Lesson video

Hi everyone, I'm Miss Friar, and I'm going to be your music teacher for Lesson 4 of Unit 7, which is looking at fusion music.

Music, that's from all around the world of different cultures and how they've come together to create new genres.

I don't know about you, but I have had the tango rhythms stuck in my head since our last lesson.

But I love tango music, so that's not bad thing.

I hope that you enjoyed having a go at creating your own electrotango fusion music on an audio mixing software.

And I hope you shared them with somebody.

Remember music is to be shared.

Right, let's get straight into our activity for today's lesson.

We're still having a look at tango, but something a little bit different.

Our activity to start today's lesson is going to be a listening activity.

I've got my flute, and I'm going to be playing for you, a basic scale of C.

Here it is.

Okay, the eight notes of the C scale, C and up.

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C.

Your challenge is to see if you spot me adding an extra note that doesn't quite fit.

That note is called a chromatic note.

So we'll do a practise one first.

I want you to tell me, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, which numbered note, can you hear doesn't sound like it belongs to the C major scale? So it's going to be the chromatic note, Here we go.

Could you hear which one it was? It wasn't fact the eighth note, the last note I played was a C sharp instead of a C.

So I sharpened it, which made it chromatic.

Okay, let's try another one.

Remember which number.

Count the notes up, as you go.

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C.

And then, think of which number note is the one that I've made chromatic.

Here we go.

Let's think about it.

Have you got the number? It was the fourth note, I had made the F, and F sharp.

C, D, E, F sharp, C-D-E-F sharp.

The fourth note.

Let's do one more.

You must've got that one.

It was the seventh note.

The one just before C at the top.

C-D-E-F-G-A.

And then I flattened the B, I made it a B flat.

It doesn't sound like it belongs to it and then finished on C at the top.

So the seventh note was chromatic.

Well done.

We're really starting to tune our ears in now with a listening activity like that.

And recognising chromatic notes is not necessarily an easy thing to do.

Keep that in your mind, because we're going to look at chromatic notes a bit later on in today's lesson.

Right, let's have a look and see what we need for our resources today.

It's time to get everything we need all the resources so that we can have a really good start to today's lesson.

You're going to need a piece of paper or a booklet to write your answers in.

You're going to need a pencil, and I suggest a different coloured pen so that you can make any corrections and mark your work.

And you're going to need to be ready for our creative music part of the lesson to either use your voice, an instrument of your choice, could be a keyboard or a different instrument, and you've got the choice of using an app.

And we will primarily be using a keyboard app today.

And there are multiple ones to choose from, whether it be Apple or Android.

If you need any of these things, pause the video now, and then come back, play, and we'll start the rest of the lesson.

Okay, let's go through our plan for today's lesson.

First on the agenda is that we're going to explore texture in tango music.

And we're going to talk a bit about what texture means in music in general.

And we're going to make sure that you understand exactly what chromatic passing notes are.

There are a particular type of notes used within the context of melodies.

And we're going to have a go at understanding and identifying them today.

Then you're going to have a go at making your own tango style melody and then performing that in a complete electrotango style.

Right, lots to do.

Let's get started.

First task today, we're going to listen to a piece of music called La Viguela, by the Gotan Project.

These are very famous band of electrotango music.

Have a read through the questions on the left hand side of the screen.

And then we're going to listen to a clip and answer those questions.

Pause the video and take the time you need, to make sure you've read through and really understand those questions.

Okay, let's listen to the clip and keep these questions in mind while we do so.

Take the time you need to answer those four questions and then we'll go through the answers together.

Okay, different coloured pen ready.

Let's go through these.

One, what style of music is this? Hopefully you recognise this from the previous lesson.

We've done around tango music.

This is the more modern version.

So the style is electrotango.

Well done if you got that right.

Number two, what are layers in music? So this was a general question.

What do we call, when there are layers within music? It is the different parts that you can hear playing and how they play together.

Three, how many different parts could you hear in that short extract of La Viguela? There are three main parts that you can hear playing alongside each other.

And then could you name the instruments you could hear? They were, guitar, which is from the string family, bandoneon, which is like accordion, but specific to tango.

And that's from the concertina family.

And there was a drum machine, which is through music software, so piece of technology.

Important fact, when you can hit multiple layers, playing different parts, it means the texture is polyphonic.

Polyphonic is really key word, especially for electrotango music.

In electrictango music, all the different parts although playing together at the same time, are playing very different notes or rhythms or musical ideas.

They dance together in a really unique way, which I think is one of the reasons that there is a, an actual paired dance that goes with this style of music.

Really interesting to listen to.

Other textures that you can hear in music is for example, monophonic.

Mono meaning one, so that could be, you could hear just one instrument playing.

Or melody and accompaniment.

Which means there's a main tune, and then there was an accompaniment part underneath.

Take any of those you got right, well done if you did.

Make any notes on your piece of paper, it will help you remember for next time.

Okay, now it's time to have a look at chromatic passing notes and what they are.

First task, on the screen is a A harmonic minor scale.

What I want you to do is to write the note names out for this scale.

So underneath each semi brief note, you're going to write the note name of what it is on that musical stave.

If you have the worksheet, just go ahead and write it underneath straight away.

If not, draw out this stave, these notes are really important for when we go on to doing our own composition.

So don't worry about pausing the video and taking your time to do that.

Once you've completed that your question is what is a passing note? Just in case some of you already have an idea of what it might mean.

Or, if you're not sure, take a guess, think about what passing note might be in a melody.

You might just be right.

Pause the video now and complete both tasks.

First of all, here are the notes that A harmonic minor scale.

Is an A harmonic minor scale.

So we know it's going to start and end on A.

It follows through the notes of the keyboard, A-B-C-D-E-F-G sharp, is really important for it to be a minor scale.

And then finishing with A at the top.

Well done if you've got all of those notes right.

Correct if you weren't sure that any of them, like I said, we're really going to need to know these notes ready for composing our tango style melody.

I'm interested to see what you wrote for what is a passing note.

Here's the definition.

A passing note is a note that can be fitted in between two other notes.

If you didn't get that definition, please write it down.

If you've got a very similar concept well done.

So the idea of thinking about what are the notes that fit in between the notes within the melody, and we're going to explore exactly what that means, now.

Okay, great, well done.

Let's start looking at some examples of chromatic notes within scales.

I've got three notes in front of you here.

D, D sharp and E.

I've also given you a keyboard above, just in case you can use this as a helpful reference to answer this question.

Which is the passing note, and why? Which out of these three notes, D, D sharp and E do you think is the passing note, and why? Right, hopefully you've got your answer now.

The passing note is D sharp.

Because, D is right next to E on the notes of the piano or the notes of the stave.

But you can make a chromatic note in between it, one of the black keys by either flattening or sharpening the note.

D sharp and E flat, mean the same thing.

So there is a chromatic note in between D and E.

And so that is the passing note.

If you've got that, well done.

Let's have a listen to a few more examples.

Right, so there are three melodies on the left hand side of the screen.

We're going to see if you can spot the chromatic note in this melody.

So if you've got the worksheet, you're going to circle the notes that you think, if you haven't, then you're just going to list them on your sheet.

I will play the, A harmonic minor scale.

Because we're going to use that as a reference.

So the notes that we expect to hear in the melodies, because they are based around the, A harmonic minor scale, are A B C D E F G sharp and A.

So they are the notes that we expect to hear throughout these melodies.

A tip, a way of recognising could be, if they've got an accidental.

Remember our D sharp? That could be a clue for some of the notes that to spot to be the chromatic passing note.

Okay, here is the first melody, the top one.

Which of these notes is a chromatic passing note? I'll play it again.

So are there, write each one down, or on your worksheet circle which one you think it is.

Okay, here's the second melody.

Which of these notes is the chromatic passing note.

Remember use the A harmonic scale as a reference.

That will really help you work out, which ones that will really help you work out, which ones are the chromatic passing notes.

Cause they may not be in the scale.

And here is melody idea number three.

That one sounds really chromatic.

It sounds like it's going up stairs.

If you need to pause the video and give yourself more time to try and work out the chromatic passing notes, please do so now, otherwise let's go to the answers together.

So for the top melody, the chromatic passing note is, the D sharp.

The D, we know belongs to this scale.

But they've sharpened this note because it belongs between D and E.

Just like in the example from before.

So well done, if you got that one.

In the second melody our chromatic passing note was F sharp.

Well done if you got that.

We expect to hear F, but this time they've sharpened the F sharp, which makes it a chromatic note in between the E and the G sharp that we would expect to hear within the A harmonic scale to this melody.

And the third one, we have, C sharp, and D sharp.

So there was two chromatic passing notes in this passage, which is why it sounded really chromatic.

And it had that up the stairs kind of sound.

Great, well done.

Hopefully you're starting to understand how a composer will put in extra passing notes to give it a really chromatic feel.

And this composition technique is often used in tango style pieces.

Right, let's go on to that.

Let's go onto composing our own tango style melody.

The first thing you're going to need to do is to go and get the 4 bar rhythm, that you created in the last lesson.

If you haven't done the last lesson on tango music yet, don't worry.

All you need to do is either copy out this grid and put in notes to create a , to create a syncopated rhythm.

So falling on the and, some of the notes need to fall on the and boxes for it to be syncopated.

If you don't feel particularly confident with that, don't worry.

You can just go now use the rhythm that I've got here and go on to compose your own melody.

So pause the video now to either go and get your rhythm that you created in the last lesson to either copy out the grid and write your own 4 bar tango rhythm, or to copy out the grid and use my tango rhythm.

Off you go.

Okay, first thing we need to do before we can start thinking about adding any kind pitches is we need to remember exactly what this rhythm sounds like.

Cause we're going to put notes to them and that's the starting building block to creating our tango rhythm.

So my rhythm sounds like this, bar one one two three four.

Bar three, bar four.

So I need to really have that rhythm in my mind and then start thinking about the pictures to add to it.

And then my melody starts to come alive.

Okay, we're going to use that A harmonic minor scale, because we're really familiar with that now.

And they quite often use, and minor scales are often used in tango music.

What you need to do now is the need to add an additional row or make sure that you've left some space so that underneath the notes of your rhythm, we can now start to add some of the notes of the A harmonic scale.

Top tip, absolute must is to start on A and I suggest that you end on A, when you get to the end of your four bars.

It means that we've really established the key.

We know we want it to be in A minor and by finishing on A we'll tell the listener or the dancer that this is the end of the melody.

So here's my example of the first two bars and notes that I've put to it.

Okay, here we go.

One, two, three, four.

Now you can see, I haven't used very many notes.

In fact, I've only used three and I repeat A quite a lot.

Can you think why? One of the biggest reasons I've used A lot is because we want our melodies to be memorable and repeating notes or phrases makes it memorable.

You also want to use notes that are quite close together.

That's called stepwise motion.

A bit like when we listened to that chromatic melody, it sounded like it was going up the stairs.

All those notes are close together.

So are the notes in my melody.

And I just go down to G sharp, Back up to A, I got one note, And repeat A.

it makes it really singable, and it makes it nice and easy to play and the melody flows.

If you pick notes that jump all over the place, you're not going to get that same phrasing that we're looking for in tango melody.

It could sound like this, Which isn't that same lyrical melody that we're looking for.

It sounds a bit all over the place.

So you use notes.

That would stepwise motion and close to one another.

Okay, time for yoga.

Composing your own 4 bar tango melody.

Let's just recap the top tips again, use the notes of the, A harmonic minor scale.

You should have that written on your piece of paper already, start and end on A, use notes that are in a stepwise motion.

So are close to one another in the scale, and don't forget to use some chromatic passing notes.

Do you want to use some notes that fall in between the notes of the scale? A bit like the C-sharp and the F sharp and the D sharp, used in the example from before.

Challenge or an extension is once you've composed four bars, if you think you can do more, definitely extend it and go ahead and create your own eight bar melody.

Here I've got a backing track for you, that uses cords from the A harmonic minor scale.

You can use this to play along to your own 4 bar tango melody.

Let's listen to that now.

Now that backing track is eight bars long.

If you're writing just a 4 bar melody, absolutely fine.

You're going to use just the first half of that backing track.

I'll show you an example now.

So that's four bars.

I used a similar rhythm to I create it.

That was my same first two bars.

And I included some chromatic notes.

G sharp, C sharp, And then landed on A.

Rewind the video as many times as you like to hear that chord progression to play along too.

Good luck, of you go.

Right, welcome back, I hope you're happy with your four or eight bar tango melodies, please record those.

Record them on somebody's phone or get somebody else to record it for you.

Share it with your teacher.

I'm sure they sound great with all those chromatic passing notes that you've used, well done.

Time for the last part of today's lesson, where you're going to take that, and you're going to perform your own piece in the style of electrotango, which is the fusion we've been looking at.

How can we take that tango style melody that you've created and modernise it? Okay.

Let's look at our performance options and how we are going to turn this from just a tango style melody into a complete electrotango style piece.

Now, hopefully you remember what is the main style that was fused with tango to create that more modern electrotango? Tell me, or write it in your sheet or your worksheet in five, four, three, two, one.

Yes, hopefully you got that it is the drumbeat.

Okay, well as some of the synthesised sounds and sampling.

The main reason that it was modernised and made more interesting for younger generations is they take an electronic music software, or dance pop style drum beat with tango melodies and other instruments like that.

Like the Gotan Project, listened to earlier and La Viguela.

So I created for you, and let's have a quick listen to it, a short electronic drum pattern that you could play along to, to create your electrotango piece.

So here it is.

Okay, and it goes on like that.

A simple, more modern it's almost always got sort of like a hip hop electronic feel to it.

And you can use that to create our electrotango piece today.

Let's somebody, let's have a read through some of those options.

You could play your melody on your choice of instrument, along with the chords.

So you could either use the chords that are recorded here, Or I've got some other options for you.

This is Ms. , a great music teacher also with , she plays the accordion and yes, we know commonly, the bandoneon is used in tango music, but I thought it would be brilliant to have a professional musician, play more of an authentic instrument, like the accordion for you to play along with your performance today.

So let me demonstrate how you might do that.

So, I'm going to use the flute.

The flute, was also used in tango music.

So my fusion is going to be quite authentic right now.

So it's flute, it's a tango style melody with a accordion, chord progression.

Let me show you how you could play your eight bar melody on your instrument with Ms. Chariton on the accordion.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Great, so there you've got my 8 bar melody demonstration.

There Ms. Chariton and then the eight bars in a tango style with them.

And then the second time she played it through just then, she played them as held accord.

So if you find it easier to play your melody, with just cords that are four beats long.

Then you can use that as your backing track to pay your melody along with that on your instrument or on the keyboard or piano, or maybe even have a go at singing.

The other, maybe more advanced performance challenge is if you were to have a go at playing the chords yourself.

If you do, you can pause the video at this stage and use these chords written out to go and practise them on the piano.

Perhaps you even have a go at recording them alongside the drum beat.

Maybe you go on to a phone app or another kind of app or piece of audio software online and create your own electronic drum pattern and play the chords in while singing your melody.

There are so many different compositional ways that you could create your own electrotango.

Let me just show you how you how could play melody along with the drum backing track, because then we're really getting into the electrotango style.

Here we go.

It's the same melody that I played before, but with a drumbeat as in, modern style.

One two three four Oh, I had a bar left there, without much of a beat because I counted in first, but you can time it.

I am really excited to hear about which option you chose to record your melody today.

Be really creative, stretch yourself, think of the different ways that you could record this.

And don't forget, it's a performance so go and share it with somebody in your house or send the recording into your teacher.

Pause the video now, and go and have a go at recording or brilliant electrotango performance.

I hope you've enjoyed today's lesson.

I've certainly enjoyed myself playing the flute through all of those different options of recording a tango style melody with an electronic drum beat.

Remember to share your work, music is to be shared.

And don't forget to go and take the quiz to show us everything that you've learned about the electrotango style and how all the different parts dance together just like the pair dance does.

Well done today, and I'll see you for the next lesson.

Take care, bye.