Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to your music lesson today.

My name is Miss Al-Hanoush and I'm super excited to be teaching you a really brilliant song today.

So before we sing our song and then learn how to play it on the keyboard, we need to make sure that our minds, our bodies, our breath, and our voices are warmed up.

So up on your feet, ready for the warm up.

Let's begin by flexing our minds.

Listen carefully, can you count the number of sounds that you can hear? Listen to your heartbeat.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Let's warm up our bodies.

Take a big stretch outwards and down to the floor.

Come back up.

Can you touch the ceiling? We twist both sides.

Can you try and touch the walls? And roll your shoulders backwards.

Roll your shoulders forwards.

And stand with your feet as wide as your shoulders and check for your arms are relaxed by your sides.

Imagine your head is floating.

You draw number eight with your nose slowly.

We're going to make sure that we are breathing correctly and warm up our breath.

So breathe in slowly through your nose and out through your mouth four times like this.

You can feel in your belly, filling up with air.

Can you pant slowly like a dog? And can you hiss like a snake? Let's warm up our voices.

Repeat this tongue twister four times.

I'm wondering about having a wriggling walk in the woods.

There we go.

I'm wondering about having a wriggling walk in the woods.

I'm wondering about having a wriggling walk in the woods.

I'm wondering about having a wriggling walk in the woods.

I'm wondering about having a wriggling walk in the woods.

Can you hum with a closed mouth from a low pitch to a high pitch like this? Go up on your tip toes if you do that, here we go.

And then back down.

And can you pretend that you're sucking in a strand of spaghetti like this? You need to say the sound "Oh" so We're going to stuck it in for four beats, here we go.

One, two, three, four.

And breathe out.

Well done.

For the second part of today's warm up, we are going to be exploring the song, Amazing Grace.

Copy me.

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found Was blind, but now I see.

Your turn, you're going to get a count in of two beats.

This song is in three four, and it starts on an up beat.

One, two.

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found Was blind, but now I see.

Amazing.

So each line in this song is a bit like a sentence in a poem.

And this in music is called a phrase.

So how many phrases are there on the screen? Four.

Well done.

So this can be also thought of as maybe two larger phrases, but we're going to put a comma in between each one so Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, phrase one.

That saved a wretch like me, phrase two.

I once was lost but now I'm found, phrase three.

And I was blind, but now I see, phrase four.

So I'm going to sing this song for you.

I would like you to tell me, what do you notice in similarities and differences between those four phrases.

Here we go.

♪ Ama- ♪ ♪ Amazing Grace ♪ ♪ How sweet the sound ♪ ♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ I once was lost, but now I'm found ♪ ♪ Was blind, but now I see.

♪ What did you notice about the different phrases? What was similar? What was different? That's right.

Phrase 1, phrase 3 and phrase 4 all start exactly the same.

And they have a similar rhythm too.

Were these sung in legato, nice and smooth? Or were they staccato, which is short and detached? Legato, well done.

And did that melody make me step or leap? It mainly was in step.

Well done.

Couple of leaps in there, but mainly in step.

So we're going to have a go at putting this together and singing it together, so we'll do it phrase by phrase, I'll go, you copy me.

♪ Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ♪ Here we go.

To help you I'm going to put in pitches So you can tell whether it goes higher or lower with my hand.

One, two.

♪ Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ♪ My turn ♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ Your turn.

One, Two.

♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ My turn.

♪ I once was lost, but now I'm found ♪ Your turn.

♪ I once was lost, but now I'm found ♪ My turn.

♪ Was blind, but now I see.

♪ Your turn.

♪ Was blind, but now I see.

♪ Okay, well done.

Let's see if we can put the whole of that together.

We're going to get a count in of two.

Here we go.

If you want to put the pitches in as well, you can.

Here we go.

So one, two.

♪ Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ♪ ♪ That saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ I once was lost, but now I'm found ♪ ♪ Was blind, but now I see ♪ Amazing.

Let's see if we can explore this song a little bit more on the keyboard.

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

I'm about to use a free virtual instrument called Virtual piano.

And if you would like to use a virtual instrument with me, please ask your parent or carer to help you find one.

This is mine, and you can play everything that we are going to do today on this virtual app.

So for example, So it's well worth downloading an app if you don't have a keyboard for today's lesson.

Also, please take a moment to find yourself a quiet space where you can work and won't be disturbed.

And also take a moment to turn off any notifications on any electronic devices that might disturb you during the lesson.

So if you want to pause the video now and go and get all the equipment and make sure you're ready yourselves, and then press resume once you're ready and rejoin us for the rest of the lesson.

Here is the agenda for today's lesson.

You began with a warmup and singing through the song 'Amazing Grace.

' You will now be recapping the pitches of the pentatonic scale and then learning to perform the first two phrases of Amazing Grace and ending the lesson by learning how to read treble clef notation, and applying it to Amazing Grace.

In unit two, lesson one, we learned the note of the F major pentatonic scale.

Do you remember which fingers to use on each hand? Show me your right hand.

Here's a quick warm up.

Number one, number two, number three, number four.

Number five.

Show me a number one.

Show me a number five.

Show me number two.

Show me a number four.

Show me a polite three please, show me number one.

Show me number five.

Show me a number two.

Show me a number four.

Excellent.

Okay.

Show me your left hand.

Your left hand is the same.

So show me a number one.

Show me number two.

Show me a polite three.

Show me a number four.

Show me a number five.

Excellent.

Okay, so we're going to be using the same fingers that we used last time to play Amazing Grace.

And Amazing Grace is a song that was written by a man called John Newton, and it's a song about a desire for freedom.

So the first thing that we need to do is to make sure that we can recap the pentatonic scale of F major in order to be able to play Amazing Grace later on.

So can you place your fingers in the following position? Number one on F, number two on G, and number three on A? And with your left hand, place your fingers on D and C.

And recap, the pentatonic scale on your own keyboard or the app.

Make sure that you keep your fingers in the correct position.

You are now going to learn to perform the first two phrases of Amazing Grace.

This is what the first two phrases of Amazing Grace looks like in the treble clef.

Watch me play the first two phrases of Amazing Grace, noting that the C and D are to be played with the left hand.

Can you wave the correct hand playing in the air as I play? Here we go.

Where do you think phrase one starts and ends? That's right.

It starts on our middle C here.

And it goes all the way to our middle C over here.

And we can tell that by this line here, that's called, a phrase marking.

Can you tell me where phrase two is? Where would my second phrase marking be marked in? I'm going to play it again for you so you can hear phrase one and then I'll play phrase two and you can tell me where you think it ends.

That was phrase one.

Did you guess that it ends on that top C there? So our phrase marking should be written from our middle C all the way to our top C.

It should be written here.

This time when I play, I would like you to sing the numbers to phrases one and two out loud with me, like this.

♪ Two, one, three, one, three, ♪ ♪ Two, one, one, two, ♪ ♪ Two, one, three, one, three, ♪ ♪ Two, five.

♪ Now it's your turn.

We're going to start on the upbeat.

So I'm going to count in of two and then we're going to begin.

That's because our middle C starts on an upbeat and you can see that here.

There's two beats before we start.

Here we go.

One, two.

♪ Two, one, three, one, three, two, one, one, two ♪ ♪ Two, one, three, one, three, ♪ ♪ Two, five.

♪ Amazing job.

Well done! This time as I play phrases one and two on the keyboard, I would like you to place your hands on your knees.

So the left hand on your left knee and right hand on your right knee.

And I would like you to tap the correct fingers in time.

Here we go.

♪ Two, one, three, one, three, two, one, one, two, ♪ ♪ Two, one, three, one, three, ♪ ♪ Two, five.

♪ Amazing.

If you've got that right, if not rewind the video and have a practise.

It's now time for you to practise the first two phrases of Amazing Grace.

You can do this on your keyboard or the app.

Like I've got my app here, which is Virtual piano.

You could use this one.

You wouldn't be able to do the right finger positions necessarily on here, but you can definitely get the right pitches.

So, So it's worth downloading.

If you don't have a keyboard, make sure that you are, if you are on a keyboard that you are using the correct fingers, make sure that your left hand is on one and two and your right hand is on one, two, and three.

If you can play all of these phrases, can you try and add in a left hand part on the keyboard as well? That could be a long held pedal note or an ostinato that you might want to keep going.

And if you are another instrumentalist, it's still a really good idea to keep up these keyboard skills.

So try it on the keyboard first and then see if you can adapt it and play it on a different instrument.

If you play a different instrument, I'll give you some of the notes now as well.

So you might want to write these down, but if you play tenor sax, clarinet, or trumpet, you would need to play the notes, G A B D, and E.

If you play alto sax, you would need to play the notes, D E F sharp A and B.

If you play the French horn, you would need to play the notes, C D E G and A, and then your notes would sound the same as I'm playing on the keyboard.

So pause the video now, go and play through the first two phrases.

See if you can get the correct pitches right and your hands in the right position, and then rejoin and resume once you're finished.

How did you get on with that task? Here's a few check for understanding questions for you.

So tell me which fingers you used on each hand.

So your right hand you should have used one, two, and three.

Okay.

See in the camera.

And on your left hand, you should have used number one and number two.

Why am I making you play using the correct fingers? Well, it's much easier because all of this melody is in step.

Otherwise, we have to leap all around the keyboard if we don't use the correct fingers.

Why should you use one finger per note? It makes it much easier to move in step again.

Did you use your thumbs? Hope so because our thumbs should be there on our number ones.

And how did you manage to play along with my example from earlier to check that you played the correct pitches and the correct rhythm? And did you check that you were playing on the correct C, which was middle C? It should be in the middle of your keyboard.

Again, you can check along with my recording from earlier, so you can rewind and play along with that to make sure that you've got the correct pitch.

You are now going to learn how to read treble clef notation.

Now that you've played through phrases, one and two of Amazing Grace, take a look at the music on screen.

Tell me what type of musical notation or symbols you recognise or know, for example, what does this symbol at the beginning mean? Fantastic.

It's our treble clef.

And that tells us that we're playing notes from the middle of our keyboard, middle C and to the right of our keyboard going up in pitch.

What else do you see? What are our five lines? Amazing.

These are known as our stave and these are where we write our pitches.

Here are a few other things that I can see our time signature of three, four that tells us that we have three beats in a bar, some cot, chits, minims, quavers and a dotted note at the end.

I can also see our bar lines and I can see a phrase mark here, symbolising for phrase one.

Where would the phrase mark for phase two go? Fantastic.

From here over to here, I can also see a rest.

Can you see it too? Brilliant.

It's a minim rest right at the beginning.

Let's see if we can work out how to read the pitches, using staff notation.

These five line are called a stave and are where we can write our music.

However, it's important to note that not all music in the world is notated in this way.

The symbol at the front is called the trebled clef, and we use the treble clef to read the music we play in our right hand on the keyboard.

On the screen, you can see middle C.

Here is middle C on the keyboard.

It's also the starting note where we play Amazing Grace.

Writing notes on the stave helps us to know if the pitch is high or low.

Take a look at the notes on the screen.

Do you think that the first F next to middle C is higher or lower than the C? It's higher.

Here's middle C and here's the F that's written, so that F is higher.

And you can tell that it's higher because it's gone up on the stave.

What about the A after F? Do we think it's higher or lower? Here's F, the A is higher.

It's higher because again, it's gone up a line on the stave.

What about that second F after the A, do we think that that is higher than the A or lower than the A? It's lower.

It's written as the same pitch as the first F we've gone from this A, back down to F.

And what about the last C, is that higher or lower than the previous F? It's higher, well done.

It's the C over here.

We've gone from F over to C.

And we can tell that because it's gone up on the lines of the stave.

What's the difference between the first C and the last C? It's called an octave.

There's eight notes between them.

Can you find an octave on your keyboard? It doesn't have to start with C and C.

It could be any notes.

So for example, F to F, A to A.

Here are the notes on the lines.

You can remember the notes on the lines, but using the rhyme, every green bus drives fast, E G B D F.

Here are the notes on the keyboard, which of these notes do we use in Amazing Grace? That's right.

It's a G well done.

The notes in the spaces on the stave, spell the word face, F A C E.

Here's how they sound on the keyboard, which of those notes do we use in Amazing Grace? Well done.

We use F A and C.

Are these notes going up or down in pitch? Well done.

They're going up because they're going higher on the stave.

How can you transfer what you have just learned to Amazing Grace? Take a look at the notation.

Tell me whether the note goes higher or lower in pitch than the one before it.

Remember, use middle C as your reference, and you can check the pitch of your notes using my now.

So we start on middle C, does the next note go higher or lower? It's higher.

Well done, the next one? Higher as well.

Next one? Lower.

Next one? Higher then lower, walk down in step.

Down to the D.

And we're back down at middle C on the end of that first phrase, we stay on that C goes higher up to the F, higher again to the A, back down to the F, up to the A, down in pitch to the G and then our octave leap from our first middle C down here, up to our C up here.

So that's where our octave is from the beginning of phrase one to the end of phrase two.

Now we've just tried to find the pitches of Amazing Grace.

And we've looked at whether they go higher or lower on the stave.

Take another look at Amazing Grace phrases one to two, you can download the resource.

Can you now read the notation rather than the numbers to perform it? Concentrate on whether you are playing the correctly pitched note, check the shape of the melody make sure you're using the correct fingers.

You can use my video for reference.

If you were to play an instrument, can you work out phrases three and four of Amazing Grace by ear? Rewind the video back to our warmup if you need to hear how it sounds.

Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you're finished.

As we come towards the end of the lesson, let's just recap the agenda for today.

You began by singing the song, Amazing Grace.

You then recapped the pitches of the pentatonic scale and learned how to perform the first two phrases of Amazing Grace.

You then ended the lesson by being able to read treble clef notation, and applied it to Amazing Grace.

During this lesson, we use the pentatonic scale to help us play the first two phrases of Amazing Grace.

We began by just looking at our hand position and which fingers to use.

We then moved on to be able to read staff notation, and then located the pitches from staff notation in Amazing Grace.

With that in mind, I would like you to revisit the question, which is on the green screen at the beginning of the lesson.

So on your piece of paper, answer the following question.

How can you perform 'amazingly' from staff notation? Take 2 minutes to pause the video, complete your task, and then resume once you're finished.

How did you get on? So staff notation is a really valuable tool.

It allows composers to tell the performers exactly how they want things to be played, and it allows the performers to interpret the composer's work.

It also allows to see which pitches we are meant to be playing.

It's a really valuable skill to be able to read and write notation.

And it's one that's worth practising.

Don't forget to complete the quiz to show how much you have learned today.

That's all for me.

I hope you have a brilliant day.

Go and have a rest now, you've worked really, really hard, and I'll see you soon.