Lesson video

Hi, everyone, and welcome to lesson 10, which is our final lesson of fusion unit number seven.

We have done so much looking at lots of different styles of music, where they're from, the cultures, the history behind them, and now we're putting it all together in our own composition.

I'm so excited to see what you come up with for your final piece today.

Before we do, let's get into our normal starter activity.

And today we're going to be focusing on whether you can recognise different features based around whether they are melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic.

so I'm going to play for you three examples, and you need to identify whether it is a melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic idea that a composer could use in a piece.

Here's the first one.

Okay, I want these to be a quick fire round question.

So tell me in three, two, one.

Is it melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic? Yeah, the answer I'm looking for is melodic.

Okay, it's clearly based around a scale.

Okay, so it's based around the scale.

So it will be the composer selecting pitches and changing the pattern of those pitches around the scale to create the melody.

Well done.

Okay, let's have a look at the next one.

I think you'll get this one pretty quick.

Okay, I want you to answers really quick.

Three, two, one.

Write it down or tell me is rhythmic.

Good, well done.

There's no set pitch to it.

You can hear that there's no melody line around it.

We've got no key to base it on.

So it is a rhythmic idea that a composer will then extend and develop into a rhythm part within their composition.

Good.

Final one.

I think we'll get this one quickly.

Three, two, one.

It is harmonic.

Yep, there's a clear sense of key and tonality.

It starts on A and ends on A.

And there's chords, and there's a baseline in there.

So it's really clear that the composer with that idea has established what key and what chords they want to use.

And so that is a harmonic feature that a composer might use.

Okay, keep these things all in mind, 'cause we're going to continue working on those in our own compositions.

But first, let's make sure we've got everything we need for today.

Right, okay, let's make sure that you have everything you need to be really successful today.

You're going to need a piece of paper or a book for you to write on.

I suggest you bring any notes and recordings.

from your previous lessons, 'cause we are going to be building and continuing to work on that composition.

You're also going to need a pencil and a different coloured pen to mark your work.

And you're going to need to be ready to work creatively with our composition.

So you either need to be ready to work with your voice if that's one of the parts you're going to compose, an instrument of your choice, perhaps a piano or keyboard, or something different, or if you're working with technology, have that app to hand ready to go.

If you need anything from that list, pause the video now, go and get it, and then come back to us and we'll get going.

Okay, let's have a look at our lesson plan for today.

Our agenda is this.

We're going to have another exploring section where we're going to look at different types of fusion, so two more pieces that we haven't heard before, very modern fusions, and we're going to look at how they've been created.

We're going to look at how you structure a composition.

We've done quite a lot of work already on how to develop just one section.

We want to look at structures of entire pieces of music and how we develop music into a set structure.

And then, finally, it is time to finish, perform, and record your new fusion piece.

Really exciting lesson today to finish off this unit.

Okay, exploring more fusion.

Get your piece of paper and your pen ready.

You're going to listen to a small clip called "Jumanji" by Azealia Banks.

She is an American rapper who has worked with lots of other artists, so she's used to collaborating.

And I really like this fusion style.

So the two questions that you're going to answer listening to the clip is can you identify the two styles that have been fused to create this song, and can you name two musical features to support your answers? Can you list what you can hear in one style and what you can hear in another to see how the fusion has been created? Okay, let's have a listen.

♪ Get that, split that ♪ ♪ Make them spin that ♪ ♪ Grip that, flip that ♪ ♪ Make ya chips stack ♪ ♪ Real all day ♪ ♪ Uptown, Broadway ♪ ♪ Real all day ♪ ♪ Uptown, Broadway ♪ Pause the video now and write your answers for one and two.

Okay, let's see if you can spot those two styles.

So the fusion that Azealia Banks has created with "Jumanji" is hip hop and Calypso.

Calypso is a traditional style of music from Trinidad and Tobago as is the steel pan.

So that is the fusion.

She's combined hip hop, which she's familiar with as an American rapper, and you can hear that with her vocals in the rap.

The drum pattern that she's created is definitely on a drum machine in a hip hop style and the synthesiser sounds that you can hear as well throughout.

The Calypso style, the influence that she's taken from that is there is a steel pan riff and sound in the middle along with the rapping and the drum section.

If you heard that, great job.

If you didn't, just take a note, and then you'll know what to look out for for musical features in future fusion pieces.

Okay, what I'm going to share with you now is a brilliant live performance of a fusion song.

I'm going to go straight in and show you a part of the clip I want you to see.

While watching that, I want you to think about the same two questions, can you identify the two styles that have been fused to create the song, and can you name two musical features to support your answer? Then I'm going to tell you a bit more about this great performance and why I like it so much.

Okay, let's watch.

♪ On a screen ♪ ♪ You don't want to sing what you can't sing ♪ ♪ Well that's quite a hard game to play ♪ ♪ But I have fallen for your ways ♪ ♪ In spite of myself I don't want you to change ♪ ♪ But in the dawning light ♪ ♪ I found you breathless ♪ ♪ And I won't deny ♪ ♪ I love you helpless ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ But in the dawning light ♪ ♪ I found you breathless ♪ ♪ But I won't deny ♪ ♪ I love you helpless ♪ ♪ ♪ It is so great to watch live music, because you can see how fusion music and all the different people from different cultures have come together.

Let's go through the answers, and then I'll tell you a bit more about this video.

So the two styles that have been fused together are rock with West African folk.

And hopefully that was really clear from the instruments you could hear, as well as some of the language.

So the rock musical features were the heavy guitars and bass.

There were really powerful chords, and it was a really powerful dynamic in the chorus, which is what you hear in rock music.

The West African folk, you could see and hear a djembe drum, and there was a great melodic riff that you can hear in the guitar part, which definitely has Western features, sorry, West African features.

And, of course, there's a section in the middle of just acapella vocals, which was all performed by Baaba Maal.

Now to tell you a bit more about this performance, it's a brilliant collaboration.

And actually Baaba Maal was the same West African artist who worked with Simon Anderson from Afro Celt Sound System.

In this video, they're performing at a blues festival in Podor, Podor, is also in West Africa.

What I love about this video is how diverse the audience are, and they are just loving the concert.

And I really love how much that promotes how music is just a language that speaks to everyone.

It doesn't matter where you're from, who you are, what country you were born in.

Music can be for everyone.

What a lovely performance.

Well done if you've got any of the answers right for that one.

We're really starting to analyse on a high level all the different ways that fusion music is created.

Great work.

Okay, second part of our lesson, how can we structure compositions? Pause the video now and take the time you need to read through this information sheet.

It's going to tell you everything about what structuring music means and what it is.

And it gives you three examples that we're going to look into, and then you are going to pick from, to create your own new fusion style.

Pause the video now and read through everything on the page.

So the three that I suggest you pick from with your own new fusion creation is either ternary built with three sections and you've got a contrasting B section in the middle, so you hear A, then B sounds different, and then A returns.

So that's one option.

There is the song structure version, which is like you hear in most pop music, most chart music where there is an intro, a verse, a chorus.

There's often a second verse and another chorus, and then there's an outro.

But because we only want a minute's worth of music for our fusion composition, if you choose song structure, I suggest to do four sections, intro, verse, chorus, and outro.

And then the final one is binary.

Now binary is two sections, a section A and a section B, but we want an intro to lead into that.

Okay, it's always good to set a composition off with some sort of introduction.

So have a think now about which of those structures you think would suit the composition that you have in mind for your fusion piece.

Maybe make a note of it on your piece of paper as to which one you think you're going to work towards and finish today.

Right, we're getting straight into our composition.

I expect you to spend the majority of this time developing, recording, and practising your fusion piece.

So let's remind ourselves of the brief that we're working towards.

Remember, a film studio has asked you to compose a new fusion piece for travel documentary.

We must be able to hear at least a combination of two styles or traditions fused together in your piece.

And this is the brief we're working towards.

We want to be trying to aim for our piece of music to last a full one minute.

There needs to be changes in texture.

And remember texture is how the parts work together and how many you can hear at any one time in your piece.

So it could be monophonic one piece, sorry, one sound.

It could be homophonic.

There might be three or four sounds, but they're all moving in the same way, either in unison or they have the same rhythm, or it could be polyphonic where you've got several layers of music all playing different parts, but together at the same time.

It needs to be really obvious that you've taken your musical ideas from different styles or traditions, which is why we're basing this on the musical ideas taken from the fusion pieces that we have listened to and explored already this unit.

We want to see development of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas and a clear sense of structure.

So you need to choose which one of those three structures you're going to compose with today.

Okay, so let's go back to my demonstration that I gave in the last lesson, a look at how I might develop that into a given structure that I've decided.

Okay, so I took the inspiration of a drone from Indian classical music, and I based mine around F, and I put C in the middle.

So there was my harmonic idea.

It's all going to be based around F and that drone.

Then I decided that I was going to create a vocal riff, and I decided on two, which I would then repeat, so that they would be memorable.

I wanted them to harmonise with my drone.

And so I came up with ♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da da ♪ ♪ Dee dee dee ♪ ♪ Dee dee dee dee dee dee ♪ And originally I added the rhythmic idea of some Afrobeat, and that worked quite well.

I've decided to change my rhythmic idea today into something based around drum loops with hip hop, 'cause I want to take mine into a more modern style.

So I'm going to keep it my drone idea and my vocal call idea, but I'm going to develop that into a slightly different hip hop, which is going to make it a slightly more modern, different feel overall for my new fusion style.

So now it's really clear in my head.

I've decided I want this to be my first section.

This is going to be section A.

I'm going to choose intro, section A, section B.

So I need a small introduction.

Do you know what? I think we're going to come back to that one.

I have section A and section B.

I think it will be clear on what I want my introduction to sound like.

For it to be a minute long, I need eight bars.

So, I need to take my drone.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da da da ♪ How many bars is that? One, two, three.

♪ Doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Three, three ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo ♪ All right, so that takes me to four bars.

I need to develop my melody, I think, into a full eight, and let's think what I will do.

I've got.

♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Da doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da doo ♪ So I'm going to put a slightly different melodic riff in there.

I'm going to go.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da do ♪ And just repeat it.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da do ♪ So I kept very similar rhythms. I've just moved it up a patch and I've reversed it, so it's coming down.

So here's my full section A now using a drone Indian classical and a Aeolian vocal riff inspired by Afro Celt.

One, two, three.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da do ♪ ♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da do ♪ Okay, and I'm quite happy with that as a section A.

I need to go away and work out how I'm going to record that and make a note of it.

Ready to develop.

Pause the video now and go and get your melodic and harmonic and rhythmic idea that you came up with last week and develop and extend it, so that it is eight bars long.

Enjoy, good luck.

And then when you're finished, press play and we'll carry on with the next part.

Okay, so our second section, our B section, or perhaps your chorus to your verse, depending on the structure you've chosen.

Now, this section B or this separate section in your structure needs to sound different.

So we're developing our composition again.

It can't sound like a whole completely different style, because then the composition would flow nicely from A into B.

So this is what I suggest.

Your task now is to spend time creating a second contrasting section, again, of eight or 12 bars.

I suggest you use the same styles that you've picked before.

So I picked drone Indian influence of vocal Aeolian riff from Afro Celt Sound System, and I've gone for drum hip hop.

I am not going to change those for section B.

I'm going to keep the styles the same, but I'm going to develop the parts.

And here's how I can do it.

Look at the white box on the left-hand side.

So one, keep your chosen styles.

Two, change the drum pattern.

Okay, it's really simple and effective way to make a contrasting section.

If you change the rhythmic part, so, again, of the same style, but you pick a different rhythmic riff and put that into the B section, then it will sound contrasting.

Three, find a different starting note for your harmonic and melodic idea.

So one way that you could do it is you develop the harmonic line.

I started on a drone on F.

Maybe for my section B, I move that drone to C.

Now before, I changed the melodic idea based on my harmonic change.

So if I change my drone to C, if I want the notes to harmonise, to think of notes and chords that fit with my C drone.

If you get stuck with ideas, and that happens, so don't worry at all.

If you are struggling to think of another part, try and think of your ideas as riffs.

Riffs repeat.

You can then reverse them.

Perhaps you take a riff, and you just make another.

And that's really simple way of developing your idea.

You can reverse it.

Okay, so if you get really stuck, find a riff that you like, and then play around and develop that riff until you find the melodic idea that you want for section B.

I'm going to give you a demonstration now of how I would piece together the full one minute new fusion style.

And then you're going to pause the video and you're going to go away and complete your task.

Right, so I am, again, going to use a piece of audio mixing software to record my parts.

There are so many ways you can do it.

If you don't want to use a piece of software like this, you could record your piano part or your harmonic line into your phone.

You could then sing over the top while that harmonic line is playing.

And then you could layer some beatboxing over the top.

Perhaps you record yourself playing the piano or another instrument, and you record that into your part, and then you perform some body percussion over the top.

Okay, you don't have to use audio mixing software.

I just think it's a really clever way of seeing the structure that you've laid out.

So, I've already put in my hip hop drum pattern.

Let me show you.

Oh, I've got section A, eight bars long, section B, eight bars long, and then I've got my little intro, and then I've decided to put a little outro on the end as well, but I think I'm going to make those both the same, so there's no new development in this one.

So, let's have a listen to my intro.

At the moment, this is monophonic, because it's the drum part on its own.

And then my drum pattern for section A.

And then if we skip, you can hear that my drum pattern for section B is still a new soul.

So it's the same hip hop style, but I've changed the pattern's beat.

And then for my outro, I go back to that rhythmic idea from before.

Okay, I might keep this as monophonic.

I might add something to it, but let's focus on section A first.

So I've got.

And I'm going to add a voice recording part for my Aeolian mode, and I'm going to add another track to record my piano.

Okay, so let's put my drone in first.

I'm going to put the drone I used before.

And I'm going to have that play along all the way through my section A.

So I click record.

Three, four.

Okay, and there is my drone.

Let's hear it with the drum beat.

Three, four.

Oh, do you know what? I have recorded myself saying, "Three, four." Three, four.

And I want that loop to fall exactly on it.

If you right click using this, it's slighted it, so I can cut off just the part I don't want.

So I want to right-click, slice, take off me doing my count down, and let's see if this is fine.

I'm going to shuffle that up.

Let's see if that fits.

I might want to record that again.

I won't do it now, because this is a demonstration, but for timing and to make sure my parts fit, I would want to maybe record that to get that drone sound a bit more in time.

Okay, so now I'm working monophonic.

Polyphonic, two different parts, and I'm going to record my vocal line with this.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da do ♪ Okay, so let's click on this track.

I hit Record.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da do ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo ♪ And now I'm getting into section B.

Okay, now my vocal line starts just before, which I quite like.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da do ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo ♪ All right, and now we are in section B.

Time to develop.

So you'll spend more time thinking about this, but what I've decided to do for section B is I'm going to keep my vocal riff around the Aeolian scale, but obviously change the notes.

I've decided I'm going to keep the same F, but I'm going to change my harmonic feature by putting some of the simple chords over the top, which is like the synth pad sound in Afro Celt Sound System.

Yeah, that sounds better.

So let's record that along with my section B drums. and there I am.

I'm getting into my outro.

So I've kept the same note or drone.

I've just decided to put some chords over the top.

Let's listen.

Again, I took the notes that fall into the same Aeolian scale that I'm taking my vocals from.

I'm just moving this, 'cause I think it's a little out of time.

Okay, again, you're going to spend more time filling with your recording, making sure it all sounds in time or practising this as a finished performance.

Now let's put my vocal line over the top.

Now I'm going to take inspiration still from Afro Celt Sound System, still around the Aeolian mode, but I'm going to pick different notes from that scale for my vocal riff.

So let's just experiment.

♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo ♪ Okay, I quite like that.

So I've done a bit of call and response as well, which is nice to have in a composition.

If you're thinking of things to do to develop, you can do some call and response.

Let's record that.

♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo ♪ Okay, let's just take that little bit that's hanging over into my outro, or do you know what? I think I'm going to play this chord with this outro as well, 'cause I think that might be a nice way to finish it.

Let's click Record.

♪ Doo doo doo doo ♪ Okay, and I have one minute 12, and our brief is a minute.

Now I would tighten this up.

I think this part's a little out of time, but just to show you the full minute, I've got intro, section A, section B, and a little outro at the end.

Let's have a listen.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da da da ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo ♪ Okay, and there's my finished a minute long piece.

So I would type in my name, new fusion if you come up with a song, sorry, a title that you want for your song, brilliant.

And then you go File, Download, and then Mixdown, and you can create it as an MP3 to share.

Okay, well done everyone.

Now, what you need to do is go ahead and pause the video.

Think about all those components.

And we're aiming for a one minute piece that's got at least two different traditions together, focusing on melodic harmonic and rhythmic ideas.

And see if you have a performance or a recording ready.

I know you can do this, and I'm excited to see what you come up with.

Take as much time as you need.

It's really important with a composition.

It takes a while.

It's a process.

And please go and share it.

I've really enjoyed teaching the lessons for this fusion unit.

And I hope you've enjoyed watching them and taking part in the activities as well.

Please do go on and take the final quiz, so that I can see everything you've learned around compositional techniques.

And please go and share your brilliant composition.

Well done, everyone.

Take care, and I'll see you in the next lesson.

Bye.