Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to your music lesson today.

My name is Miss Al-Hanoush.

Today's lesson is a review lesson based on all the prior learning you have done throughout unit two, the power of the pentatonic.

We will be re-exploring the pentatonic scale in F major, we will also be reading from a musical score, re-performing Amazing Grace, all four phrases and seeing how we can add expression into our performances.

So without further ado, let's head on to our warm-up.

For today's warm-up, we are going to be performing Amazing Grace with some added expression, but before we begin, let's make sure that our voices, our body, our mind and our breath are all warmed up.

So can you stand with your feet, shoulder-width apart and can you begin to roll your shoulders backwards for me and then roll them forwards? And can we touch your toes? Excellent.

And can you touch the ceiling and what about each side of the walls? Excellent.

Okay.

Can you put your head up, make your nose touch the sky and then bring it down to the floor and then back to the middle, look left, and look right.

Excellent.

Well done.

Okay, oh and this time, I want you to see if you can do the sound, make your lips nice and floppy, here we go.

One, two, three, four.

Excellent.

This time, can you bring that sound and put it up in pitch for me so they're up in pitch like this? Let's try that, ready? One, two, three, four, and bring it down.

Excellent.

This time, I want you to see if you can be Santa Claus for me, and you're going to go from the diaphragm really breathe from there and you're going to give me a "Ho ho ho." Excellent.

This time I want you to be an angry Santa Claus.

Are you ready? Ho ho ho.

And this time I would like you to be the happiest Santa there ever was, really stretch out that smile for me.

Ho ho ho.

Brilliant, okay.

We're ready to do some singing.

Here we go.

Copy me.

♪ Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ♪ Your turn.

One two, ♪ Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ♪ ♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ I once was lost, but now I'm found ♪ ♪ I once was lost, but now I'm found ♪ ♪ Was blind, but now I see ♪ ♪ Was blind, but now I see ♪ Brilliant start guys, well done.

This time we're going to sing all four phrases, but we're going to add in some expression.

So this time I'd like to start fortissimo, really, really loudly.

So very loud.

As we go through each phrase, we're going to get slightly quieter till we go into forte on the second phrase, and then piano on the third phrase, and then pianissimo on the last phrase.

So by the end we should be very quiet.

Here we go.

One, two, ♪ Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ♪ ♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ I once was lost, but now I'm found ♪ ♪ Was blind, but now I see ♪ Excellent work.

Okay, last time.

This time though, the first two phrases, we are going to sing staccato, short and detached.

♪ Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ♪ Okay? And the last two phrases, phrase three and four, we're going to sing really nice and legato, nice and smoothly.

♪ I once was lost, but now ♪ Okay? Remember the first two staccato, here we go.

♪ Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ♪ ♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ I once was lost, but now I'm found ♪ ♪ Was blind, but now I see ♪ Did you notice what difference it made when we sang with a staccato articulation versus that legato articulation? We're going to look at that a little bit further on in the lesson.

So let's head back and see what we're learning today.

I hope you are now nice and warmed up and ready to get on with today's learning.

In this lesson, you will need a piece of paper, a pencil, your body, and a keyboard.

Or if you don't have a keyboard, you could download an app.

I'm about to use a free virtual instrument called Virtual Piano, and if you would like to use a virtual instrument with me, please ask your parent or your carer to help you find one.

So mine is called Virtual Piano and you can play all the keys of the pentatonic exactly how we're going to play them in the lesson, like this.

So really really worth downloading for this lesson if you don't have a keyboard.

With that all in mind, please go and make sure that you've got all of your equipment and everything you need for today's lesson, make sure that you can find a quiet space to work in, where you won't be disturbed and also make sure that you turn off any apps or notifications that might come through on any electronic devices during the lesson that might distract you.

If you need to take a moment to pause the video now and go and do all of that and then come back and resume, we'll be here waiting for the lesson.

Off you go.

Here is the agenda for today's review lesson.

You will begin by revisiting the pentatonic scale.

You will then be putting all of your learning into practise and reading a musical score before performing Amazing Grace, and then performing it again with expression.

Before we begin to review the pentatonic scale, can you remember which fingers you needed to use on each hand? So quick warm-up for you.

Show me your right hand.

Excellent.

Okay.

Show me your number one.

Fantastic.

Show me a number five.

Brilliant.

Show me your number two.

Show me your number four.

Show me a polite three.

Show me a number one.

Show me a number two.

Show me a number four.

Show me a polite three.

Show me number five.

Excellent.

Okay.

Show me your left hand.

Show me number one.

Show me number two.

Show me a polite three.

Show me number four.

Show me number five.

Excellent.

Okay, give me a number one.

Give me number five.

Given me a number four.

Give me a number two.

Give me a polite three.

Give me a number one.

Give me a five.

Give me a four.

Oh it's getting tricky.

Okay, excellent.

Put both hands together, here we go.

Double time.

Give me a number one.

Give me a number five.

Give me a number two.

Give me a number four.

Give me a polite three.

Give me a number one.

Excellent.

Okay.

Can you remember where you needed to put your right hand to be able to play the F major pentatonic? Our thumb went on F, our second finger went on G, our third finger goes on A, and our other fingers, rest on the notes.

Do we play our fingers down flat or do we put them up, like we've got a ball or an orange underneath? Exactly, we don't want them flat, we want them up like we've got a ball underneath our hands.

What about our left hand? Can you remember? So our thumb goes on D, and then our second finger goes on C, and again, the other fingers rest, but they don't press down.

Okay, so our hands in the right position.

So let's just play going from our left hand, from the C, all the way to our A in our right hand.

Here we go.

And the descend back down.

Excellent, if you managed to follow that.

Okay, copy me.

Excellent work if you managed to follow that.

Okay, this time, we're going to put a metronome on, and I am going to improvise a two-bar question.

I would like you to improvise a two-bar answer.

We're playing in three four.

Here's our counting.

One, two, three.

One two three, one two three.

One two three, one two three.

One two three, one two three.

One two tree, one two three.

Excellent, if you kept up with that.

Let's make it slightly trickier.

Can you keep up with doing a four-bar question and then a four-bar answer? If this is just slightly tricky for you, you can feel free to just use your right hand and just use F G and A if you'd like.

Or you could just use the D and the C so you can take out some of the notes if it's too tricky.

Let's try a four-bar question and answer.

I will play a four-bar question, you can play a four-bar answer.

Here we go.

One two three, one two three.

One two there, one two three, one two three.

One two three, one two three, one two three, one two three.

Excellent.

Well done if you also kept up with that, For your first pause task, can you compose a simple question-and-answer phrase using the pentatonic notes? Can you remember where your fingers should be placed? And as an extension activity, can you do this on your own instrument rather than just on the keyboard or piano? And if you have other household members available, could they play a question and you play the answer or vice versa? Pause the video now to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

Having revisited the pentatonic scale, you're now going to read a musical score.

On the screen is the score to Amazing Grace.

Take two minutes to tell me what you can see.

Think about dynamic markings, articulation markings, so legato, staccato, musical hitches, phrasing, time signatures and rhythm.

Pause the video now to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

How does this piece begin? Is it beginning loudly? Quietly? Begin softly with piano at the beginning.

What happens when we get into phrase two? Well, this crocodile open-mouth symbol here means crescendo.

So we get louder towards the end of phrase two.

What's the dynamic marking when we get to phrase three? Did you spot forte on phrase three? What does forte mean? That's right, forte means loud.

So we've gone from being very soft, quiet to crescendoing and now we're playing loudly.

And what happens to the dynamic marking when we get to phrase four? Did you spot the closing crocodile-mouth symbol here? So this is the opposite of a crescendo.

What's the opposite? A diminuendo.

It means that we get quieter towards the end.

What about articulation markings? Do we have any dots that show us that there's anything staccato in here? I can't see any, can you? So we know it's not staccato.

So the opposite of staccato is legato.

But how do we know that we have to play this legato? I can hear you screaming it at me.

This is the articulation marking at the beginning of our music.

It says flowing, which tells us that the composer wants us to play it legato, nice and smoothly, connected.

What types of musical pitches did you see? That's right, that all the notes from the F major pentatonic scale.

And as an extension, can you tell me what the biggest range, the largest range of pitches is here? Well done if you said an octave, because we have our middle C and then our top note that we play is the next C up.

And between those two notes there's eight notes, so it's an octave.

What's about rhythm? Which phrases did we say had very similar rhythms? That's right.

We said that phrase one, phrase two, and phrase four all begin with the same rhythm.

They also begin with the same pitches too.

The first six notes are the same.

And that makes it much easier to play when we know that actually phrase one, phrase two, and phrase four, all start off exactly the same.

What can you tell me about phrase markings? There's one written on the score already.

So where would the other three phrase markings go? Here's the one on the score.

And that goes from our middle C here to our middle C here, which is phrase one.

Where would the other three phrase markings go? Did you say from middle C here following all the way down to our top C here? Well done if you did, that's phrase two.

What about from our A here all the way down to our middle C here? Excellent if you did, that's phrase three.

And our last phrase then, phrase four, must be from our middle C here all the way to our F at the end.

Fantastic work if you managed to get those right.

Did you spot our time signature? What's our time signature? How's this, how many beats are in the bar? Amazing job.

Our time signature is three, four over here.

And what can you tell me about the notes on the stave? So the lower the note on the stave, is it low pitch or high pitch? Excellent.

So the lower the note on the stave, the lower the pitch.

So is this second note here our F, is that a higher-pitch note or a lower-pitch note than our C here? Brilliant.

It is a higher pitch than our C because it's up, going up, ascended on the stave.

What types of rhythmic notes can you see? Can you point to a crotchet? There's one, there's another.

Can you find some? Excellent if you saw them, there's one more, there's another one.

This one is actually tied on to this C here, it's actually, it's worth three beats there plus another beat there, it's tied over.

We've got another crotchet here.

What about a minim? Can you see a minim? Point for a minim for me.

Excellent.

I can see quite a few.

These minims are not coloured in.

And how many beats was is a minim worth? Two, brilliant, well done.

So lots of minims. Can you spot a dotted minim? Excellent, it has a dot next to it, here's a dotted minim, and here's another dotted minim, again tied over to the next bar, so it actually makes five beats.

What about quavers? Brilliant.

We can see lots of quavers that joined up together.

Fantastic job guys.

And what type of rests can you see? I can see a minim rest, two-beat rest, and crotchet rest.

Can you find another crotchet rest? Amazing, over here, right at the end.

What did we say about the notes that are in blue? Usually their stems, the lines that are attached to the note heads, the stems would actually be up on these because they're below the middle line of the stave.

However, I made them blue on purpose.

And I did tell you why previously in the unit.

I made them blue to show you that these were the notes that you play with your left hand.

and I wrote left hand next to them to help you out.

So for my final extension, can you tell me what this means here next to our treble clef? For those of you who know or have had a guess, this here means that we have a B flat in our key signature.

Don't worry too much if you didn't quite understand that yet.

Now that you've shown me that you can read a musical score, you're going to perform all four phrases of Amazing Grace.

I'm going to perform for you Amazing Grace, all four phrases.

I would like you to tell me whether you think this is a weak performance or a strong performance, and why.

Was that a strong or a weak performance? Did I stay in time with the metronome? Did I play the correct rhythm? No to both of those questions.

So I didn't keep in time and I didn't play the correct rhythm, so it made it quite a weak performance.

What about this one? Was that a strong or a weak performance, and why? My fingers were not in the correct place, which made it quite a weak performance.

Did you notice actually I stumbled over a few notes as well, and because my fingers weren't in the correct position, that meant that I wasn't able to find my notes quick enough to know where it was.

So my muscle memory hadn't quite built that up and therefore it gave me a weak performance.

So that's why it's really important to remember where your fingers need to be placed to play this melody.

Here's one more, is it a weak or strong performance, and why? Was this a weak or a strong performance? That was a strong performance.

My fingers were in the correct position.

I had one finger per note, I played the correct rhythm, and I kept in time with my metronome, I didn't play any wrong notes, I was very conscious of where the steps and the leaps were within the melody line.

How could I have made that strong performance even stronger? What about adding in some expression and what about adding in a left-hand part? So I'm going to add in a simple left-hand accompaniment.

All I'm going to do for this is, in my left hand, I'm going to play an F and a C, and I'm going to play these as a drone.

Whilst I play my melody line in my right hand.

I'm also going to add in some dynamics.

So I'm going to see whether I can make phrase one and phrase two quiet, piano, and see whether I can make phase three and phase four, forte, but ending on a diminuendo.

Let's have a listen.

Did you catch my change in dynamics? Did you hear my drone underneath in my left-hand part? So that was an even stronger performance.

Here are the notes and the finger numbers for you if you need them for Amazing Grace.

Can you try and see if you can do it without looking at the finger numbers and instead read from the notation as an extension? Pause the video now, and see if you can play through all four phrases of Amazing Grace.

Make sure that you have the right hand technique, that your left hand uses your thumb and your second finger, and that your right hand uses your thumb, your second, and your third fingers.

Make sure that your hands aren't flat on the keyboard and make sure you have one finger per note.

Pause the video to complete your task, and then resume once you're finished.

Now that you've performed Amazing Grace, you're now going to perform with expression.

On the screen, you can see the score for Amazing Grace.

This includes everything that we have looked at so far between lesson one and five of this unit.

Can you perform Amazing Grace using as many of the techniques that we have talked about? Don't forget to add in a left-hand part.

This could be an ostinato, a drone, or chords.

Can you create different contrasting phrases? For example, you could perform phrase one, staccato and quiet, phrase two, forte and legato, phrase three, staccato and forte, and phrase four, legato and quiet.

Like this.

As an extension task, can you add an improvised pentatonic section? For example, you could play Amazing Grace as written, you could then improvise in three, four, using the pentatonic scale for eight bars, and then play Amazing Grace again with a different articulation.

See how creative you can be.

Pause the videos to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

How did your performances of Amazing Grace go? Did you manage to get in lots of expression? Were you able to put in all of our markings for articulation included legato playing, maybe some staccato playing? Were you able to put in dynamics and phrasing? Did you manage to put in an improvised section as well? Were you able to play it on your own instrument if you're not really a keyboard player? I am not really a keyboard player, but it's really good to have these skills on a keyboard to enhance your musical theory as well.

So, on a piece of paper, can you write down all of the key words that you can remember from this unit so far, for example, pentatonic? And can you provide a definition for each key word? And if you want an extension, can you perform your version of Amazing Grace to your household and ask them which kind of expression they think you are trying to embrace within your performance? Then resume once you're finished and we'll wrap up the lesson.

How much were you able to remember? Let's just revisit our agenda and give ourselves a recap of what you've done today.

You've revisited the pentatonic scale, you were then able to identify features and read a musical score, you then perform all four phrases of Amazing Grace and perform them with expression.

Amazing.

I am super proud of what you have achieved in the last few lessons of this unit.

Don't forget to go and complete the quiz to show how much you've learnt.

And then please don't be afraid to share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask a parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak That's all for me today.

Go and have a good rest.

Rest your fingers in time for your next music lesson.

I'll see you soon.

Goodbye.