Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to your music lesson today.

My name is Miss Al-Hanoush, and today we will be exploring the question: How can you make repetitive music interesting? So for our warmup today, I'm going to clap a rhythm and I would like you to clap it back to me, but only if I put my hands in the air.

If I don't put my hands in the air, you are not allowed to clap it back to me.

This should hopefully focus our minds and our body.

Here we go.

If you clapped then, you shouldn't have 'cause my hands did not go in the air.

Here's your second chance.

If you clapped then, you shouldn't have because I did not put my hands in the air.

Last chance.

Here we go.

And again, if you clapped there, you shouldn't have because I did not put my hands in the air.

Let's crack on with the lesson and see what we're going to do.

Hopefully, you are now nice and warmed up and ready to get on with the lesson.

So in this lesson, you will need a piece of paper, a pencil, and your body.

If you don't have that equipment to hand, now's the time for you to pause the video and go and get it.

It's also a good time to find yourself a quiet space where you can work, and also to turn off any app notifications that you might receive on an electronic device during the lesson.

Pause the video now, and then resume once you're ready.

Here is the agenda for today's lesson.

We're going to begin this lesson by learning how to read and write some new rhythm notation.

We're then going to perform a variety of rhythm tiles, and explore repetition and contrast.

We're then going to be composing a ternary form piece of music.

And we'll end the lesson by you performing your rhythm-focused composition.

Let's start by reading some musical notation together.

Some of you might recognise these lines and dots on the screen as being musical notation.

Some of you might be sitting there saying, "I have no idea what these are." Well, if you watched my unit one, lesson one video, you will know that this rhythm is made up of notes called crotchets and quavers.

So let's have a recap for those of you who aren't quite sure.

So right in the beginning, we have got what we call our time signature.

And this one here, 4/4 tells us that we have four crotchet beats in each bar.

We then have our bar lines and our bar lines appear after every four beats.

Every four beats is called a bar.

So at the end of each bar, we have our bar line.

This rhythm is made up of crotchets which are one-beat notes and quavers which are half-beat notes.

If we have two quavers that are sat next to each other, we join up their tails and they look like this.

So these together equal one beat because they're worth half a beat each.

By writing down our musical notation, composers are able to tell musicians exactly how to perform their pieces of music.

Let's see if we can clap through this rhythm together.

I'm going to give you a count-in of four.

We're going to play to a pulse.

Here we go.

One, two, three, four.

Awesome job.

Now we've recapped crotchets and quavers, it's time to introduce you to some new notation: semibreves, minims, and semiquavers.

By the end of this lesson, you will confidently be able to read this music that is on-screen now, and you will be able to use our learned notes in your own compositions.

Amazing! So if you already know these notes, don't worry.

There's going to be lots of questions to stretch your composition skills further throughout the lesson.

So let's take a look at what each of these notes, a semibreve, a minim, and a semiquaver are, what they look like, and how they sound.

The first note that we're going to learn today is called a semibreve, and a semibreve is worth four beats.

Can you say the word semibreve? And how many counts is it? Four.

Awesome.

A semibreve looks a little bit like a squashed circle.

Take a look.

So here is our semibreve and it's going to last the whole length of our bar in 4/4.

The equivalent of a semibreve rest is drawn here.

It looks a little bit like an upside down hat once it's on the stave lines.

And our rest, just like our semibreve, is worth four beats.

And we call this a semibreve rest.

Easy.

So I'm not going to clap a semibreve because if I was to try and clap it, it doesn't really last the whole four counts.

So for you to hear a sense of what this sounds like, I'm going to play my metronome, it's going to give me a count-in of four beats, and then I'm going to whistle a semibreve to you.

Here we go.

Did you hear that? So it lasts for four beats.

Now it's your turn.

If you can't whistle, you can use any other vocal sound that you want, as long as it lasts for the four beats.

Here we go.

Here's your count-in.

Brilliant.

So that's a semibreve and it's worth.

four beats.

Excellent.

What about our next note? So our next note is called a minim.

Can you say the word minim? And a minim is worth two beats.

So in a bar of 4/4, I can fit two minims. Take a look at what a minim looks like.

Do you recognise it? Does it look similar to another note that we've seen before? That's right.

It looks very similar to a crotchet.

But what's the difference? The middle is not coloured in.

So this is why it's super important when we draw our notes to make sure that we're colouring them in when needed and we're leaving them blank when not needed.

So in a bar of 4/4, how many minims can I fit? Two.

That's right because a minim is worth two beats.

Awesome.

So if I wanted to look at a minim rest, on the right-hand side of your screen, you can see our minim rest.

And it's also like a minim, worth.

two beats.

Amazing.

And it's the opposite way up to our semibreve rest.

So this one actually looks like a hat, but this time, the line underneath is our stave line.

So it's actually like a little square on top of our line.

So again, the same as a semibreve, if I tried to clap it, my clap doesn't really last the whole length of those two beats.

So I'm going to whistle this again so that we can get a sense of how long a minim lasts for, and I'm going to whistle how many minims in a bar of 4/4? That's right.

Two.

So watch me first and then you can have a go.

Here's my count-in.

Now it's your turn.

Here's your count-in.

Excellent.

So that's a minim and it's worth.

two beats.

Fantastic.

Our third note for this lesson is a semiquaver and a semiquaver, it looks a little bit daunting when you look at it like this, because a semiquaver is actually quite a short note, rather than fast, a short note.

It's actually worth a quarter of a beat.

You can see one semiquaver on the left-hand side of your screen.

This is what one semiquaver looks like.

How many semiquavers, if they're worth a quarter of a beat, can I fit into a bar of 4/4? That's right.

I can fit 16.

So I've got four here on beat one, another four on beat two, another four on beat three, and another four on beat four.

And similar to a quaver, when we have two semiquavers sat next to each other, or four, in fact, we tend to join up their tails just to make it easier to read.

If all of these were drawn like that, it would be very hard to read, and you probably wouldn't have got 16 as fast as you did.

On the right-hand side, you can see what our semiquaver rest looks like, which is again, very similar to our quaver rest, which looks like a little number seven.

But this time we've got two number sevens almost joined up together.

So how do we play a semiquaver? Well, the easiest way to play a semiquaver, as it's such a short note, is actually to say the word semiquaver.

So can you say the word semiquaver? Excellent.

So this is what a semiquaver sounds like if I play four of them.

Semiquaver.

So in bar of 4/4, I'm going to play 16 semiquavers, which would sound like this.

Here's my count-in.

Semiquaver, semiquaver, semiquaver, semiquaver.

Can you do that? Here's your count-in.

Semiquaver, semiquaver, semiquaver, semiquaver.

Awesome.

So a semiquaver on its own, is quite a short note.

How much is a semiquaver worth? Brilliant.

A semiquaver is worth a quarter of a beat.

So I told you that by the time we ended this lesson, you would be able to read this rhythm on-screen.

Now, it's not even the end of the lesson and you can already do this.

So have a look, which notes can you see? Can you remember their values? So I can see a crotchet, I can see some semiquavers, I can see a minim, I can see quavers, and I can see a semibreve.

Take another look if you did not get all of those.

So how would this sound if we were to perform it? Let's have a go.

I'm going to give you a count-in of four and we're going to clap it.

If you think this is too easy to clap, can you assign different parts of your body to each note value? For example, crotchets could become stamps, quavers could become chest slaps, semiquavers could become thigh slaps, and your minim and your semibreve could be vocal sounds.

Let's have a go.

Here's our count-in of four.

Awesome.

Let's try that one more time just to make sure we've got it.

Here's our count-in of four.

One, two, three, four.

I just thought I'd put that in, in case any of you were doing your vocal work on that semibreve.

Well done.

Here's a quick quiz for you.

Which note length is this? Have a look through the options quickly.

Five, four, three, two, one.

It is, of course, a crotchet, a one-beat note.

Which note length is this? Five, four, three, two, one.

It is, of course, our semiquaver, a quarter beat.

Which note length is this? Five, four, three, two, one.

It is, of course, our semibreve, four beats.

Which note length is this? Five, four, three, two, one.

It's our minim, it's worth two beats.

Which note length is this? Five, four, three, two, one.

It is our quaver, a half-beat note.

It's now time for the first pause task of the lesson.

On your piece of paper, can you draw out the following notes and their equivalent rests and write how many beats each is worth? The notes are a semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver, and a semiquaver.

You could also compose an interesting four-bar rhythm using all of those notes, or if you wanted to stretch, a five-bar rhythm.

Make sure that you write in your 4/4 time signature at the beginning though, and make sure that your bar lines are in the correct place.

Make sure you count your beats as well just to make sure that you've got the right amount of beats in the bar.

Once you're finished, you can try and clap it out loud, or you could assign different body percussion parts to each of the notes and perform it to your household.

Resume the video once you're done.

Let's take a look at our agenda.

We've now learned how to read and write some new rhythm notation.

Let's take a look at the following rhythm tiles.

These only use crotchets and quavers so our one-beat and half-beat notes, and their equivalent rests.

Can you spot where they are? We're going to clap through each of these tiles in unison after a count-in.

If you want to make it harder for yourselves, don't forget, you can add different body percussion parts to your crotchets and quavers.

So have a look at Rhythm 1.

Here's your count-in.

One, two, three, four.

Amazing.

Take a look at Rhythm 2.

Here's your count-in.

One, two, three, four.

Excellent.

Remembering to rest where you see those crotchet rests or those quaver rests.

Take a look at Rhythm 3.

Here's your count-in.

One, two, three, four.

Brilliant.

Taking a look at Rhythm 4.

Here's your count-in.

One, two, three, four.

Excellent.

Rhythm 5 is slightly trickier.

It's a syncopated rhythm.

So just watch out for that quaver rest on beat three.

Here's your count-in.

One, two, three, four, one, two, three-and-four.

Well done if you got that right.

And check out Rhythm 6.

Here's your count-in.

One, two, three, four.

Excellent.

So you've now heard all of the rhythm tiles.

Here is a quick quiz.

I'm going to clap one of those rhythm tiles to you, and I would like you to tell me which one you think it is.

Here we go.

I'll do a count-in first.

So one, two, three, four.

Which one was it? Take a look.

It was Rhythm 3.

Well done if you got that.

Here's another example for you.

One, two, three, four.

Which one was it? It was Rhythm 4.

Well done if you got that.

What about this one? One, two, three, four.

That one was Rhythm 6.

Well done if you got that.

Let's make it a little bit trickier for you.

This time I'm going to play two bars worth of rhythm tiles together, and you need to tell me which two rhythms you think I am playing.

Here we go.

Here's the count-in.

Maybe clap through that one.

Which two is it? It was Rhythm 1 and Rhythm 2.

Fantastic work if you got those.

Okay.

What about this one? Again, two bars worth.

So one, two, three, four.

Can you guess? Did you work it out? It was Rhythm 3 and then Rhythm 6.

Try playing those three now with yourselves.

Well done if you got those right.

So a quick quiz that you can do with your family or your members of your household is you could play them a rhythm tile and see if they can guess which rhythm tile you're playing.

And then you can make it a little bit harder for yourself and play two rhythm tiles or three rhythm tiles, and so on, and see whether they can guess which rhythms you are playing.

It's time for your second pause task of the lesson.

Each of those rhythm tiles that we've just clapped through is worth four beats.

Can you compose your own set of six rhythm tiles using the following notes and their rests: a semibreve, a minim, crotchet, a quaver, and a semiquaver.

You can compose the tiles using other notes that you might know, for example, triplets.

You could also compose your tiles in different time signatures to 4/4, such as 7/8 or 5/4.

You could create some interesting rhythms using syncopation.

See my tile five for an example.

And can you perform each of your tiles separately or perform two or three of them in a row? If you have other members of your household available, could they perform a rhythm tile at the same time that you perform one? Pause the video to complete your task and then resume once you're done.

Now, we have composed our own rhythm tiles, let's explore repetition and contrast.

For the next part of the lesson, before we begin to compose our own structured rhythm composition, I'd like you to listen to movement number five from Philip Glass' "Glassworks." This is called "Facades." Philip Glass is a minimalist composer.

He uses minimalist ideas, so minimal amounts of material, and then develops them.

I want you to listen to how the music develops at the beginning of this track.

Thinking about the music that you've just listened to by Philip Glass, how many times can you play something before it becomes really boring? Have a go.

Can you pay an ostinato, a repeated rhythm, and tell me how many times you can play it before it becomes boring? Pause the video and find out for yourselves now.

How many times did you find? Rule of thumb is it's about four.

So you can play something four times and then you need to develop it.

And that's what we saw in Philip Glass' music.

So we saw, or heard even, that he was developing his music by changing just one small idea each time.

So he was using lots of repeated patterns, but changing very, very minimal things within that pattern.

So how can you use this in your music? Let's find out.

So looking at our rhythm tiles, there's lots of different ways that we can explore repetition.

I'm going to show you one way and then I'm going to get yourselves to think of some other ways that you can do this.

So if we look at Rhythm 1, Rhythm 2, and Rhythm 3 to begin with, if I played Rhythm 1 over and over constantly, it would get really boring really quickly.

So instead of doing that, I'm going to use the rule of thumb that I talked about earlier and repeat Rhythm 1 four times.

I'm then going to repeat Rhythm 2 four times, and then Rhythm 3 four times.

Because they're just using crotchets and quavers, there's not that much of a difference, but it's enough to make some rhythmical distance for the listener.

So let's have a go at doing this.

I'm going to put a count-in in, and we're going to see if we can play after a count-in of four.

So Rhythm 1 four times, Rhythm 2 four times, and Rhythm 3 four times.

Here we go.

One, two, three, four.

And there you have it.

We have just composed a 12-bar piece of music by just playing those three rhythms. We're going to call that section A, which I'm going to come back to a little bit later on in the lesson.

But that's one way that you could explore repetition.

How else could you do it? Have a think, you may pause the video if you want to and then rejoin us.

For your next pause task, using your rhythm tiles or the ones that I've provided, can you explore how many different ways you could perform your rhythm titles? Think about how you could contrast each way of playing.

For example, if you have got different percussion instruments or different households percussion instruments available, you could change the timbre.

If there is a household member present, you could perform your tiles to them in two contrasting ways and see if they can figure out what the contrast is.

Or you could perform one way and they could perform a contrasting way back to you.

Pause the video now, complete the task, and then resume once you're ready.

So what about exploring contrast within our compositions? When I think of the word contrast, I think of the word opposites.

So how many different musical opposites can you think of? Off the top of my head, I can think of dynamics being very quiet, pianissimo, and very loud, fortissimo.

I can think of tempo being really fast and really slow.

I can think of the different sounds the instruments make, the timbre being dull or bright.

What can you think of? For my example, I'm going to use dynamics.

I'm going to do this by playing Rhythm 1 really loudly, so fortissimo.

I'm going to play Rhythm 2 very quietly, which is pianissimo.

I'm then going to come back into Rhythm 3 fortissimo.

I'm going to play each rhythm four times for my repetition.

You can join in with me.

And if you want to add other body percussion parts to this, feel free.

If you want to do it with your rhythm tiles and play alongside me, you can do that too.

Here's our count-in of four.

One, two, three, four.

And there we have it.

And there we have it.

We've got a contrasting Rhythm 1 to Rhythm 2, and then Rhythm 2 to Rhythm 3, just using dynamics.

How can you create contrast in your composition? For your next pause task, using your rhythm tiles or the ones that I've provided, can you explore how many different ways you can perform them? Think about how you could create contrast each way you play them.

If you've got other members of your household, you could try and play them with them and they could play a different rhythm tile or a different contrast to what you're doing.

Can they guess the contrasts that you are trying to achieve? You could also play this on different household objects for different timbres.

Have a go, see what you come up with.

Pause the video and then resume once you're finished.

Having explored repetition and contrast, we're now going to make sure that we can compose in ternary form.

And this is where our A section comes in.

So let's take a look at what this is all about.

So earlier on, we played through Rhythm 1, Rhythm 2, and Rhythm 3.

And we played them each four times.

And we structured them as Rhythm 1 four times, Rhythm 2 four times, and then Rhythm 3 four times.

We created what we're going to call our A section.

For this part, we're going to create a piece in ternary form.

Now, ternary form is sometimes known as ABA.

So our A section is Rhythm 1, 2, and 3.

Our B section is going to be rhythms 4, 5, and 6.

And then we're going to return back to our A section, which is Rhythm 1, Rhythm 2, and Rhythm 3.

Let's have a go and see if we can play this through and how it would sound.

We're going to play each of the rhythms four times each.

Here we go.

If you want to include other body parts for your body percussion piece, feel free to do so.

Here's our count-in.

One, two, three, four.

B.

Back to A.

And there we have it, our piece in ternary form.

Did you notice the contrast that I put in as well? What was it? That's right.

I played my B section very quietly, pianissimo.

Whereas I made my A section fortissimo.

So you can see we've now got a ternary form structure, but we've also got repetition and contrast.

So how can you use this in your composition? Here's another pause for you: Using your rhythm tiles and the composition structure worksheet structure your rhythm tiles into two or three sections.

If you find it hard, you can make a binary piece, which is an AB, or ternary like we've just done, ABA.

Write down how many times you will repeat each of your rhythm tiles.

Write down how you will contrast each section.

If you've got other members of your household, are they able to play other rhythm tiles with you to create polyrhythms? Can you play it to a member of your household and can they guess your structure? And can you add in some contrasting sections? Pause the video to complete your task and then press play to resume once you've finished.

We're now at the last stage of our lesson, which is simply you performing your rhythm-focused composition.

So pause the video and complete the following task: Using your structured composition, practise playing it through from start to finish, moving fluently between each section.

Can you perform your piece to members of your household? If you were to play an instrument, are you able to put your composition onto your instrument and add pitches to it? Have a go and resume once you're finished.

How did your performances go? Were your household amazed at how much you managed to do in this lesson? Were you able to get repetition and contrast within your pieces? Were they able to guess what you were trying to achieve within repetition and contrast? So to start with, at the beginning of this lesson, I posed a question to you, and we're going to answer that question now.

On your piece of paper, please answer the following question: How can you make music that is repeated interesting? Pause the video, write down your answer and then resume once you're finished.

How did you get on with answering that question? Repetition is used by lots of composers to allow musical ideas to settle before adding in other musical ideas.

Repetition is used all around the world, including West African music where ostinato is key and repetition is key.

Try and remember our rule of thumb whilst you're composing, which is to play an idea four times max, before you start to develop your musical ideas.

We wouldn't want your listeners to get bored now, would we? So that's it for today's lesson.

You've worked so hard and I'm so proud of you.

Don't forget to complete the end of lesson quiz to show how much you have learned today.

And the final thought is if you want to share your work, you can share your work with Oak National by asking your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

That's all from me today.

Go and give your bodies a well-deserved rest.

Goodbye.