Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome to your music lesson.

I'm Ms Friar.

And I am going to be talking you through lessons six, of our film music unit.

Today, we're going to be looking specifically at the musical elements to reflect certain moods, let's go.

Okay, as always the first thing we're going to do, is make sure you have everything you need, ready at the start of the lesson.

The first thing is a piece of paper or an exercise book, whatever you're using to write some notes.

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

And then for music making today, you want to either grab an instrument of your choice.

Keyboard or piano is always a good option for composing.

You can always do.

You could always use an App.

And, as we've been using in previous lessons, music technology or piece of audio mixing software, is also great to use.

If you need to grab anything on that list, pause the video now, and then come back when you're ready.

There are three parts to our lesson.

The first one is, we're going to recap the musical elements.

Then we're going to have a look at how composers exploit those elements, use those elements to their fullest, when writing music for films. And then, you're going to have a go at doing the same thing, taking the musical elements and thinking right.

How can I use these for this type of film? Okay, let's do our first recap.

So your first task is, can you identify the elements below when you hear them? So I'm going to give you a musical demonstration of these six elements and you just need to tell me as we go along, which one I am showing you.

So here's the first one.

Which one of those musical element titles, was I just demonstrating? So tell me the answer in three, two, one, rhythm.

I was showing you rhythm.

So I, I clapped a pattern of long or short sounds.

It didn't have any pitch.

So it was rhythm.

Well done if you spotted that.

Here's the next one.

I bet you get this one quite quickly.

Tell me or write it down in three, two, one, tempo.

I made the rhythm get quicker.

Great, let's look at the next one.

I'm going to use an app to demonstrate this next musical element.

Here we go.

Which musical element was I demonstrating there? Think about how the sound changed, as your clue, writing it down or telling me in three, two, one instrumentation, good well done if you got that, I used the same melodic idea, or the same chordal idea actually.

And then, I changed the instrument that it was played on.

So I went from, did you hear, I went from piano to strings.

Good, well done.

The next one is, can you identify this musical element? Which musical element is that one? Three, two, one.

It's pitch, yes.

Did you recognise it going up or down? Yes, my notes went up, the strings of the violin, so it went up in pitch, well done.

Here's your next one, Bit trickier that one.

Have a think and think about what's left, from my list and what it could be.

Three, two, one.

I'm looking for sonority, it went from a pizza cartoon snappy, punchy sound on the strings to a long legato, smooth chromatic sound.

Okay, so that was the change of sonority nearly finished with the musical element recap, well done.

So hopefully you have noticed that the last one is dynamics and I used a drum kit.

We started off on a quiet high hat until we crashed into a symbol.

So that was a louder dynamic.

Well done if you recognised all of those, keep those in the back of your mind because we're going to be doing lots of work around those musical elements now.

Now we've been able to recognise them from hearing them.

Do you know the formal definition.

For pitch, read through the options is option one, two, three, or four? It is option one, well done.

Dynamics, Let's fly through this one, two, three or four? it's option two, well done if you got that.

Tempo, is option four.

Yes, The speed of the music and rhythm.

Last but not least is option three the long or short pattern of sounds, well done.

Great recap on it on musical elements.

Let's go on to the second part of our lesson for today, where we are going to have a look at how composers exploit those elements how they use them to really reflect what's happening in a film.

Here's your first listening task.

How does the music change the mood of this video? In a moment you're going to go to the worksheet and have a look at slide two.

There, you're going to watch a clip called Pip.

All around the story of an adorable puppy learning how to become a guide dog.

The reason I thought this clip would be good to use is the composer has done loads of work using musical elements to create the mood of a scene because there is no dialogue.

So the music is showing all of the emotion in this clip.

While watching that video, you're going to answer this question.

How does the composer exploit the following musical elements to change the mood of the scene? And I want you to focus on tempo, the speed, rhythm, the long or short pattern of the notes and the pitch, how high or low the sounds are that you can hear.

Click next activity to access the worksheet.

Write your answer for tempo, rhythm and pitch watching the clip and then come back and we'll go through the answers together.

Okay, let's see if the answers that I've got match yours.

Grab your different coloured pen, and let's go through that now.

So let's talk about tempo.

The tempo of the scene starts slow because it's just setting the scene.

There are times the tempo is pulled around which means it slows down and speeds up and that's to match the action on the screen.

Such as the difference between Pip slowly walking in and then all of a sudden being stopped for his height to be measured.

When Pip starts at school, the tempo is quite moderate.

Okay, It's a medium tempo.

It then slows down again, when the trainer falls over and Pip is looking at the pictures on the mall because he sad that he isn't doing very well.

But then, the tempo speeds up again when he gets a great idea and his mood becomes more positive.

So quite a lot of information there but look for some of the key words in my paragraph and tick off, If you've got similar ideas.

For rhythm, we're looking at the long and short patterns.

So the rhythm starts with long held notes in the piano when he's entering the school.

I think this is to represent pip feeling quite nervous.

When Pip is walking through the school the rhythm changes to short quaver and semiquaver notes in the piano and violins.

The rhythm then changes again into a quick triplet rhythm during the main tune when Pip is in lessons.

So it's changing as the story changes.

when Pip's mood changes though, back to when he's looking at the pictures, the long held notes in the cello comes back to reflect that change of mood.

And for Pip, it basically changes every time Pip's mood changes.

During the lessons, the notes are generally quite high pitched in the main melody in the violin.

But again, when he's sad, because he feels like the lessons aren't going very well, it changes to the lower cello sound when he's standing in the hallway looking at those pictures.

Well done, If you've got any of those ideas or suggestions.

Please pause the video now and write that out If you didn't get those ideas.

it's really good for you to have an example of what musical analysis looks like.

And this is really challenging stuff, so well done, If you recognised these change or these changes of musical elements.

Let's have a go at doing this for a different film clip.

Similar question.

In a moment you're going to pause this video and go to the worksheet looking at slide three.

The question is, describe how the composer has used the following musical elements to reflect the mood of the trailer.

We're going to watch a clip of a trailer for a film called Midway.

It's an action war film all around what happened and the story of Pearl Harbour.

The elements that you're going to focus on for your music analysis for this one is one dynamics, two tempo and three instrumentation.

Pause the video now, click next activity to access the worksheet.

Write your answers down for those three musical elements on your piece of paper.

Come back, press play and we'll go through the answers together.

Welcome back, green pen or different colour pen ready and let's have a look at answers together now.

Oh, for dynamics, thinking about how, how loud or soft the music is.

It definitely starts in piano, which is another word for soft.

It has a drone in a soft dynamic to create suspense.

Then as the action starts to build on the screen planes flying, sirens start going, you see the ships the dynamic comes much louder with a crescendo to the main action of the trailer.

Crescendo meaning, it grows from quiet to loud gradually.

Well done If you've got similar ideas For tempo, it begins freely.

So what that means is there's no set pulse or rhythm that you can hear.

There's just a free tempo.

But then drums come in and start to play in a steady rhythm which makes the music in the background sound like war, and maybe even ticking bombs.

For instrumentation, let's have a look at the sounds and instruments you can hear.

So there's a low electronic drone with a high voice pedal at the start, which makes the mood quite uncertain I think.

Later on, it goes into a high brass and string sound, almost like an alarm and then you can hear there's a ticking sound effect again in the background to represent something's about to happen.

Then you hear low strings and high strings are added in a repetitive ostinato with a snare and bass drum as the actual on the screen grows to the main part of the trailer.

Go through and tick If you've got those ideas pause the video again, to write any of those notes down for future revision.

Well done, really challenging music and analysis there, you should be really proud of the work you've done to look at the musical elements in those clips.

Right, on the last part of today's lesson where we're going to use all that knowledge around how composers use musical elements to have a go, at you creating the music for your own film clip.

You are going to compose an underscore.

Hopefully you remember that word from previous lessons.

Underscore, the music underneath the action to reflect the mood of this film.

This film is a clip from Goosebumps, the movie trailer.

When you pause the video, go to slide 4 of the worksheet.

And these are the 3 criteria I want you to think about when composing your music.

One, think about the musical ideas you're going to use.

Are you going to use drones, ostinatos, note clusters, accents.

Whichever you think would represent the mood you're trying to reflect for this trailer.

Number two, I want you to consider the musical elements dynamics, rhythm, and pitch in your composition.

And there should be a moment where it changes.

The dynamics, rhythm and pitch change to represent the change in the trailer.

You can do this by using a keyboard, an app on an electronic device or audio mixing software.

That's what I'm going to use to show you on a demonstration now.

After the demonstration, pause the video click next activity, to access the worksheet and have a go at creating your own underscore music using musical elements for the Goosebumps movie trailer.

Just take twenty seconds to read those three bullet points before my demonstration.

So we've got our brief.

We know what we need to do.

We need to use musical ideas and the musical elements to reflect that same trailer taken from Goosebumps 2.

So we're looking for a sort of fantasy, slight horror, a bit of a thriller kind of underscore use it to reflect the mood.

Okay, so I'm going to go for a Sci-fi fantasy kind of theme and I'm going to use some audio mixing software and actually I'm going to use loops to create this.

Loops are prerecorded.

Now, I've already, taken the time to have a look at which loops I want to use for this particular style and what to do with it.

So I'm just going to show you how to use the software and how I might put a piece of music together like this.

You will spend longer if you're going to use audio mixing software to actually go through and find the loops that you want to use.

So, the first thing is I want to use a sort of drone effect for sure.

And I found one called chords loop, lets have a listen.

And that goes on and on, and its got that kind of accented note every now and again so I'm going to drag that, so there's my first loop and drones, as we know, are played continuously.

So I'm going to just have that repeat for quite a while.

Let's say at least 12 bars.

Okay, so there's my drone and, I want to build in suspense, so I'm going to put some automation in a minute and I'll show you that shortly.

The next thing I'm going to add is the idea of an ostinato.

So a repeating pattern, that's going to create a bit of suspense maybe, or just suit that kind of fantasy theme.

And I found one called Starlight Riff.

You know, I think I'm going to use both of those because I think they've got a real fantasy feel.

But I'm going to have that coming in one, two, three, four, four bars later and I want the riff to come in with that.

See how that sounds Oh, I've just realised that starts too early let's move those up a bar.

I think there's way too much happening with that.

Let's try taking the riff out.

Now let's maybe take, take out the ripple effect.

So I'm going to take that out and I've got this loop and this riff.

Let me add to some of my other loops and then I'll start to put them around.

So, then I found another kind of interesting ostinato.

Let's see which sounds better with my drone.

Yes, I think that's growing in intensity nicely.

Let's try it with that other starlight Riff.

No, I think it's that one that's not quite working.

There was another string part that I really liked the sound of.

I liked cause I've got varieties of pitch.

I've got high string ostinato and I've got a really low drone there.

There it is here we go.

Oh, I like that, there's kind of clash over which was pretty well deep pitched I've kind of already got a drone sound like that.

so let's try this one.

Okay, and I think I just want to build these up gradually so that's then going to carry on all the way through one two, three, four, five.

Let's have this one coming in here and carrying through and then we'll play with dynamics.

So Okay, so now it's time to play around with dynamics.

I think that works quite well.

I might even just turn the tempo up slightly just so that it's got a bit more of a sense of urgency.

So I'm turning up the beats per minute and now I just need to make sure everything falls back in time again, so I look.

Yeah, I think that's better.

Dynamics, automation, I click on this button here and it means I can change the dynamic as it goes.

So, I want the, the drone to be quite low to begin with and then to come up to really quite the strings can stay as it is, but this one as well, I want this to come to really loud by the time we get to the end of our opening.

So the thing really that I think we're missing here is some sort of drum pattern to give it a bit of intensity at the end.

So let's see if we can find a kind of snare, maybe even like Rocky.

think that could have worked well Especially just towards the end as we're really building.

So it might sound too much.

Remember you play around, you add the lyrics Maybe, I think, I don't think it quite fit, but you can see I'm trying to build up in rhythm I'm trying to intensify the dynamics by getting louder and I'm using some of the musical ideas, drone and that string ostinato.

So, those are the kind of aspects of your composition that you want to include.

You can either do it on audio mixing like this, or perhaps you could use keyboard or layer upon multiple instruments If you got those at home or at school, remember, really try and think how can you use these devices to create a horror or sci-fi kind of fantasy film.

All right, enjoy.