Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to your music lesson today.

My name is Miss Al-Hanoush and today we're going to be exploring the question, how can we use our voice to mimic other sonorities? So as we're going to be using our voices, we should really get them warmed up.

Stand up on your feet for our vocal warm up.

For our warm up today, we are going to focus on our minds, our bodies, our breathing and our vocals.

So the first thing that I would like you to do is to pretend that you have got a ball of dough in your hands and you are going to be making the biggest pizza base you've ever seen in your life.

So you're going to stretch this pizza base out, stretch it out as big as you can.

How big can you make it? Can you stretch it out to the ceiling? Each side, give it a big stretch, big stretch, and can you flip it up in the air, and can you catch it again down on the floor? And flip it up in the air and catch it again down on the floor.

Awesome.

Keep stretching that dough, rolling those shoulders backwards.

And what about the other way, roll those shoulders forwards as we're stretching that dough.

Brilliant.

Okay, bring the dough back into your hands.

And we're going to make it into a little dough man.

And our little dough man is going to look a little bit like this.

And our little dough man is going to go for a walk.

And when he goes for a walk, it sounds like this.

Your turn, ready? One, two, three, four.

Brilliant.

And on his walk, our little man, he's going to go down a hill.

And when he goes down a hill, it's going to sound like this.

And he's going to come back up the hill and it's going to sound like this.

So those two sounds are.

Can we try those up to four.

One, two, three, four.

Fantastic.

So let's put that all together from the beginning.

One, two, three, four.

Awesome job guys.

Okay, so he's been on his little walk, and on his little walk, he comes across a dog.

Can you try that after four? One, two, three, four.

Brilliant, okay.

And what does our little man do? He starts to panic, and he starts to run.

So he starts to jog, and he's running and he's lifting those legs up, on the spot, and he's running and running and running away, running away and he's looking to his left, and he's looking to his right, and he's looking down below, and he's looking to the top.

And he thinks the dog's gone, the dog's gone.

He slows down his running, okay.

But his heart.

He is slowing down.

Okay, your turn from the top.

So let's just have a recap of what we've got 'cause that went quite fast.

So we've got our little man, he goes for a walk, he goes down a hill, he comes back up a hill, he sees a dog, the dog chases him, he goes for a little jog, he runs as fast as he can, he looks to his left, he looks to his right, he looks down below, he looks above, dog's no longer chasing him, he starts to slow down, and so does his heartbeat as he slows down.

Here we go.

Are you ready? One, two, three, four.

Starts jogging on the spot, our little man is jogging.

And he's looking left, and he's looking right, and he's looking down, and he's looking up and he looks left again and the dog's gone, and he starts to slow down his jog, and his heart.

Is still going.

And his heart beat.

Slows down.

Towards the end.

Well done.

Hopefully, your bodies are nice and warmed up now.

Let's crack on with the rest of the lesson.

Welcome back.

In this lesson, you will need a piece of paper, a pencil and your body.

If you don't have the equipment listed on screen, please pause the video and go and get it and then resume.

It will also be a good idea to find a quiet space where you can do some work.

And also turn off any app notifications or chats that might disturb you during this lesson.

Pause the video now and then resume when you are ready.

This video was used to promote the Honda Civic.

It was performed entirely vocally by a choir.

No actual car sounds were used.

The performers used different sonorities throughout.

Now sonorities are different sounds that we can make an instrument can make, say for example, we can beatbox or we can sing.

So, I'd like you to take a look at the video and think about the following questions as you watch.

So number one is, name two car sounds that the choir are performing.

Number two, which are the most effective sounds? And number three, is why do you think that these are the most effective sounds? Wow, how cool was that video? I think that that is one of my favourite TV adverts.

So how did you do with the questions? Were you able to name two car sounds that the choir were performing? Were you able to pick out the most effective sounds and say why those sounds were effective? Personally, for me, it's the windscreen wipers.

I think that the performers have got to be really, really creative in their vocal use to be able to create those sounds.

So, I absolutely love this video and I wanted to share it with you because I think that it shows just how creative we can be and what we can do with our voices.

And we don't just actually have to sing all the time to be able to make effective music.

So how about the next time you see a TV advert, you mute the music on the adverts, and see if you can create your own vocal track.

Here is the agenda for today's lesson.

Today we are going to be looking at how we can use our voice to mimic different sounds or sonorities and then see if we can compose and perform our own piece of vocal and body percussion.

We will start by exploring basic beatboxing sonorities, we will then create beatboxing rhythms, we will then look at the use of addition and subtraction with different sounds, and compose a vocal and body percussion piece using what we've learned, and then perform our structured composition.

What is beatboxing? Well, beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion.

And it's primarily used to mimic drum kits, drum machines and turntables.

And it came about in the 1980s in hip hop music, where performers used different parts of their body to replicate these instruments.

So for example, to make a scratching sound, sometimes they put their fingers in front of their mouths, and they blow and move their finger.

So it looks a little bit like this and sounds like this too.

It means that they get a scratching sound.

That's one beatbox technique.

Another one to get a scratching sound is when they suck air in really, really quickly.

And it sounds a bit like this.

Can you have a go? See if you can make those two sounds.

Okay, so beatboxers can also produce up to eight different sounds at the same time, which I think is incredible.

How many can you do? If you pause the video now, you can have a go at those and then resume.

So I'd like you to take a listen to a track by Berywam.

Now these are vocal performers.

This piece that you're going to hear, which is crazy, is entirely performed vocally.

I want you to see if you can spot which beatboxing techniques you can hear them doing.

What instruments are they trying to replicate? Here we go.

♪ Does that make me crazy ♪ ♪ Does that make me crazy ♪ ♪ Does that make me crazy ♪ ♪ Possibly ♪ ♪ And I hope that you are having ♪ ♪ The time of your life ♪ Okay, it's a short clip, but you can hear in there different types of vocal techniques and different types of beatboxing.

What did you hear? What I heard, them trying to replicate a drum kit for sure.

I also heard them putting in some vocal harmonies, as well as singing the melody lines.

So now you've heard some beatboxing action, we're going to see if we can explore how Berywam actually made those beatboxing sounds for their drum kit.

And beatboxers use three main drum kit sounds to build their vocal performances.

And the three parts of the drum kit that are mimicked are: the bass or it's sometimes called the kick drum, the hi-hat cymbal, and the snare drum.

And when put together, they sound a little bit like this.

And if they're on their own, each sound sounds like this.

So this is the hi-hat.

I'll play that again.

This is the snare drum.

And this is our bass drum or our kick drum.

So how would you think we're going to actually represent those sounds vocally? Can you have a go on your own now? How would you do it? Here they are again, here's the hi-hat.

Here's the snare drum.

And here's your bass drum.

Have a go on your own now.

How can you recreate those sounds? Before we begin to beatbox, we need to know where our diaphragm is and how to use it.

So our diaphragm is one of the main muscles that helps us to breathe, and it's located beneath our lungs.

You can find your diaphragm by placing your fingers on your belly button and taking a deep breath in.

You should feel your belly expand.

When you breathe out, you should feel your belly go back in, that's your diaphragm working, and we use it to beatbox and we use it in our singing.

So the three main beatboxing sounds that we're going to look at are: our bass drum, our hi-hat, and our snare drum.

The first sound is our bass drum.

And we really use our diaphragm in this to project our sound.

So let's have a listen to what a bass drum actually sounds like first.

So it's quite a bassy sound here.

It's a low sound, but it projects really well.

So we use our diaphragm to be able to do that.

And for this, we're going to use the letter P.

So can you say the letter P? If you just say it, it doesn't actually do much, it's not very powerful, it doesn't sound like a bass drum.

If we start to use our diaphragm and try and project it to the other side of the room, you get something that sounds like this.

It's much bassier, much cleaner, and it sounds like a bass drum.

Have a go.

How would you change the pitch of this bass drum? Well, you change the shape of your mouth, like this.

So I can change it, the wider I make my mouth, the higher the sound.

The smaller I make my mouth, the lower the sound.

Have a go at making a bass drum sound in whichever pitch you want.

What about a hi-hat sound? For this, we're going to use the letter T.

And our hi-hat sound usually sounds like this.

And it's quite a tinny sound.

So we need to replicate that.

So it sounds like this.

And the way that I make that sound is by placing my tongue on the roof of my mouth, clenching my teeth together, and pushing the air through to make that T sound.

Have a go now.

And again, I can change the pitch of this sound by changing the shape of my mouth, like this.

Have a go.

I can also make this an open and a closed hi-hat sound like this.

By changing the length of the breath that I'm pushing out.

What about our snare drum? Let's have a listen to what a snare drum sounds like on the kits.

It's similar to our hi-hat, it's got quite a tinny sound because of the snare underneath the drum.

So for this we're going to use the letter K.

And we're going to sound it like this.

So again, my tongue is going to have to hit the roof of my mouth, but it's quite at the back this time.

So near the back of my throat rather than pushing it towards my teeth.

Again, it sounds like this.

And for this I need to use and push my diaphragm out.

So again, I'm projecting it to the other side of the room.

Have a go yourself now.

How do you think that we're going to change the pitch of this snare drum? Well done, we are going to change the shape of our mouth just like we did with the bass and the hi-hat.

So here is changing the pitch.

So the wider my mouth, the higher the snare drum sounds.

The more closed my mouth is, the lower in pitch my snare drums sounds.

Now we've explored what the drum kit sounds like vocally.

Can you tell me which sounds these are? So here's your first sound.

And is it option one, a bass drum, option two, snare drum, option three, the crash cymbal, or option four, a hi-hat cymbal.

Here it is again.

It is of course a bass drum, fantastic.

Well done, guys.

Okay, what about this sound? Again, your options: is it a bass drum, a snare drum, a crash cymbal, or a hi hat.

Here it is again.

It is of course our hi-hat cymbal, fantastic.

And our last one then, which sound, what part of the drum kit sounds like this? Is it option one, our bass drum, or option two, our snare drum, option three, our crash cymbal, or option four, our hi-hat cymbal.

It is of course.

Our snare drum, well done.

Okay, so moving on to our agenda.

We have now explored basic beatboxing sonorities and we are moving on to creating different beatboxing rhythms. But before we do that, we need to actually look at how these sound, and we're going to get a professional to show us.

I'd like you to watch the following video.

I'd like you to also answer the questions on screen, which instrument is the vocalist mimicking? Number two, which parts of the drum kit can you hear? And number three, which three musical beatboxing patterns does the vocalist perform? Here we go.

There are many different rhythms and drum patterns you can make with just a very simple bass, snare and hi-hat sounds.

We've got the P sound.

The snare sound, K.

And the hi-hat sound, T.

Now, I'm going to show you a few different beat patterns that you can try.

First, make sure that you've had some water.

Second, maybe explore your kits.

Let's try a classic hip hop beat to start with.

How about your classic house beat? As you can hear, that was more of a hi-hat focused pattern.

And how about a drum and bass pattern.

So as you can see, there are lots of lots of different beat patterns you can do.

It's up to you to experiment and find ones that you like.

And remember, practise makes perfect.

How did you do? Did you recognise that the performer was mimicking the drum kit? Did you hear the different parts of the drum kit, the kick drum or the bass drum, our snare drum and our hi-hat? And the three musical beatboxing patterns that the vocalist was performing were hip hop, house, and drum and bass.

Well done if you've got all of those.

So following that video, it's now time for us to create our own beatboxing rhythms. And to build up a virtual drum kit, we must structure the following sounds.

So our bass drum, our hi hat, and our snare drum.

On the screen, you should be able to see a grid where I've started to put all of these sounds in.

At the bottom of the grid, you can see our post, one and two and three and four and.

And on the side you can see our bass drum at the top, you can see our hi-hat in the middle, and you can see our snare drum at the bottom.

This is what this pattern would sound like if it was played on a kit.

Can you have a go at doing that vocally yourself? Remember to use your diaphragm to really sound out those sounds.

So it should sound something like this.

And I can feel my diaphragm having to work really, really hard to produce those sounds.

Have a go on your own now.

What about having a go in time to our kits? Here we go.

Where are you able to do that? Did you replicate the correct sounds? Well, now it's your go.

You are now going to compose your own drum kit rhythms. You could either copy or download the blank, "Build a Virtual Drum Kit" worksheet.

You are then going to compose your own drum kit sounds using the bass drum, the hi-hat cymbal, and the snare drum.

And then perform your vocal composition.

There are some extension tasks that you could also do.

So for example, can you think of other parts of the kit that you could put in? How else could you structure your vocal sounds? You don't have to do this in a 4/4 time signature, you could change it to 3/4 or 6/8.

Could you replicate any other sounds from DJ decks to turntables? And you could perform these as part of your composition performance too.

When you're ready, can you perform it to your household? Can they give you some suggestions to add in? You can be as creative as you like.

Pause the video now to complete your task.

When you're ready to resume, press play.

How were your compositions? Were you able to be creative with your rhythms and able to perform them vocally? Here's a quick quiz for you.

Which parts the drum kit plays on beats one and three? Is it option one, the bass drum, option two snare drum, option three, crash cymbal, or option four, hi-hat cymbal.

It is of course, option.

It is of course, option one, our bass drum.

Why does our bass drum play on beats one and three? It's because beat one is our strongest beat of the bar, and therefore we really need a strong base to symbolise that beginning of the bar.

Here's your next question, which part of the drum kit plays on beats two and four? Option one, bass drum, option two, snare drum, option three, crash cymbal, or option four, hi-hat cymbal.

It is of course, our snare drum, option two.

Fantastic.

Which part of the drum kit plays on every beat and the ends? This should be easy now, come on guys.

Is it option one, our bass drum, option two our snare drum, option three, our crash cymbal, or option four our hi-hat cymbal.

It is of course our hi-hat cymbal.

Well done.

Okay, so moving on back to our agenda.

We have now explored basic beatboxing sonorities, we have created beatboxing rhythms, and we are now going to look at how you can add and subtract different sounds.

Listen to the following piece of music called "Pieces of Wood" by Steve Reich.

Steve Reich is a minimalist composer.

Minimalism is when a composer uses very few ideas and develops them.

features of minimalist music include: repetitive patterns, steady drawings, and repetitive material.

I would like you to listen to the music and answer the following question.

How does the music develop at the beginning? So how did the music develop? You only heard 30 seconds of that extract.

However, in that time, Steve Reich managed to use addition and layering.

Addition is where a composer adds a beat to change the rhythm and add interest.

If we were to listen further in that piece, we would hear subtraction as well, where he takes a beat away to change the rhythm and add further interest.

So how can we use this in our own body proportion or vocal compositions? Let's take a look.

Have a look at the screen.

You should be able to see my rhythm grid from earlier.

However, this one's changed slightly.

I've added something, what have I added? That's right, it's the hi-hat.

So I've actually added extra hi-hat sounds here.

So what would this sound like on a drum kit? Okay, so it's slightly different than before.

Let's have a go doing this vocally.

Remember to use your diaphragm to really push these sounds out.

So one, two, three, four.

Brilliant, well done.

Have another go if you need to, you can pause the screen.

What happens if I add on my rhythm earlier and then add my additional sounds? We would get something that sounds like this.

So you can see the sounds adding on causing addition.

What happens if we subtract sounds? So again, what can you see that I've now subtracted? I've now subtracted some of my hi-hat sounds.

What have I added as well? That's right, I've added an extra bass sound as well.

So if we were to play this on the kit, it would sound like this.

Let's have a go at this vocally.

So here's our counting, one, two, three, four.

Awesome job.

If you want to practise that, feel free to pause the video now and give it a go.

It is now time for the second pause of your lesson to continue composing your virtual drum kit.

However, this time, I would like you to add and subtract different drum kit sounds and then perform your vocal composition.

If you need some extension work, which other parts of the kit could you add? How else could you structure your vocal sounds? Remember you can replicate any other sounds from DJ decks to turntables and you can perform these as part of your composition too.

If you've got other members of your household available, are they able to put any other parts of the drum kit for you? For example, the crash cymbal or the toms? And if you have a drum kit or music making software available, can you perform your vocal composition on the drum kit or input it into the music making software? You can be as creative as you like.

So pause the video now and complete your composition.

Press play when you'd like to resume.

Next on our agenda is looking at structure.

So how are we going to structure all of our great beatboxing rhythms into a piece of music? Let's find out.

On the screen, you can see three boxes.

You've got your intro, a vocal groove and your outro.

Now I've put some examples in those boxes of something that I would do, you can change it and it can be totally your own.

So for my intro, I've said that I was going to use my original drum kit rhythm.

My.

I was then for my vocal groove, going to add in my addition and subtraction parts of my drum kit that I've just made in my composition task.

And then for my outro, I would go back to my original drum kit rhythm.

It's up to you how many times you do this.

It's up to you how many you add or subtract.

There's another way that you can do this as well.

And the other way that you can do this is by adding in a body groove as well so using not just your vocal and beatboxing, but also using body percussion.

If you did my Lesson One in this unit, you would have composed a rhythm grid, which you could also use as part of this composition.

So I'd like you now to think about how you are going to structure your composition.

Here's your third pause for the lesson.

You are now composing and structuring your vocal and body percussion piece.

So for this you can copy or download the composing a vocal and body percussion piece grid and compose each section of your grid.

Try including a variety of vocal and body percussion sounds within your composition.

If you have other members of your household, could they perform different layers of sound over the top? And for you to create polyrhythms, think about how you'll structure each section.

Will your intro be the same as your outro? Could you play them backwards? Will you mix up both vocals and body percussion to create a combined section? You can be as creative as you like.

Pause the video now to complete your task and then resume when you're ready.

How did you find structuring your composition? Were you able to create a funky intro and outro and put in a body and a vocal groove in the middle? We're now heading towards the last part of our lesson, which is you're now going to perform your vocal and body percussion piece.

It's now down to you to perform your structured vocal and body percussion composition.

If you have other members in your household, could you get them to perform alongside you? Could you compose different vocal or body parts for them to perform with you? Can you plan time somebody's keeping a pause? And could you add dynamics to give you a composition even more excitement? It's up to you how creative you are with this.

Pause the video now to complete your task and then resume when you're ready.

Have fun.

How did your performances go? Were your household amazed? Were they able to join in? Did you create them some parts so they could? I hope so.

And I'm really looking forward to seeing some of them.

So I hope you recorded them too.

So just to recap what we have actually done this lesson because we've done loads.

We have explored basic beatboxing sonorities.

we've then used them to create our own beatboxing rhythms. We then looked at the minimalist techniques of addition and subtraction, and try to put those into our compositions too.

We then composed our vocal and body percussion pieces, and then structured them and performed them to our households.

Wow, what an amazing session you guys have had.

On your piece of paper, I would like you to answer the following question.

How can we use our voice to mimic other sonorities? At this point, pause the video to complete your task, and then resume for the answer.

So we can use our voice to mimic other sonorities such as drum kits, drum machines and turntables.

However, like we saw in the Honda Civic advert right at the start of this lesson, the use of our voice to create and mimic different sonorities is actually limitless.

So now you know the power of your voice is unlimited, how are you going to use your voice in the future? So you have worked super, super hard today, and I'm sure your bodies need a rest.

But before you go and have that rest, I would like you to do two things for me.

The first is to share your work from today with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

And number two is to do the End of Lesson quiz just for yourselves to see how much knowledge you have retained from this lesson.

Now go and have that well deserved break.

Goodbye and see you soon.