Lesson video

Hi, everyone.

I'm Ms. Friar.

And welcome to the last lesson of our film unit.

I'm really excited to take you through this lesson today.

We have covered so much exploring the incredible music for stage and screen and to finish off, we're going to have a look at how we can take our leitmotifs a step further and create different moods using music for our characters.

Okay, let's get started.

So we are starting today's lesson by talking all about moods in music.

And I am a big believer that music can have a huge impact on the mood of what we watch, what we do, our memories, our thoughts, and it's really important, we sometimes just sit down and reflect on that as music lovers and as musicians.

So what mood are you in right now? What mood were you in this morning? Do you know why you were in that mood? So many things in our lives around us, how we're feeling can affect our mood, not just day to day or week to week, but morning to afternoon or hour to hour.

And that's why it's really important every now and again, to just check in with that.

I know when I am really stressed or need to relax, I like to listen to some old school soul or some jazz.

One of my favourites is Living on Rose by Louis Armstrong or some old school McThomas.

So, you know, I've just found what style of music works for me when I need to listen to something to unwind.

On the flip side of that, when I want to go for a run or I want to do something energetic, I will listen to a very different style of music.

In fact, I listened to this style of music that I'm going to play for you in a moment.

It's called On My Mind by Jorja Smith.

And this is a great remix of it.

And the beats and the feel and the tempo of this song definitely gets me energised for running.

And that's I think why so many people listen to music while they're doing things like exercise, etc.

Do you have a song or sort of music that you like to listen to when you're sad or stressed or happy? You should definitely take time to think about that and find out what you like and reflect on how it makes you feel.

Music is there to make us feel.

Here's that song I was telling you about by Jorja Smith.

♪ Mind, mind, you think I would ♪ ♪ Mind, you think I would, mind ♪ ♪ Mind, you think I would mind ♪ ♪ Oh, you think I, oh, my mind ♪ ♪ Mind, mind, you think I would ♪ ♪ Mind, you think I would, mind ♪ ♪ Mind, you think I would mind ♪ ♪ Oh, you think I, oh, my mind ♪ ♪ I finally found what went wrong ♪ ♪ You think I would mind ♪ ♪ Oh, you think I, oh ♪ ♪ I finally found the wrong in you ♪ ♪ You think I would mind ♪ ♪ Oh, you think I, oh ♪ ♪ I finally found what went wrong ♪ ♪ You think I would mind ♪ ♪ Oh, you think I, oh ♪ ♪ Mind, mind, you think I would ♪ ♪ Mind, you think I would, mind ♪ ♪ Mind, you think I would mind ♪ ♪ Oh, you think I, oh, my mind ♪ Now that might not be the style of music that you listen to while you're running.

You maybe listened to rock or hip hop or something completely different.

Thank you for listening to one of my favourite pieces of music.

I said it's really important we take the time to check in with our emotions and listen to music and think about how it makes you feel.

It's proven psychology to show that music has the ability to evoke powerful emotional responses, such as chills and thrills in listeners, especially in certain types of film, which we've been exploring in this unit.

Great.

Let's have a look at what you need to get ready for today's lesson.

So these are the things you're going to need to go and grab.

If you haven't got them already.

You're going to need a piece of paper or an exercise book to write on.

You're going to need a pen, a pencil, and a different coloured pen for marking and annotating.

And you're going to need either access to a keyboard or a piano or a keyboard app on an electronic device.

Pause the video now and go and get any of those things.

Otherwise, let's get started and look at our agenda for today.

The first thing we're going to do in our lesson today is have a look at how you can successfully change melodic ideas.

We're looking specifically at leitmotifs, but in general, how can you develop melodies? We're going to do the same for rhythmic ideas and harmonic ideas.

So tackling three important elements there.

And then you're going to use that melodic, rhythmic and harmonic development to look at leitmotif and how you can change that to reflect two different moods.

Now there's one composer that we have to talk about, and that is John Williams. The guy on your screen.

He is an absolutely incredible film composer.

And if you haven't heard of him, you will have definitely seen his films and admired his music.

He has written music for so many absolutely epic films. He did the X-Men series.

He did the original Superman theme.

He was the writer of Jaws, the writer for E.

T.

, Indiana Jones, the full series for those.

Star Wars, as we know, and also Harry Potter.

And that's what we're going to look at now.

He is the most Oscar nominated composer on the planet.

And he has won 25 Grammy awards.

And that's just a small idea of the kind of awards and achievements that he has had through composing film music.

Okay, let's have a look at the Family theme from Harry Potter.

There was no better place to look than the melodic themes and ideas that John Williams creates for his amazing film masterpieces.

One in particular is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The reason this is such a popular piece of music is because it is built up of so many different melodic themes.

Every character has their own.

Gryffindor has one.

Ron has one, Lord Voldemort has one.

There's a Family theme, which we're going to look into.

And I think that's one reason this piece of music is just so magical is that there's all these melodic ideas and leitmotifs for characters.

And then you hear it change throughout the story of the film.

And it makes us as audience have an emotional connection.

That's what music does.

That's what we're exploring today.

So I'm just going to play for you, the family theme and give you a little example of how it's used in different ways.

The first time we hear the family theme, this is it.

And you can see I notated that at the bottom of the screen.

So here it is again.

I mean, so simple a melody, but I think one of the reasons it is so beautiful is 'cause it's lyrical and it's so singable.

So the first time we hear it in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is he, it's his first night or Hogwarts he's arrived.

And he has sat at the window with Hedwig and he appears very lonely.

And I think the reason for that is it's supposed to reflect the fact that he's an orphan and he doesn't have any family and he's kind of come to Hogwarts on his own.

And he's feeling very alone in that moment.

So you don't really hear it.

It's just a piano and a string sound on its own.

It's played very slowly.

With very little accompaniment under, maybe some held notes.

The biggest change that we heard is, is right at the end of the film, and he is getting on the train from Hogwarts back home.

And he's getting on the train and he's waving Hedwig goodbye.

And he's getting on with Ron and Hermione.

And that is a much larger sound.

It's a full orchestra, it's quicker.

And I think that's supposed to reflect the fact that Harry now has a family and he's not on his own.

And hearing that melody comes back is good for the listener 'cause it feels like we've gone with Harry on his journey from being an orphan to having this family.

So that is with a big extreme sound.

So it's much bolder.

There's lots of strings.

That's just the string part, but there's a full orchestra playing and it definitely has a reflective, but more optimistic ending.

And like I said, I think it's taking Harry on that journey.

Let's look.

Let's look at how we can manipulate this tune melodically with some other ideas.

Okay, melodic development.

Here is where you change the pitch and the structure of the melody when it is repeated.

And I've got three suggestions here.

The first one is stepwise or leap.

And that is in relation to whether the notes are really close together or far apart.

Stepwise motion is when the pictures are close together.

It's what makes melodies singable.

While leaps often grab the listener's attention.

Melodic cells is when you take parts of the melody and put them into smaller musical ideas and then development.

So you can maybe take two bars or a three note idea or half the melody and then manipulate or repeat it.

Sequencing is when you repeat a motif or a longer melodic or harmonic phrase at a higher or lower pitch in the same part.

Let me demonstrate all these three melodic ideas for you now.

So the first one that we looked at is stepwise or leaping.

So we can change the intervals, the gaps between the pitches.

Now the original Family theme is already in stepwise motion.

Feel the words so very close together.

Following the notes of the scale.

We could manipulate that and take the first part, but then leap up to some other notes.

So.

Same as before, but I'm going to leap up.

Same notes that are in that original Family theme, but I've just leaked and I've got more gaps between the notes.

That's one way that you can change a leitmotif to change the mood.

The other one we looked at is melodic cells, taking parts of the original leitmotif and changing it up.

So I'm going to take the first and the third bar of the Family theme.

So again, it's just taking parts of the leitmotif and I'm playing them in a slightly different pattern.

This leads really well onto sequencing because if I take the notes A, B, C sharp, and pick up A, B.

It's the same approach at melody but I'm moving it in pitch.

Have I moved up or down? Here it is again.

Have I moved the melodic cell up a pitch or down a pitch? I've moved it down.

'Cause we start on A.

Go down to G sharp.

You could go one further.

You keep going the whole sequence, if you want to do.

And that's using a sequence.

So this is the original theme.

Here's the sequence.

So you can tell it belongs to the same theme and idea.

We've just changed the melodic structure.

Why don't you take the notes of the Family theme? They're there on your screen and have a go at trying some of those melodic development ideas.

So put some leaks between the notes there, try moving them into a sequence, either higher or lower and maybe take just parts of the notes or parts of the bars and move them around and see how the theme changes.

Spend a good five minutes playing around with that.

So you can see what it's like to compose with different melodic ideas.

Off you go.

Okay, now we've looked at melody, time to focus on rhythm.

Rhythmic development is when you change the short and long patterns in a musical idea.

The first way you can do that is through diminution or ornamentation.

You may not have heard of those words before, but you will have heard composers using the technique.

Dimunition is when a rhythm is repeated with the note values halved.

So the notes are shorter.

Augmentation is what a rhythm is repeated but with the note values doubled, which doubles the length of the idea.

Straight to swung.

Straight rhythms will feel on the pulse.

For example, two quavers to one beat.

One, two, three, four.

Swung rhythms have a syncopated feel because it follows a long short pattern.

For example, two quavers, which are like daaaahhh dah.

Daaaahhh dah dah dah dah dah dah.

You can see that the notation of how it's written out.

Long, short, long, short.

Adding rests is like it says.

Where you replace some pictures from the original melody, but with rests or silences.

Brilliant example of how to take a theme and manipulate it through rhythmic development and harmonic development is Ellie's theme from the Disney Pixar film Up.

Michael Giacchino, the brilliant film composer said that he based pretty much the entire score and this song on one chord.

And that chord was F major.

But he decided to put the seventh on top, which is that E, I'll just show you.

So the F and the E on top.

And he said the reason he did that is because the seventh of top gives it that just touch of sadness and reflection.

So have your major chord.

That seventh on top just changes the tone and the mood ever so slightly.

So clever.

So what he does with this is he takes Ellie's theme, which originally sounds like this.

It takes the original theme and he does different things with it to change the mood of what's happening with the characters.

So for instance, augmentation where you make the theme sound slower because you put longer notes in there is used when she's in the hospital.

And then when she sat outside in the front.

From Carlton, 'cause she suddenly realises that she can't have children.

Classic Disney.

There is always an upsetting moment at some point.

So I'll play you just that part.

So it slows right out.

Okay, so that's when Ellie is in the hospital.

The theme then comes back, but the chords are much slower.

They've been all augmented.

And so have this melody.

And this is when Ellie sat on her own out in the front garden.

Now at this point, Frederickson comes out with their adventure book.

And shows it to Ellie to cheer her up to say, okay, I know you're really sad right now, but let's plan our amazing adventures and tries to put her in a better mood.

So more chords come back.

The rhythm increases, which means dimunition.

So there's more quavers and it becomes more uptempo again.

In fact, Michael Giacchino even puts in some triplets and some semi quaver runs just to show the more upbeat rhythm when he changes the mood for Ellie.

So I'll play you that part.

So, as you can see, it's got, it feels like a more upbeat tempo just because the rhythm's been changed in it.

And we're back to chords rather than the how chords.

Which is a different mood too.

So there's few that will runs that change of tempo and um cha cha coming back shows you that Ellie's mood has been lifted.

And it also shows us how important music is to things like animation and other film music.

Okay, so for this composition pause point, what you're going to do is you're going to take Ellie's theme, the pictures in Ellie's theme, but put your own rhythm to it.

So rhythmic development.

I'm going to give you a demonstration now of augmentation.

So I'm going to put a longer note lens in there, and I'm also going to put some rests in.

And that will slow down the pace and change the mood to I think maybe a softer mood, even a sadder mood.

So, here, so the notes, as they are.

Now really think about the rhythm I want to put in here.

Completely changes the mood of that leitmotif.

Sounds much more like the sadder moments that you see in the married life intro of the film.

You could do the complete opposite to that and use diminution and add lots of rhythms and triplets and quavers.

And you can leap around and do the opposite and completely changed the mood in another way.

So you have a play with the Ellie theme now, and think about how you can change the rhythm, the long and short patterns of those pitches to change the mood of the theme.

Great, melody done, rhythm done.

Now let's look at harmony.

Harmonic development is when you change the system of chords to change the mood of the character.

One way you can do this is by looking at the intervals, the gaps between the pitches in a melody.

Each falls are the distance between two pitches.

If you change the size of the intervals in melodies, it changes the mood of the melody.

So here's an interval.

That's an interval of a fifth.

A perfect fifth.

If I change the gap between that interval.

That's for my third.

It changes the mood.

This one, this one.

So just changing the intervals can change the mood of your character.

Developing chord ideas is when you develop something like the accompaniment part.

You could take your original chord and maybe add chromatic notes.

That's my C major chord.

I'm going to have chromatic notes.

That doesn't belong to the chord.

Neither does that by.

And I've got a chromatic chord.

Chord extensions is when you take your original cord, but then put note seven, note nine or note 11 even, on top.

One, three, five.

Seven, nine and so on.

Clashing chords is when you play dissonance note clusters.

So I'll still put C in.

So it's still got the notes from C in it, but there are other dissonant notes in it.

So it sounds like a clashing cord.

Completely different mood too.

C major, clashing a dissonant chord.

The pause point now is to see if you can have a go at putting some other harmonic devices or changes into your leitmotif to change the mood.

Take the Family theme again.

Changing the intervals in that melody so that it changes the mood.

So.

So by flattening that third note, I already have changed the mood.

It's not as positive.

And again, I'll put a larger interval.

Between this So similar rhythm ut I've changed the intervals.

And so it's changed the harmony.

Now I'm going to put some clashing chords underneath it or dissonant chords underneath it.

So.

You can hear that it's still based around that Family theme.

But if you were to hear that again, you would wonder what was wrong with Harry.

It would sound like that melodic idea, his leitmotif is sounding a bit off.

And those doing those kinds of things as a composer really makes the listener or an audience think, Oh, I've heard that melody somewhere before, but it doesn't sound right.

And that makes you wonder whether the character's all right.

So take the Family theme idea and change the intervals and have a go at putting some unusual harmonic chords.

Final part of the lesson and the main composition task for you.

Developing your hero leitmotif for two scenes in which your heroes mood changes.

Scene one, your hero is introduced and saves a family from a car crash.

Scene two, you hero is injured in a fight scene and the audience are not sure if they are going to be okay.

So your hero is going to feel very different moods from scene one to scene two.

How can you show that in music? Scene one is your original heroic leitmotif from the last lesson.

Really punchy, lots of triplet rhythms and rising in pitch.

Scene two, you want to change the notes in the melody, such as augmentation or rhythm patterns like triplets to quavers.

Also, you can consider your harmony by maybe adding some clashing chords or changing the notes and the intervals in your original leitmotif.

I'm going to show you an example.

And then you need to pause the video and take a good 20 minutes to come up with how you are going to develop your original leitmotif for the change of mood.

So your brief is to take your heroic leitmotif that you created in our last lesson.

And change, develop that depending on the mood of your character.

And I gave you two scenarios.

The first one is the introduction to your hero.

You see him saving a family from a car crash.

So that needs to be really heroic, practising the one you made last lesson.

So that's my original leitmotif.

Heroic, triplets, quite loud dynamic.

Now what I want to do is I need to change the mood of my hero.

They are injured, and I want the audience to feel worried about how they are, if they're going to make it and feel the mood or the emotion that the character is feeling.

So I want some dissonant chords.

I want some notes that don't belong to the key, and I'm going to change the intervals in my leitmotif.

I might keep the rhythm similar, but you're going to spend more time playing around with this and really thinking about what you want the second mood to sound like, and to use some of the devices that we've looked at today.

A good 20 minutes you're going to spend, but.

I'm going to take, instead of my huddle, I'm going to take my chord.

And put another clashing note on top of that.

And I'm going to slow the rhythm down slightly.

So I'm going to augment my rhythm slightly.

So it's not.

So something like this.

So very similar notes in terms of it's still based around.

F.

I've just put in chromatic notes, dissonant notes and slow the tempo down slightly.

And I've changed my interval in the middle of my leitmotif because that makes it sound really uncertain.

So we've got triplet, but there's a long way before it.

So have a go.

I want your original leitmotif, really heroic, positive mood.

And then your heroes mood needs to change depending on the scene.

I said that they are injured and you want to worry your audience.

And you want them to feel the change of mood in your character.

Good 20 minutes really working on this.

Have fun, off you go.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram and Facebook or Twitter, tagging @oaknational and #learnwithOak.

Well done today, guys, great work.

I'm really hope that you're starting to enjoy composing music to create different moods, but for a specific character.

It shows great skill to be able to use melody in that way.

You should be really proud of the work you've done today.

And through the whole unit, please make sure you record your brilliant work and you share it with teachers or people at home and do go and take the final quiz so that you can show me everything that you've learnt so far.

Enjoy any more of the lessons that you take here with Oak.

Take care.

Bye.