Lesson video

Hi there, everybody and welcome to today's lesson on sharing emotion through song.

This is from our Singing Together unit, music that comments on social change.

My name is Mr. Kron and I'm excited to be sharing with you some of the music that we are going to be exploring in this unit today.

Hope you enjoy.

This lesson is to help us understand how lyrics and music can convey emotions and feelings.

We're gonna begin with our keywords, again, a mix of musical terms and non.

The first word is migration and this is the movement of people from one place to another.

Then calypso, a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago in the southern Caribbean, syncopation, rhythms that emphasize the offbeat, lyrics, the words of a song and then drone, a constant pitched sound that continues throughout a piece of music.

There are two learning cycles and the first one is exploring sharing feelings through song lyrics and the second, singing with emotion.

So, we'll start by exploring how feelings are shared through song lyrics.

Now, right across the world, songs are an important part of life.

They help us understand how other people think, how they feel and how they experience the world.

Calypso music originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the Southern Caribbean.

Now, calypso songs, they often tell stories, or they share news or political ideas or current issues.

Now, some typical features of calypso music that help it to become recognizable, are improvised instrumental parts, acoustic guitar accompaniments, there's call and response melodies, often witty or humorous lyrics, they might often comment on political issues, social issues and upbeat syncopated rhythms, which we'll explore now.

The rhythms in calypso, they're upbeat, they're lively and they're based on the syncopated rhythms of the claves or claves.

So, that first one, that taa- di ta, you can see actually, if you look carefully, that it looks like it's got an eyelash underneath in the middle two notes, they are tied, so, we don't sound the second one when two notes are tied together.

So, this one sounds like this.

(claves playing) And if I played that a couple of times.

(claves playing) And then, the second one, which if you click on the audio button, you can go in here, play it on the cowbell, goes, they're not tied, those middle notes, there's no tie underneath there.

So, we do play the third beat.

So, we get, (claves playing) okay, so, now, you are going to learn these two calypso rhythms. I'm going to give you a top tip that should help you.

If you put the word and in between the numbers as in this one and two and three and four and, the and represents the offbeat, okay, or that weaker beat, the in-between the beats.

And we can then hear when we are playing on the offbeat.

Listen carefully, one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and, and then as you get quicker, (claves playing) I'm putting the one and two and three and four and, into my thinking voice.

So, I get, (claves playing) okay? The second one, again, one and two and three and four and, with those notes not tied, one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and, so, have a practice, split into two groups when you've mastered both rhythms and you can play those on instruments that you have available to you at the same time.

So, pause here and practice that now.

Very well done! Now, Sofia on this page says, "The calypso rhythms make me want to move." So, if you successfully played both of those rhythms together and danced wildly around your classroom, then, very well done.

After World War II, when Britain needed people to help rebuild the country, the British government asked people from the Caribbean to live and work in Britain.

And the Caribbean people who migrated to Britain from 1948, so, the Second World War finished 1945, 3 years after, 1948 through to 1971, are called The Windrush Generation.

That's named after Empire Windrush, one of the first ships to bring people from the Caribbean to the UK.

We are going to listen to a piece of music.

It's a song called "London is the Place for Me".

And it was written by Aldwyn Lord Kitchener Roberts in 1948.

So, Lord Kitchener or Kitch, he's from Trinidad and Tobago, a prominent calypso performer, celebrated for his musical talent, his lyric-writing, his showmanship.

And he came to London on the Empire Windrush in 1948.

So, his song, "London is the Place for Me", describes Lord Kitchener's thoughts and feelings about moving to London.

As you listen to the piece, I'd like you to think, "What features of the calypso can I hear?" Think back to the features page earlier on that we mentioned the types of calypso sounds that make it recognizable.

And then, I'd like to think, what woodwind instruments can you hear playing during the first verse and chorus, okay? So, you'll pause here, have a listen to the song, listen to the lyrics, but think at this point, what features of calypso can you hear and what instruments can you hear playing them? Pause now, chat to you in a moment.

Right then, let's see which features you picked up on.

Which features of the calypso did you hear in Kitchener's "London is the Place for Me"? You may have said, as Izzy did, "I can hear the syncopated calypso rhythm played on a guitar." So, we've got syncopation, we've got guitar.

Sam points out that she can hear a clarinet and a saxophone.

And that the clarinet is improvising around that song melody.

So, there's a few calypso features you may have found.

Others, well done.

Lord Kitchener, and you can find this online, Lord Kitchener sang the first two verses of "London is the Place for Me" on camera for reporters upon arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks and he was recorded by Pathé News cameras.

Sofia says this, "The song has become a classic example of the thoughts and feelings of many people, who saw Britain as one of the greatest and richest places on Earth." We'll come back to that in a moment.

I'd like you to listen again to "London is the Place for Me", and I'd like you to focus on the lyrics.

You're gonna answer these two questions.

The first one, what did many Caribbean people think about Britain? Remember, this is based on the lyrics that you hear in the song.

What did many Caribbean people think about Britain? Secondly, how do the lyrics show us that Lord Kitchener is enthusiastic about moving to London? So, pause, pop the track on, listen carefully to those lyrics and answer those two questions.

Catch you in a moment.

Very good, good ideas.

You might have said things, like "Many Caribbean people thought of Britain as their mother country and as a place where they could be happy." And then looking further at those lyrics, Jun says, "He uses phrases such as 'Place for me', 'Really comfortable', and describes the people as 'Very much sociable'." So, this song gives a rather positive viewpoint.

It's important to note that these perceptions that are shown in the lyrics were often very different to what people experienced when they migrated from the Caribbean to Britain.

Many faced racial prejudice, housing issues and other barriers too.

This next learning cycle is singing with emotion.

Sometimes, people will migrate to other countries to take up opportunities there.

But sometimes, people are forced to leave their homes and that might because it's simply not safe to stay there any longer because of war or persecution, or even natural disaster.

At the end of 2024, it was estimated by the UN Refugee Agency that a 123.

2 million people around the world were forcibly displaced.

In this part of the lesson, we're going to be listening to "Sprinting Gazelle", or "Ah! Ya Reem al-Ghuzlan" by a Manchester-born singer and songwriter, Reem Kelani.

"Ah! Ya Reem al-Ghuzlan" is a traditional Palestinian song and this version was arranged by Reem.

She is a British-Palestinian singer, musician, broadcaster, researcher, educator and she's collected songs from both her maternal family in Nazareth, as well as spending time with women in refugee camps in Lebanon.

As you listen to the track, you'll start to hear the way that the sadness is conveyed through the lyrics and the music.

And that sadness is of parting from a loved one when they're going away.

The lyrics, they're sad, they reflect that heartbreak of parting from loved ones.

And a repeating line of the song, is "O gazelle of gazelles, you who plan to go away." So, if Reem Kelani isn't singing about gazelles and if you don't know, they're animals, which are similar to deer, who or what might she be singing about? Pause the video here, have a listen to the track and then think about what those gazelles represent.

Okay, well done, good.

You might have said something like, "Gazelles are beautiful creatures and that could be a metaphor for someone much loved." You see, when we delve into lyrics more closely, we realize that they're not all literal and that there are poetic devices being used often to express emotions.

Listen again to our "Ah! Ya Reem al-Ghuzlan" and when you do, the first instrument that you hear, this is called a yarghul, which is a double-pipe instrument.

And that means it can produce two sounds.

It can produce the drone and the melody from one player.

And Sam says, "I can hear the yarghul playing the drone, Reem is singing and there's a melody in between." Have a listen and see if you can work out those layers of sound.

Pause here.

And now, you've had an opportunity to listen again, I'd like you to think about this question.

How does Reem Kelani convey emotion through her singing? So, have a pause, chat amongst your peers in the classroom and think about what is she doing with her voice? That means that we are starting to feel some of that emotion.

Now, you may have said something like, "Sometimes, it sounds like her voice is shaking.

Sometimes, the last note of a phrase drifts upwards and it fades," as Andeep describes it, "Like they're escaping into the wind." Now, the second question I'd like you to think about, is how does the sound of that double-piped instrument, the yarghul, convey a feeling of sadness? What is it? How can you describe that? How is that music helping us to feel that emotion of sadness? Pause here and have a chat with your class.

Well done, again, you may have said something like, "The yarghul is improvising and it emphasizes notes that clash with the drone." Now, that in itself, creates tension, it starts to make us, the listener, feel uneasy, or unsettled or it is not necessarily comfortable to listen to.

And perhaps, the tone of that instrument, its timbre is all helping to convey that feeling of sadness.

I hope you had a good discussion in your classroom.

We're now gonna think about both "London is the Place for Me" and "Ah! Ya Reem al-Ghuzlan".

And I want you to consider why the mood created by the music and the lyrics in both those pieces are so different.

Have a pause and let me know what you think in a moment.

Good, again, with so many of these questions, there's no real wrong answer.

Some ideas might be, "'London is the Place for Me' expresses excitement about moving somewhere new." And that faster calypso tempo and rhythm feels quite positive.

Whereas "'Ah! Ya Reem al-Ghuzlan' expresses a sadness about parting from loved ones." So, there are two very different messages about the way that migration is happening.

Now, there's lots of techniques that we can use to convey emotion of lyrics when we are singing.

As you might have heard, we can change the tone quality of our voice to match the mood.

We can match dynamics to the lyrics.

Are we going to sing joyfully and loudly, or more calmly and reflectively? And we can change the way we sing a melody, we can add a slide between notes, we can hold a note maybe to emphasize certain words.

And of course, there's our facial expression and our body language and the way we want to communicate the meaning of those lyrics to our audience.

"WAKE (for Grenfell)" by Cassie Kinoshi.

We're going to listen to the singer using some techniques to express the emotion of the lyrics.

So, I want you to listen carefully to her voice this time.

You're gonna practice singing the opening of "WAKE", again marching as you sing.

And then, I'd like you to think about the way that Reem Kelani and Cassie in "WAKE" use their voices.

So, you've got an opportunity now to explore different ways of singing the melody with emotion.

So, you're gonna be singing those lyrics from "WAKE".

And it's an opportunity for you also together as a class, but to explore how you might use your voice to start to bring those lyrics to life.

Have a pause and explore that now.

Good stuff, really well done! Now, with almost all of this, there's not a strict wrong answer, or a correct way of doing something necessarily.

There's us exploring our voices, seeing the way an audience might react, trying to work out how to convey that emotion using our voice in different ways.

Now, you might feel passionate about something, a topic.

It could be climate change, protecting the environment, caring and protecting animals.

It could be something around inclusion, around kindness in friendships, it could be standing up for bullying.

Whatever it is, there's usually something that we care about.

And of these topics, we can explore many of them in lyric form.

So, here's your final task for this lesson.

You're going to work in small groups and you're going to create some lyrics that can be used as part of a piece of music that can conveys a powerful message.

So, in your groups, number one, discuss and decide on a topic.

Now, you might have different ideas.

So, collectively, which one can you all work around together? What can you collectively feel passionate about and write about? Then, think about your topic and I want you to come up with answers to these two sentence starters.

The first one is "This makes us feel," and the second one is "And we want to say," okay? So, "This makes us feel," "And we want to say." And use your ideas to write those two lines that express your protest.

So, thinking back to the lyrics of "WAKE (for Grenfell)" and that repetition of those lyrics, you could stick to those sentence starters.

It's not so rigid if you want to explore around them.

And I'd like you to practice chanting your lyrics.

And then, when you are chanting it, see if that emotion that you want to convey, comes through.

Is that being expressed in the way you are delivering those lyrics? And if there's time, you've an opportunity to share in your class, okay? So, pause here and work through those points now.

Good, so, how did it go? Let's put it through three checks.

Okay, the first one, do your two lines express how you feel? Does the message that you want to get out there, does it come across clearly and powerfully? So, is there anything in the lyrics that you would change to make that stronger, more powerful, more clear? Second point, how did you use your voice when you were chanting to show that emotion? How is the emotion being carried in your delivery, okay? Is there anything you would change vocally? And then, the third point is to think, "Well, how effective is it, what feeling do you think your chant will give to an audience?" And I don't necessarily mean a seated audience.

That could be an audience of people out on the street.

It depends where this message is to be delivered, okay? Think about those three points.

See if there's anything you would change vocally in its delivery or in the reception that you want it to have, the impact you're looking for, okay? Spend a couple of minutes and I'll see you in a moment.

Really well done today.

Some really thoughtful work, plenty of teamwork, lots of collaborating.

Really great job, well done.

In summary, we have learned that music has been used to express how people feel about migration into very different song examples and leaving loved ones behind.

Lyrics and music can convey powerful emotions and feelings.

And that we can use different vocal techniques and expression to communicate the emotions of the lyrics to an audience.

Great job today.

And I will look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye for now.