Tag: Music History

Activity 9: What A Wonderful World

June 3, 2020 /

This week’s music lesson features a special guest appearance by the one and only Mr. Hersog!

Learn a WONDERFUL song by Louis Armstrong, one of the most famous jazz musicians ever. You might recognize this song, especially if you have a younger brother or sister who is in Mr. Hersog’s music class.

Click here for the video if you are having trouble watching it on my site.

I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying, “How do you do?”
They’re really saying
“I love you”

I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more
Than I’ll never know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Oh yeah

Activity 8: Mars and Venus again… but this time it’s Free Jazz

June 3, 2020 /

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.

 

  1. What is your first reaction to this music? What words would you use to describe it and how it makes you feel?
  2. What are some differences you hear between Holst’s “The Planets” and Coltrane’s “Interstellar Space”?
  3. Are there any similarities between Holt’s Mars and Coltrane’s Mars? How about their Venus pieces?
  4. 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.

 

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

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.

 

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