, creating four sections.

We're going to listen to a piece of programme music and in the four sections on your piece of paper, I'd like you to put a label.

The first section label, colour, the second, shape, the third, line and the fourth, image.

As you listen, I'd like you to think about if the piece of music you were listening to was a colour, what colour would it be? If it was a shape, what shape might it be? Would it be a curvy, soft shape, like a circle or a spiral? Would it be a spiky hard shape, like a star? If it were a line, what kind of line would it be? Wavy or spiky, straight or curvy? And finally, as you listen, what picture does this story put in your mind? What story do you think it can tell? Let's have a listen to the piece of music.

You can pause the video to finish your picture.

This is also quite an interesting activity to do with somebody else in your family.

Ask them to listen to the piece of music and share their thoughts on the colour, shape, line, or image that they've drawn and you can talk about it together.

You can press play once you're finished.

An ostinato is a repeated pattern or phrase.

We're going to learn the ostinato that you can see here on the sheet.

As I said before, it's in 5/4.

That means there are five beats in the bar.

This is quite an unusual time signature, as in music, we tend to like things to be even and easy to move to.

I've added some words to the ostinato to make the pattern easier to learn.

And those words go like this.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

The reason I've chosen a sentence using soldiers and war will become more apparent as we go on in today's lesson.

But let's start to learn this ostinato, this repeated pattern.

Let's try saying the ostinato pattern out loud together.

After five, one, two, three, four, five, soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Excellent.

Now let's try a call and response.

I'll do it first and you'll do the next one.

One, two, three, four, five, soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Great.

Pause the video to practise the ostinato pattern until you're really secure.

Press play when you're finished.

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

Well done if you said a repeated pattern or phrase, that is exactly what an ostinato is.

We're going to listen to a piece of music called Mars: The Bringer of War by an English composer called Gustav Holst.

Mars was one movement from a suite of pieces called The Planets that were written at the very beginning of World War One from 1914.

A suite is a collection of pieces based around a similar theme.

In this case, the planets of the solar system.

Holst wrote seven movements to his Planet suite.

But hold on, I can hear you thinking, there are more planets in our solar system, which ones does he missed out and why? Well, let's see if we can find out.

He wrote Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Venus.

Which one did he miss? That's right.

He didn't write a piece for Earth.

And in 1914, Pluto hadn't been discovered.

We couldn't see far enough with the technology that we had at the time, so he would never have known to write about that icy rock so far distant in the universe.

Now of course, scientists don't consider Pluto a planet at all, but that's why there are only seven pieces in the suite.

Holst decided to create features of his music based on the characteristics of the Roman gods and their identities.

Mars, The Bringer of War meant that he wanted to create an image of war and tension.

You might hear that in his piece.

Of course, the inspiration for it would have very sadly come from his experiences of World War One, as he was writing the pieces themselves.

As we listen, have a think about how the percussion section of the orchestra enhanced the performance of this piece.

Are there particular percussion instruments that you can hear and name? And do you recognise any of the rhythms in the piece? Extract one.

Do you think the piece successfully conjured up the images of war and tension, thinking about the timbre of the instruments that Holst chose to use? Some of the sounds that Holst used could have been the inspiration for some dramatic theme tunes, like Star Wars by John Williams. So who wrote the Planet Suite? Was it Edvard Grieg? Was it John Williams? Was it Gustav Holst, or was it Hans Zimmer? Point to the answer you think is correct.

Well done if you said Gustav Holst, you were right.

And what experience helped to shape the ideas and images in Holst's Mars piece? Was it the First World War or was it a painting he saw in a museum? Point to the answer that you think is right.

It was the First World War, well done.

So now let's look at some of the features of Holst's piece.

In this case, we're going to be thinking about dynamics, how he uses louds and softs to add tension to the piece.

On top of that which he already uses for the timbre of the instruments that he chose, the quality of sound.

In the piece, Holst starts very, very quietly.

So the orchestra is hardly playing and as the piece proceeds, the orchestra builds, more and more instruments are added, including percussion, so that by the end, it's a huge explosion of sound.

Of course, creating the idea of that war like feel.

Now we've learned the ostinato pattern and I hope you remembered, in the piece all the way throughout, the ostinato that Holst uses was the pattern we learned at the beginning of the lesson today.

In five, soldiers are marching off to war.

If you want to go back and listen to the piece again, try to speak the rhythm of the ostinato or tap the ostinato pattern as you listen to Holst's piece, it's quite fast.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

But I hope you'll be able to hear it all the way through.

It might change instrumentation, but throughout the piece, this ostinato is present and as he uses it, he builds the tension, not only with the repetition of that one rhythm, but also by gradually getting louder, using a crescendo.

Getting louder in a piece until the final explosion at the end.

In music, this is how we would write a crescendo for musicians to read.

Starting with the P for piano, which means quiet and ending with the F, meaning forte or loud, and in between that hairpin sign shows the musicians that they need to start off quietly and end loudly.

The reverse of that is called a diminuendo and we might have one of those in too.

See if you can say that, diminuendo.

Excellent, remember that for later.

So to conduct or lead this crescendo, I'm going to raise my hands very slowly.

As I raise them, I would like you to say or play the ostinato a little bit louder each time.

What if I drop my hands again? Can you remember the musical word for getting quieter? Began with a D.

That's right, diminuendo.

So watch out for one of those.

You can pause the video now if you need to go and get any of your homemade instruments from lesson two.

I'm going to be using my bass drum box.

And here it is.

I'm going to be playing the piece on my drum while showing you a crescendo or diminuendo as we play.

You can say the pattern while tapping it out loud.

I might stop talking at one point, so I can just control my instrument with my crescendo and diminuendo.

Let's see how we get on.

So we'll start after five.

One, two, three, four, five.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Soldiers are marching off to war.

Very good work.

Well done.

We've been thinking a lot about timbre today, but what does it mean again? Is it more than one rhythm played at once? Is it the quality of sound or how you can distinguish one sound from another? Is it how fast or slow the music is? Or does it mean how loud or quiet the sound is? Point to the answer you think is correct.

Well done if you pointed to the quality of sound, that's exactly what timbre is.

Now I have a challenge.

Can you conduct someone else playing a sound with a crescendo, getting louder, and a diminuendo, getting softer? Create a simple pattern that you can repeat many times as an ostinato.

You could use the one from Mars that we were using today, or you can create your own.

Make sure the rhythm is playable on your chosen body or junk percussion sound, either on your box or your shaker, whichever you have, and teach that pattern to someone else leading their playing, getting louder and softer with the hand technique we learned today.

And I'd really love to see how you get on with it.

Well done for working so hard today.

You've learned a huge amount and I'd really love it if you could share some of your work on Twitter with us.

Ask a parent or carer to help you share your work on social media, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

I look forward to seeing you again for the next lesson, bye bye.