the five tones, la, do, re, mi and so arranged in an ascending or descending order

a musical genre that emerged from African-American communities in New Orleans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, characterised by improvisation

creative, in-the-moment musical composition

music belonging to a shared tradition or style

Whole Body Warm-ups - backing track

Breathing exercises

Grow bananas

Task A - Five Notes in a Pentatonic

Minor pentatonic scale - video

Task B - Five Notes in a Pentatonic

Richard Barnard - example improvisation

Richard Barnard - What is improvisation?

Improvisation and the minor pentatonic scale

Music

Playing the D minor pentatonic scale

Playing a minor pentatonic jazz melody

Improvising a phrase using the D minor pentatonic scale

Improvising longer phrases using the D minor pentatonic scale

Creating and performing an improvised jazz piece

In this unit, pupils listen to improvisation in jazz ensembles. Using the minor pentatonic scale on pitched percussion, they learn a minor pentatonic melody and practise tools to guide successful improvisation including repetition and sequencing.

Compose and rehearse: improvising with the minor pentatonic scale

where the rhythm Ta-di is divided into unequal parts, creating a "long-short" pattern

Five Notes in a Pentatonic (with vocal)

Five Notes in a Pentatonic (backing track)

Straight quavers - example

Swung quavers - example

D minor pentatonic scale (ascending and descending) - audio

Richard Barnard improvisation example

Slow backing track (eight bars)

Fast backing track (eight bars)

D minor pentatonic scale (ascending) - video

D minor pentatonic scale (descending) - video

D minor pentatonic scale (ascending and descending) - video

Telephone Song circle game (audio)

Telephone Song circle game (video)

Clapping exercise

a term for the main melody or theme in jazz music

a musical thought, like a sentence in a story

a measure of musical time with a set number of beats (e.g. 4 beats in 4-time)

Five Notes in a Pentatonic

Richard Barnard demonstrates the 'head'

Five Notes in a Pentatonic - head only

Head looped 3 times - audio

Task B - Head - moderate tempo

Task B - Head - quite Fast

Task B feedback - Head looped 3 times - video

Task B - Head - quite slow

Telephone Song circle game - video

Telephone song - audio

a music genre that emerged from African-American communities in New Orleans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, characterised by improvisation

Practise the head - fast tempo

Head + improvisation example

D minor pentatonic scale descending - video

D minor pentatonic scale ascending - video

Practise the head - moderate tempo

D minor pentatonic scale ascending and descending - video

Improvisation example - repeating ideas

Task B - backing track

Improvisation example - head plus improv

Task B feedback - improvisation example

Improvisation example - rests and breathing space

Improvisation example - moving stepwise through the scale

Telephone Song - audio

Who Stole The Cookie From The Cookie Jar - example video

the main melody or theme often used when referring to jazz music

adapting how an existing piece of music is going to sound, for example changing the instrumentation

Task A - Head - slow tempo

Head - with claves on the offbeat

Task B - eight bar backing track (slow tempo)

Task B - backing track (moderate tempo)

Task B - eight bar backing track (fast tempo)

Four bar improvisation - what makes this effective?

H.E.L.L.O (four part round) - video

Bate Bate Chocolate - audio

Who Stole The Cookie From The Cookie Jar? - example video

the way the music is organised, ordering different sections of a piece

a piece or section of a piece performed by a single performer

to create music in the moment, using the voice or instruments, alone or with others

Backing track

Head (fast tempo with claves on the offbeat)

Head (slow tempo)

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Compose and rehearse: improvising with the minor pentatonic scale

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