Capturing the imagination...


Contributor: Hannah King

School: Wallisdean Junior school

Age: 7-11yrs old

Piece: Mars from ‘The Planets’, Short Ride on a Fast Machine, Symphony No.5 and Connect It.

 

 

"I have been working with every class in Music and have found the resources a fantastic inspiration to move our children on in their musical learning."

 

Providing Inspiration:

 

We have been linking our Ten Pieces work in Music into the topic work that is being done in school.  All our pupils have watched the whole DVD and given their initial responses to the music through a listening framework including imagery, instruments and particular sounds.  One class listened to a piece from the Ten Pieces every day and then voted for their favourite which was A Night on the Bare Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky.  As the Music Teacher it has given me the inspiration to provide a challenge for our children through work on minimalism, motifs and ostinatos and developing more complex harmonies. 

Lower school:

We chose Anna Meredith’s Connect It to look at rhythm and how movement can be added to the creative process.  Lower School really enjoyed this composition process because it was so active and fun to do.  They also made huge progress in coming together as an ensemble both in groups and as a class through our work on Beethoven’s Symphony No.5.  They loved the catchy motif within the piece and enjoyed performing sections of the piece together. The lesson plans were a really helpful resource for this and we used the ideas as a starting point for a performance leading on to our own compositions.

Upper school:

Upper school have had the biggest challenge with the introduction of Minimalism.  Short Ride in a Fast Machine helped to make this accessible and interesting through the great extra episodes that are on the BBC website.  They worked incredibly hard looking at how the short rhythmic and melodic phrases repeat and slowly develop.  Each group came up with their own phrase and were able to use minimalist principles in their composition.

Mars from ‘The Planets’ fitted in beautifully with our Upper School topic on Space. Pupils produced amazing art work for their corridor.  They were also inspired by Holst’s experimentation with instruments and his use of contrasting dynamics and specific imagery to create their own compositions.  They were given the challenge of outlining a structure to their composition to include dissonant and consonant harmonies, playing the ostinato in a variety of ways and playing around with pitch.  They came together in their groups with both melody and rhythm and created very impressive results.

 

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