Month: May 2020 (Page 1 of 2)

Activity 8: Instruments of the Orchestra

May 27, 2020 /
Use this website to review the instruments of the orchestra. Choose 1 instrument from each family (group) to look at and listen to: https://www.mydso.com/dso-kids/learn-and-listen/instruments

If you click on an instrument name on that website, you will see a picture of that instrument. There will also be a music box where you can hear what it sounds like. Feel free to explore even more instruments on the website if you like.

 

click here for the video if you are having trouble playing it on my website.

 

After reviewing 1 (or more) different instrument from each family, watch this video of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (made up of students aged 13-19 years old) performing a piece of music by Gustav Holst called MARS: The Bringer of War. The planet Mars is named after the ancient Roman god of war, which was Holst’s inspiration for the title and mood of this music

click here for the video if you are having trouble playing it on my website.

After, answer these questions in Teams or in an email to me.
  1. What instruments did you recognize in this video?
  2. Were there any instruments that you saw on the orchestra page that you did not see or hear in this video?
  3. What was your favourite instrument in this video?

Self-Duet

May 27, 2020 /

This week, you will be recording a duet… with yourself! It’s a very short piece and not too difficult to learn.

Watch the video if you want to see a complete walk-through, or just follow the instructions below.

click here for the video if you are having trouble playing it on my site.

  1. Learn and practice #103: Minuet – Duet in Essential Elements, both the A part and the B part (if you like, you can use SmartMusic to help with the practicing)
  2. Log In to SoundTrap and enter the Studio start a new project.
  3. Use the gear icon button in the top-right corner to change the time signature to 3/4.
  4. Turn on the metronome (bottom of the screen) and adjust the click sound and volume so that you can hear it clearly in your headphones while playing.
  5. Create a new vocal/mic track.
  6. With your instrument ready, plug in your headphones and press the red button to begin recording. Play the A part of 103 in time with the metronome.
  7. Listen back to what you just recorded. If it is out of time or if there are mistakes, do it again.
  8. Create a 2nd vocal/mic track to record part B.
  9. optional: MUTE the 1st track (part A) when recording part B.
  10. Once both parts have been recorded, listen to them together and make sure they sound as good as they can. Re-recording is always an option!
  11. Press the SAVE button,
  12. Either SHARE the project with me (james.martin5) or export it as a file and upload to Teams to share with the whole class.

Activity 7: The Planets

May 27, 2020 /

Gustav Holst was an English composer who wrote a very famous suite of music called The Planets over 100 years ago.

The Planets was made of of 7 movements (different pieces of music that connect together). Each movement was named after a different planet and a different mood or characteristic Holst associated with that planet.

The Planets was written to be played by a full orchestra. Holst used the different sounds made possible by all the instruments in the orchestra to give each movement of The Planets a very different mood and feeling.

Mars: god of war

The first movement of Holst’s The Planets is called MARS: The Bringer of War. The planet Mars is named after the ancient Roman god of war, which was Holst’s inspiration for the mood of this movement.

Watch this video of MARS: The Bringer of War performed by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (made up of students aged 13-19 years old). Do you think this music is a good fit for a “bringer of war”?

 

click here for the video if you are having trouble playing it on my website.

 

Venus: goddess of love

The second movement is called VENUS: The Bringer of Peace. The planet Venus is named after the ancient Roman goddess of love.

Watch the same orchestra perform VENUS: The Bringer of Peace. What differences do you notice between this movement and the first one?

click here for the video if you are having trouble playing it on my website.

Listening Questions: Please answer these in Teams or in an email to me.

  1. What did you notice about the “mood” of each movement?
  2. Are there any instruments that you hear more or less of in each movement?
  3. How are the dynamics (loud/soft) or tempo (fast/slow) different for each movement?
  4. Does anything else catch your attention? What else did you notice that was different or similar between the two movements?

 

If it is helpful for question #2, here is a website to review the instruments of the orchestra: https://www.mydso.com/dso-kids/learn-and-listen/instruments

 

If you are feeling super keen or just need an excellent soundtrack to put on while doing your other homework, here is the complete performance of all 7 movements of The Planets by Holst, plus an extra movement for Pluto written over 80 years later by another composer named Colin Matthews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be7uEyyNIT4

New Essential Elements Practice Items

May 20, 2020 /

Hi Everyone,

This week is a bit of a break from adding to our recording schedule. If you are still catching up, I am hoping to have all Ayre & Dance recordings in by next week (Wednesday the 27th) so I have time to add them to the district massed band. Star Wars recordings can wait a little bit longer because we are not doing that one with other schools. Links for catching up: https://sd41blogs.ca/martinj/virtual-ensemble-recording-hub/

If you are all caught up on our recording projects, I would like you to practice the following numbers from Essential Elements: 92, 93, 95, 96, 99-101 (make sure you are only tonguing the first note in a slur, and check your key signature in 101!), and also reviewing page 40 Bb #1 & #3 and Eb #1 & #3

If you can, I highly recommend using SmartMusic to practice these. Take advantage of being able to slow down the tempo and looping tricky parts that need extra practice. I won’t be assigning them in SmartMusic, but you can find them by looking under the “Method Books” category for Essential Elements book 1. The song/exercise numbers are listed as “movements”, except for the page 40 scale which are listed under “Rubank” at the bottom of the list.

 

Activity 6: Writing Your Own Blues

May 20, 2020 /

Obective: write at least of verse of your own blues lyrics, and submit to me on Teams or by e-mail.

Bonus: record yourself singing your blues

Due: Tuesday May 26

Many of you have learned a little bit about blues music before. This week, we will be following a lesson from the website MusicPlay to write our own blues lyrics: https://musicplayonline.com/modules/grade-6-lesson-4-blues/ the worksheet on step 5 is optional, but make sure to watch the bonus video by pressing the orange button in step 6. 

The core element of most blues lyrics is an A-A-B pattern, meaning that the first 2 lines (A) repeat while the 3rd line (B) says something new. The ends of line A and line B usually rhyme. For example:

A) You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, crying all the time

A) You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, crying all the time

B) Well you ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.

Usually the A lines of a blues introduce a problem, and the B line can either makes the problem even worse or offer a solution to how you are going to try to solve the problem. Most blues songs have more than one verse. It is also ok to write blues form lyrics that are not about a problem.

 

Music Activity 7: The Moral of the Story

May 20, 2020 /
Do you remember the stories from Activity 5?
These are a special type of stories called fables.
A fable is a short story, usually with animals or objects as the characters, that has a lesson or a “moral” in the story’s meaning.
Most fables are so old that we don’t know for sure who first created these stories, but we think that many of them were told by someone named Aesop.
Aesop lived so long ago that we don’t know much about him, but apparently he was a slave who lived in ancient Greece or Turkey who had a brilliant mind and a special gift for telling stories.
This week, we’ll be learning to sing a song called “The Moral of the Story” about Aesop and a few of his famous Fables.
Use this video to learn how to sing the song.  Can you learn how to sing along with the video? Try watching just a small part at a time and repeating it over and over, using both your ears and your eyes to learn the words:
click here for the video if you are having trouble playing it on my website.

After practicing the song, do you think you know it well enough to sing along by yourself with this version? click here for the video if you are having trouble playing it on my website

Let me know if you learn to sing the whole song. You can even record yourself singing and upload it to Teams to show off your hard work!

Music Activity 6: Solfa Practice and the Poison Melody Game

May 13, 2020 /

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO if you are having trouble playing it on my website.

Go to https://musicplayonline.com/solfa-practice-echo-sing/ and sing along with the videos on these activities:

Echo Sing (La-So-Mi-Re-Do)

Poison Melody (La-So-Mi-Re-Do)

and Listen & Sing (So-Mi)

Each activity starts with only SO and MI, you will need to click on the tabs that include other notes in order to add them to the videos.

Let me know on TEAMS what is the hardest one that you try!

Activity 5: Film Scoring

May 13, 2020 /

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO if you are having trouble playing it on my website.

After watching the video, choose one of the movie clips below to compose a new score for. Check how long your movie clip is, and then use Chrome SongMaker, BeepBox, SoundTrap, a recording of you playing music, or any other means of creating new music that is long enough to score the clip you have chosen. If you want to get even more detailed, you can check the timestamp (how many seconds into the clip) of when important moments happen in your chosen scene, and then compose your music to change at those times to highlight that moment.

Click this link for the 7 different Movie Scoring Clips: https://sd41-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/e20460_burnabyschools_ca/EsU_02-Mj1hLrvIlDNw1HtMBd8Xz4BwzQET4kIk2gK4bfw?e=JzZqFo

After creating your music, share it with me in Teams or by e-mail, and I will add it to your film clip and share the final work on Teams (Or, if you know how to use iMovie or another movie-making program, you can do that part yourself!)

Bonus video: I try to turn an exciting and inspiring scene from Jurassic Park into something scary by changing the music: https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/12fed203-7e17-4110-bec0-c918208025c5

Music Activity 5: Soundscape Stories

May 7, 2020 /
Learn how to create your own soundscape for a story!
After you have watched the first video, there are 3 stories you can choose from for creating your own soundscape:
The Tortoise and the Hare:   click for STORY VIDEO   –   click for READ-ALONG STORYBOOK
The Lion and the Mouse:   clock for STORY VIDEO   –   click for READ-ALONG STORYBOOK
The Fox and the Grapes:   click for STORY VIDEO   –   click for READ-ALONG STORYBOOK
Share what you do on Teams. You can write down what sounds you matched to each word in your soundscape, take a picture of each sound-maker you used for your different soundscape words, or even share an audio or video recording of you performing the story with your soundscape!

New Recording Hub Page

May 6, 2020 /

I have created a new all-in-one page for all of your Virtual Ensemble recording projects and a checklist of essential steps for making a quality recording. I will continue to update this page, and you no longer need to search through old posts if you are going back to check something from a few weeks ago: https://sd41blogs.ca/martinj/virtual-ensemble-recording-hub/

Please make sure you know where to find this page (drop-down menu from the “Band” button on the navigation bar above) and feel free to bookmark it in your web browser until the end of the school year.

Our newest recording assignment is the Ayre from Ayre and Dance, to be included in the district-wide massed virtual ensemble recording that is replacing the Festival of Beginner Bands: https://sd41blogs.ca/martinj/virtual-ensemble-recording-hub/

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