Hall of the Mountain 'Uke-ing'!



Source: GraphicArt-News

Contributor: Y5 pupil

School: Charles Kingsley CofE Primary School

 

 

Piece: In the Hall of the Mountain King, Grieg

This school were excited to use ukuleles to engage with this piece...

"The year 5's of Charles Kingsley School were learning how to play the ukulele, which had been a wish of ours for a number of years, since seeing other children learn it before. After we had mastered the basics, including the rest position and a few basic songs, we decided to set ourselves a challenge of learning one of the BBC Ten Pieces. The piece we chose was 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' by Greig. To carry out our challenge, we had to learn how to read tab, which is notes only with numbers on the frets along the ukulele. Soon afterwards, we were given the music, and instantly started learning, helping each other along the way. Through ups and downs, we finished the piece and played it fluently with the backing track to our parents and the whole school."  

Ruby, Y5

 

 It would be lovely to hear more from pupils, get in contact or visit our homepage to download the blog form (right hand column)!

 

Mahalo ukuleles: as provided for the HMS L2M programme

 

"Our Mr Beethoven",
an integrated approach.



Source: BBC Schools WWI resources

Teacher: Alison Kelly
School: Southview Junior School Language Unit
Ages: 18 pupils, Y3 - 6
Piece: Beethoven’s 5th (1st movement)

This school have been clever to utilise a mixture of pupils throughout the school and woven the piece through a curriculum project using music, song and dance!
 

 

 

 

 

 

"We have been working on a school project about Walter Tull...

He was the 2nd professional mixed race footballer in this country to play in the top division of the football league playing for Spurs and Northampton Town. His football career was curtailed by the outbreak of WW1.

 He became the 1st infantry officer of mixed race to be commissioned in the British army and was greatly loved by his men. Sadly he was killed in the war and history has not served him kindly. He was never honoured for his bravery.

 

Having listened to the music for several weeks before the launch, when we watched the video the children exclaimed, on hearing the Beethoven “that is our music”.
Subsequently, he has become known as “our Mr Beethoven”

 I felt that the Beethoven would give a good basis for writing fanfares for a ceremony to award him with a posthumous honour. With the agreement of the class teacher, we have extended this project in music for 2 terms. [Music:] We started by learning to play the 1^st 2 bars of Beethoven’s 5^th. The children then wrote and learnt to play their own compositions using its famous rhythm and the pentatonic scale. 

[Song:] I then chose 8 of these 2 bar tunes and put them together in the best order to create a song tune. As a class, the children wrote the words of the Walter Tull song.

[Dance:] This term, after watching the 2 dance master classes on the BBC website we have created a dance to the piece (greatly slowed down) that depicts elements of his story. To finish off our project, the children are going to write fanfares for our ceremony.
At Southview this year Martin Garrod is teaching Brass L2M for the whole year. In conjunction, with him, and to finish off our project, the children are going to write fanfares for our ceremony, which his brass players will learn to play for us.

In the summer we will have his award ceremony featuring our song, dance and fanfare and invite an audience. Martin, who is a Spurs supporter has also suggested that we let Spurs and Northampton Town know what we have been doing as he believes that they will be very interested.

The children have REALLY enjoyed this work and are so excited by the BBC website and its supporting material. What a terrific success!"

 

The Walter Tull Song   

 

I’m Walter Tull, this is my song.

Enjoy it please and sing along.

I’m Folkstone born, in eighty-eight

I’m 1of 6, but my mum died

 

My dad’s new wife was called Clara.

When I was nine my dad died, too.

My step mum tried to care for us

But it was hard, so orphanage.

 

Brother Edward left for Glasgow.

Printing for me, didn’t like it.

Still loved football, played in spare time.

Spotted by Spurs, I signed for them.

 

Then war started, nineteen fourteen

We had to go, my team signed up.

Fight for England was our duty.

Because of this – no more football.

 

Officer Tull in no man’s land

Led men to fight but he got shot

My body’s lost somewhere on France.

Militr’y cross not yet for me.

 

Beethoven Symphony no.5 (1^st Movement),
with ukuleles!

Did you know?
That this piece of music and the ukulele were both created in the 19^th century…?

St Michael and All Angels CofE Infant School have been absorbing the Ten Pieces as part of their Y2 KS1 Listen2Me ukulele sessions, Julia McKinley (HMS teacher) explains…

“The class didn’t see the actual Ten Pieces DVD, although I think the class teacher showed some parts of it. However, I explained about the Ten Pieces and then played just the Beethoven extract on a CD. The class listened and responded with comments [below]. We practised playing ‘air ukulele’ along with the CD in order to find a good rhythmic pattern to use on the ukulele. Then using a C chord we strummed the opening rhythm and then plucked open strings as a contrast.”

 

Why did you choose this piece to inspire your work?

The strong rhythmic pattern of the opening

What was the theme for your creativity – how did you engage your pupils?

Used ukuleles to copy the rhythm patterns in by first strumming and then plucking

What were the outcomes?

After recording pupils were delighted to hear themselves, and then discuss ‘stars’ and ‘wishes’, i.e. best bits of their recording and improvement suggestions

Any challenges?

Keeping together when changing from strumming to plucking. Could have got round this by haing half the class strum and the other half pluck, although the class loved to be able to play it all!

Owl Class, Y2 ukulele recording (click to open)

Quotes:

“Feels strong – like a super hero”

“The rhythm pattern sounds like gong round a corner to surprise someone”

“Dramatic!”

BBC Singers come to New Hall at Winchester College to perform Zadok the Priest with over 400 Hampshire Primary School Pupils

On Thursday 29^thJanuary 2015 Hampshire Music Hub invited over four hundred primary school pupils to take part in two vocal workshops in partnership with the BBC Singers and Winchester College. The workshops took place in the wonderful newly refurbished New Hall at Winchester College and were led by the BBC Singers under the direction of one of their principal guest conductors Paul Brough along with a fabulous accompanist on the piano.

The focus of the workshops was the piece of music that George Frideric Handel wrote for the coronation of George II in 1727, and played at every coronation since then, Zadok the Priest.

 Zadok the Priest is one of the works which has been chosen for the BBC Ten Pieces national music project and we were delighted to be able to work with 15 Hampshire Primary schools in this partnership as part of own Ten Pieces programme of events.

After some initial vocal warm ups led by Lynette, one of the altos from the choir, Paul taught the children a“melancholy yet hopeful” song which they sang beautifully in a three part round. This led into a first performance of the two part children’s chorus version of Zadok the Priest that has been especially written for the BBC Ten Pieces Project.

 After a short break the pupils watched the BBC Ten Pieces film of Zadok the Priest on the huge screen of New Hall, which was a treat in itself! However a real highlight of both sessions was a live performance of the complete original version of the work performed by the full four part BBC Singers. Real spine tingling moments!

After rehearsing the style, diction, interpretation of the words and other performance details the workshops culminated in a polished performance of the abridged version of Zadok the Priest by the children’s choir with the BBC Singers. A performance the children will never forget!

Quotes:

"For most of our children this is the first time they have embarked on this sort of performance -using a score, and singing a classical piece of music but we all learnt so much and had a fabulous time."

"It was their first exposure to professional singing, and it just blew them away. The conductor got such a lot out of them. The best comment made afterwards was - "I never knew I could make a sound like that" - which rather summed it up. They have raised their expectations of themselves."

We would like to express our sincere thanks to the BBC Singers and Winchester College for their roles in enabling such a fantastic opportunity for so many Hampshire children.

BBC Ten Pieces at Hale Primary School

  

Troll from the 'Hall of the Mountain King' chapter

Back in October all the KS2 pupils at Hale Primary School
enjoyed a screening of the BBC Ten Pieces.

The room was darkened, the white board screen and DVD ready to go, the chairs set out like a cinema. The children were excited but didn’t know what to expect!

Barney Harwood introduced the film and we were off on a magical musical journey. We travelled through space and time, down in to a dark cave, up over a mountain, sped off in a really fast car, bobbed across the sea, went through a maze and into a forest and more. Phew!

The clear favourite was Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. One person said “I can’t get the tune out of my head!” Others said “It was dramatic, exciting, tense and nerve racking. It started quietly and slowly and it got louder and louder and faster and faster - we were being chased but we just managed to escape at the end!

We listened to the piece a lot and enjoyed matching our body percussion to the music getting faster and louder all the way through. The ending was great fun as we had to remember when to stop and then start again with a really fast bit.

Next we worked out the rhythm of the first phrase and notated it using apples and pears. We later turned these into quavers and crotchets.


We ended up singing this pattern along to the music at the start:

Apple, apple, apple, pear, apple, pear, apple, pear.

Apple, apple, apple, apple, apple, apple, pear. all x 2

You should try it. It’s great fun!

 Through listening again we discovered that Grieg repeats the same rhythms, does something a bit different and then repeats the first rhythm pattern again and we worked out the structure of the first section of the piece.

We then composed our own rhythm patterns of apples and pears and worked with a partner to create longer patterns. We had a go at playing the patterns in our pairs starting quietly and slowly and getting louder and faster. This is not easy!

Eventually we worked in groups and created our own longer pieces of music based on “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Some of us wrote new rhythm patterns but some of us liked the original rhythms so much we used them.

Each group carefully chose a set of instruments for their piece. Some used four similar sounding instruments others combined four completely different sounding instruments.

We planned how we were going to achieve our crescendo (gradually getting louder) and most groups decided to do this by players joining in one by one (like Grieg). We discovered that is really tricky to get faster and faster and stay together. 

After some more rehearsal we were ready to perform our new pieces to an audience.

Author: Sian Buckley (HMS Project Lead)

Screening at Thornden Hall

 On the 14 October Thornden Hall, in partnership with the Hampshire Music Education Hub, hosted a free screening of the Ten Pieces film for two hundred and forty KS2 pupils.

Ninety Y3/4 pupils from Otterbourne CE Primary school and another ninety Y4, Y5 and Y6 pupils  from Scantabout Primary school were able to walk up  to Thornden Hall and another sixty Y4 pupils came on the bus from Knightwood school a bit further away.

It was great to be able to show the film on the huge screen at Thornden Hall with the fabulous surround sound. The children really enjoyed the whole experience.

Firm favourites of the children from Otterbourne included Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, Holst’s “Mars” and Mussorgsky’s “Night on the Bare Mountain” whereas the pupils from Scantabout all really liked Beethoven’s “Symphony Number 5”!

Opinion was divided over the Anna Meredith piece, “Connect It”, with some pupils not really knowing what to make of it, probably as it was so different from all the other pieces, with others absolutely loving it!

The schools are going to be using the film in a variety of different ways  over the coming weeks. Many will be listening again to a different piece each week as part of their assemblies, so opinions and favourites may well change, while some will be using the pieces as inspiration for dance or their own creative compositions. Some pupils may even like to write something for this blog!

It will be great to find out if any other pieces emerge as new favourites and to see and hear the results of the dance and compositions - We can’t wait!

Thank you to Thornden Hall for hosting the screening and thank you all for coming!

On the 7th October we ran a Ten Pieces Spotlight session for teachers at Jermyn's House, Romsey.
It was a well received session with plenty of “audience participation”! We listened, notated and played along to one piece and responded through movement, dance, props, drawing, colour and writing wordscapes to another and much, much  more! Giving us all plenty of ideas of how to inspire our pupils to respond creatively to their favourite pieces!

We are offering another  practical session on the Ten Pieces at the Wessex Music Conference – 30^th January 2015. Sign up and be inspired to inspire!