Hertford Junior School

This is all about listening to music and thinking or wondering about it.  You can listen to a range of music whilst you are at home, perhaps making a top ten of your favourite pieces of music.  You could draw pictures whilst you listen to different types of music, maybe using radio stations such as Classic fm or Jazz fm to explore types of music you wouldn't usually listen to.  I'd advise listening to unfamiliar music for a few minutes to get used to it, before you decide if you like it or not.  Sometimes drawing a picture whilst you listen makes it easier to relax into the mood of the music.  You could make a music gallery.  These websites are great to explore to find out about composers and music:

https://www.classicsforkids.com

http://www.sfskids.org

YEAR 3 

SPRING TERM - We've been learning about Saint Saens' Carnival of the Animals music.  You can add to your learing by looking at this silly video:

https://vimeo.com/51329279     Have a look at the Loony Tunes' version of Carnival of The Animals featuring Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny.  I think you'll really enjoy it!  You can look at other Loony Tunes' classical music videos.  They are funny!

SUMMER TERM - We learn about notation and playing rhythms by reading musical notes.  You can brush up on this by looking at videos like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjFIlLKjmkI

YEAR 4

SUMMER TERM - We learn all about Egyptian instruments and in particular the sistrum.  

SPRING TERM - We have been learning about Peter and The Wolf by Prokofiev.  If you have access to a computer you could try to find some more music by Prokofiev and see if there are any other pieces you like.  You could make a drawing whilst you are listening to the music and show what they music makes you think of or how it makes you feel.  You could also listen to some other music that tells a story:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ok6Y77DeNA      The Ugly Duckling, performed by Danny Kaye.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cbI1tdX-1E       Tubby the Tuba is another good narrative piece of music, also sung by Danny Kaye.  You might be able to see a recording of a real live orchestra playing this music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrq6av5-PS8     Captian Beaky by Jeremy Lloyd and Jim Parker (performed by Keith Michell)

We also started learning a bit about Nico Mulhy, a modern composer.  You could listen to Mothertongue again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB46mn8Exd8   Can you hear the numbers and words more easily this time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkJ4BWZpqrs   This is another one of his unusual pieces of music called "As Long As it Takes"

YEAR 5 

SUMMER TERM - We would usually be learning how to play ukelele during this term, so bear with me whilst I find out if there is a way that we can still manage this.  Watch this space.  In the meantime, you could find out about different forms of music that is created by people who live in and around rainforests.  Here's one amazing group of women from a people called the Baka (from The Congo in Africa) as well as those from Vanuatu (an island in the South Pacific Ocean) who use water and chanting to create incredible songs.  Water drumming is called "liquindi".  They push their arms deep into the water with cupped hands to create the deep bass notes and do shallowed strikes to make the higher pitched notes with surface splashes for the highest of all.  You could try this in the paddling pools in the garden on the next sunny days!!!  I've been known to do waterdrumming in the sea as well as in swimming pools!!!  Its really fun to try to get a rhythm going.  Don't try it in your bath tub though as the water goes everywhere!!!!!!

https://youtu.be/UMFazztdbAI

https://youtu.be/ZNzX5t5S4Ls

SPRING TERM - We have been learning about music that's connected with The Royal Pavilion.  We were introduced to George Frederik Handel, a German composer whose music was very popular with the royal family before the Pavilion was built.  His music would have been played a lot at The Pavilion.  It is still played at most British royal occasions.  You could find out more about Handel and listen to some of his music, maybe making some artwork at the same time to see how it affects you.  We also learned about Beethoven's dramatic and difficult life.  We heard the first part of his 5th Symphony.  You could listen to some more or his music and see if you think it is as strange and "risque" as people thought at the time.  Make some artwork or, if you play an instrument, learn the melody for one of his songs: maybe Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata or Ode to Joy.  We were just about to learn about an amazing composer: Gioachino Antonio Rossini.  This composer was Italian and was a firm favourite of the Prince Regent.  You could research his life and see why he might have been popular with the prince.  He is a very colourful character and is most famous for writing operas.  There are lots of fun ways to find out more about opera online.  You can look at Loony Tunes cartoons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy5f87-kI8c      Bugs Bunny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYBce9Gsz7g    The Rabbit of Seville (Rossini)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1JKd1C7izQ&pbjreload=10   What's Opera Doc?

This one isn't about the composers we have been studying, but is a lot of fun.  A 16 year old pianist is playing a piece of music that has been animated by the Tom and Jerry animators, and she is playing it live to match the animation!

You can also have lots of fun designing your own opera.  It's really easy and loads of fun on this site:

http://classicalkusc.org/kids/opera/    

This website is also brilliant fun to play with, where you can record your own colourful Blob Opera!

https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/blob-opera/AAHWrq360NcGbw?cp=e30.&fbclid=IwAR2TxqrzW23M7DyznCVHy--gMZgwwKODAUXpqjkzgAjiNpX334lVpHuwXa4

YEAR 6 -

SUMMER TERM - We will be creating a leavers' song, somehow, to share with everyone at the end of term.  You know me...I will always find a way of making your musical performances brilliant!  Keep checking on here and I'll let you know when I have a plan!  I would usually be teaching you about body percussion as well this term, linking with science lessons about the human body.  Stomp are a percussion dance group that started in Brighton and are now global!  They specialise in body percussion and creating rhythmic music from unusual objects such as dustbins or brooms.  Have a look at this Stomp performance and see if you can create your own body percussion performance.  You don't need anything except your bodies.  Film it and send it to me on the home learning email.

https://youtu.be/l0XdDKwFe3k

Notice how much of their bodies they use to make high, mid and bass sounds.  They don't only use their feet to stamp; they tap toes and heels, they slide shoes across the floor to shush or squeak, they tap fingers or whole hands, they slide, leap, hop and combine many different sounds in sequences.  They are also counting all the time and fitting their percussion rhythms into counts of 3,4, 6 or 8 beats.  When you watch the group pieces, can you see the secret sound or action that one of the crew makes that lets the others know to come in on the next count.  They are all counting together so that they know when their rhythms change, pause or stop.

SPRING TERM - We have been learning about the music of WW2.  You could research about many composers and singers from the 1930s and 1940s.  British ones you could look up might be Dame Vera Lynne, Gracie Fields and George Formby.  British big bands were also very popular and used to travel around the country playing in clubs and theatres.  You could have a listen to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GDqfeucGPo  which is a 1940s wireless (radio) show with lots of big band music.

You could teach your family The Lambeth Walk.  

You could also find out more about American musicians who were popular, such as Glenn Miller's big band, Benny Goodman's big band, The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby.  During the 1940s, with many musicians away fighting, big bands became less popular and jazz started to become the music that the kids were listening to.  You could listen to the music of Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie and Miles Davis.  Singers were also becoming more popular as microphones got more sophisticated and they coud sing over a band with a wider range of vocal expression.  You could find out more about Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong.  Many of these stars made films which have music in them.  You could also watch Disney films that were made in the 1930s and 1940s, such as Pinocchio and Dumbo as they use a lot of jazz and swing music in these movies.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=692noeACXrs  This piece of music was composed between 1941 and 1945 after the composer, Benjamin Britten, read a poem.  He wrote an Opera inspired by the poem