FILM SCORE PROJECT:
Category: Intermediate (Page 1 of 2)
Working with a partner, create a soundtrack in BeepBox that fits with your assigned film clip.
Click here to find your film clip.
After your music is done, copy the URL for your beepbox composition and click here to submit it.
Once Mr. Martin has music for all the video clips, he will put them together into a finished movie.
Tips:
Try using one iPad to play the video while creating the music on another. If you time it right, you can start both at the same time to preview how they will fit together!
Make sure your music is the same length as the video clip. If it is too short, the end of your video will be silent. If it is too long, the end of your music will get cut off when Mr. Martin puts all the videos together.
This is our final online music activities post for this school year.
It has been wonderful to see and hear all the amazing and creative music-making that people have been doing during this strange and unusual time.
Here is a list of all the music activities I have posted since spring break. I challenge you to try at least one that you have not done already, or to do a new version of one you have already done before (if it can be done again in a new way). You can even try one from a different age level if you like!
Primary Activities:
Activity 1: Chrome Song Maker
Activity 2: Write Your Own Song Lyrics
Lesson 3: Don’t Stop
Activity 4: Peter and the Wolf
Activity 5: Soundscape Stories
Activity 6: Solfa Practice and the Poison Melody Game
Activity 7: The Moral of the Story
Activity 8: Instruments of the Orchestra
Activity 9: What A Wonderful World
Activity 10: Tell me what you think!
Intermediate Activities:
Activity 1: Song Maker
Activity 2: BeepBox
Activity 3: Musical Autobiography
Activity 4: SoundTrap
Activity 5: Film Scoring
Activity 6: Writing Your Own Blues
Activity 7: The Planets
Activity 8: Mars and Venus again… but this time it’s Free Jazz
Activity 9: Tell Me What You Think!
Hello everyone,
We are getting close to the end of the school year!
I have a few questions that I would like you to answer about this year in music, and things that you would like to do in future music classes.
CLICK HERE TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS
(You will need to be logged in to your outlook email account to access the questions form)
John Coltrane
This week, we will listen to two pieces that share the same names as Holst’s compositions “Mars” and “Venus”, but are otherwise as completely different from Holst’s music as you can imagine.
You might remember the name John Coltrane from previous lessons. Yes, he is one of my favourite musicians, and he is also one of the most important saxophone players in the history of jazz music.
In 1967, John Coltrane teamed up with a drummer named Rashied Ali to record a free jazz album that was called “Interstellar Space”.
Rashied Ali
Free jazz is a special type of jazz music that might sound unusual to you at first. Like most other jazz music, free jazz features lots of improvisation, which is when the musicians use their creativity to make up new parts that fit with the song while they are playing it.
What makes free jazz special is that it usually doesn’t use harmony, tempo, form, and other musical elements in the same ways that we are used to hearing them. Free jazz often “breaks the rules” that we use in other types of music.
Just like Holst’s “The Planets”, the first two pieces of “Interstellar Space” are called Mars and Venus. Remember, even though they share the same names, they are different compositions done in a very different styles of music.
Click here to listen to MARS by John Coltrane with Rashied Ali.
Click here to listen to VENUS by John Coltrane with Rashied Ali.
-
What is your first reaction to this music? What words would you use to describe it and how it makes you feel?
-
What are some differences you hear between Holst’s “The Planets” and Coltrane’s “Interstellar Space”?
-
Are there any similarities between Holt’s Mars and Coltrane’s Mars? How about their Venus pieces?
-
Do you like “The Planets” or “Interstellar Space” more? Or do you like them both… or not like either? (This is your personal opinion and musical taste, there is NO WRONG ANSWER here!)
Post your answers in a reply in Teams or email them to me.
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.
- What did you notice about the “mood” of each movement?
- Are there any instruments that you hear more or less of in each movement?
- How are the dynamics (loud/soft) or tempo (fast/slow) different for each movement?
- 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
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.