And the beat goes o-on..

Today's session was about the 7 inter-related dimensions of music. Sounds complicated, but actually I felt quite a lot of it was common sense.

It was about pitch, tempo, etc. What I loves was how the lecturer used exploring percussion to teach this to us! We started with a about a rainy days and added sounds of rain.

Then we played with instruments and then we added the instruments to the song. She structured it brilliantly and I thoroughly enjoyed myself! She then extended it and we listened to a Debussy piece "Gardens in the Rain' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHDm-69mLO0. I thought it was lovely - thinking about when you're inside during the summer and there is a storm. Interesting that others in the class didn't like it and felt it was a bit frantic. She had also included a slide which had how artists like Renoir depicted the rain. It just makes it more rounded.

SHe showed us some games to play with the children too. The first was a starter or could be a movement break. It was singing My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean. We sang it through and then the next time have to sit/stand each time we sang 'Bonnie'. Then the next time it was anytime we sany a word beginning with a 'b'!

Another game was the sleeping tambourine and we had to pass it around the circle without letting it make a sound. Brilliant to get the children listening, focussed and understanding that they can control the noises made by instruments.

After the lecture, I watched Anna Meredith's 'Connect It' https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces/intro-films-and-orchestral-films/zv2gqp3 which is a piece only using the body to make the music. Very cool to watch and try to work out the patterns! In the classroom though, this could be done in a more simple way.

I watched the videos on John Cage's 'Water Walk' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vdFesRSfuk&t=133s & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-h-M0UWxDA. At first I thought maybe it was a score to go over a film scene. I wasn't sure about it as a piece of music, but I really liked the score and how this could be used in class for children to see a different way of recording music.