Lesson video

Hello everyone, it's me again, Mrs. Steele, and I'm here to guide you through another music lesson today.

Today's music lesson is called Improvising a Phrase Using the D Minor Pentatonic Scale.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to improvise stylistic and effective short phrases using the minor pentatonic scale.

Here are the key words that we'll need in our learning together today.

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

Head, a term for the main melody or theme in jazz music.

Improvisation, creative, in-the-moment, musical composition.

Phrase, a musical thought like a sentence in a story.

And finally bar, a measure of musical time with a set number of beats, for example, four beats in four time.

But first, we know it's very important to warm up our bodies, our voices, and our minds before each and every music lesson.

This is because we need to gently warm and stretch our vocal chords to prevent our voice from getting hurt and develop our vocal strength.

Warmup's also a great opportunity to develop all of our music skills too.

Sequence your whole body, breathing, and voice warmups to prepare you for music.

Now join in with these warmups to develop your sense of pulse and call and response singing.

Let's start with "Who Stole The Cookie from the Cookie Jar".

Watch this video to learn how it works, then play it where you are.

♪ Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? ♪ ♪ Alex stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Who, me? ♪ ♪ Yes, you ♪ ♪ Couldn't have been ♪ ♪ Then who? ♪ ♪ Lucas stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Who, me? ♪ ♪ Yes, you ♪ ♪ You couldn't have been ♪ ♪ Then who? ♪ ♪ Jacob stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Who, me? ♪ ♪ Yes, you ♪ ♪ You couldn't have been ♪ ♪ Then who? ♪ ♪ Andeep stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Who, me? ♪ ♪ Yes, you ♪ ♪ You couldn't have been ♪ ♪ Then who ♪ ♪ Izzy stole the cookie from.

♪ And now join in with "The Telephone Song", here comes the video to remind you how it goes.

Then play it where you are and there's an audio button to help you with this if you need it.

♪ One two three ♪ ♪ Hey, Sam ♪ ♪ I think my name ♪ ♪ Hey Sam ♪ ♪ I think I hear it again ♪ ♪ You're wanted on the telephone ♪ ♪ If it's not Jacob, I'm not at home ♪ ♪ With a rick-tick, tickity-tick ♪ ♪ Oh yeah ♪ ♪ With a rick-tick, tickity-tick ♪ ♪ Hey Jacob ♪ ♪ I think I hear my name ♪ ♪ Hey Jacob ♪ ♪ I think I hear it again ♪ ♪ You're wanted on the telephone ♪ ♪ If it's not Laura, I'm not at home ♪ ♪ With a rick-tick, tickity-tick ♪ ♪ Oh yeah ♪ ♪ With a rick-tick, tickity-tick ♪ ♪ Hey Laura ♪ ♪ I think I hear my name ♪ ♪ Hey Laura ♪ ♪ I think I hear it again ♪ ♪ You're wanted on the telephone ♪ ♪ If it's not Sophia, I'm not at home ♪ ♪ With a rick-tick, tickity-tick ♪ ♪ Oh yeah ♪ ♪ With a rick-tick, tickity-tick ♪ ♪ Hey Sophia ♪ ♪ I think I hear my name ♪ ♪ Hey Sophia ♪ ♪ I think I hear it again ♪ ♪ You're wanted on the telephone ♪ ♪ If it's not Izzy, I'm not at home ♪ ♪ With a rick-tick, tickity-tick ♪ ♪ Oh yeah ♪ ♪ With a rick-tick, tickity-tick ♪ ♪ Hey Izzy ♪ ♪ I think I hear my name ♪ ♪ Hey Izzy ♪ ♪ I think I hear it again ♪ ♪ You're wanted on the telephone ♪ Let's take a moment to check that you're ready for music.

Check that you've got a relaxed singing posture and your voice feels warm and ready to sing.

We're going to begin by practicing the head.

We know five notes in a pentatonic really well now, it's a jazzy number that only uses the notes of the minor pentatonic scale.

Let's sing and clap along to the offbeats, remember that's the weak beats two and four like this.

♪ Five notes in a pentatonic ♪ ♪ We go up and we go down ♪ Here comes the music, join in singing and clapping on the offbeats.

(lively jazz music) ♪ Five notes in a pentatonic ♪ ♪ We go up and we go down ♪ ♪ Five notes in a pentatonic ♪ ♪ What a pattern we have found ♪ ♪ We can improvise, make our own tunes ♪ ♪ We can play what we want ♪ ♪ Starting at the bottom ♪ ♪ Then we move up to the top ♪ ♪ And hear the notes become the same as before ♪ ♪ Five notes in a pentatonic ♪ ♪ We go up and we go down ♪ ♪ Five notes in a pentatonic ♪ ♪ What a pattern we have found ♪ The head is another name for the main melody in jazz music, and it's heard first before any solo improvisations.

In this lesson, we're going to use the head as inspiration for a short improvisation.

Let's watch this video of musician Richard Barnard playing the head and then improvising on this melody.

Listen out for the fact that the head is played once without any in the moment changes first.

Here comes the video, let's watch Richard play.

(lively jazz music) (lively improvised jazz music) To improvise successfully with the D minor pentatonic scale, we firstly need to be able to play it fluently and easily.

So your first challenge is to find D on your instrument and practice the scale slowly and steadily.

Practice it ascending and practice it descending, and remember to hold the beater loosely and play in the middle of the bar, letting the beater bounce off to allow the sound to resonate.

Here comes a video to remind you how to do this, then press pause to practice playing the D minor pentatonic scale on your instrument.

♪ Ready, steady ♪ ♪ Off we go ♪ (peaceful jazzy music) Now that we've mastered that, we're ready to practice the head.

Before you do, let's take a moment to think about all the different ways we can make sure our practicing is really effective.

One brilliant top tip, is to not play the whole thing from beginning to end over and over again, but to find the trickiest parts of the piece and practice just these tricky parts over and over again.

Find the bits that you find the trickiest, and practice those.

It's a good idea to practice at different tempi.

Can you play it faster or slower than the final speed and still play it accurately? It's a good idea to check your environment, check that you're in a space that allows you to focus and you've got enough space around you to play your instrument properly.

It can be helpful to practice away from your instrument too, sing it, sign it, or tap the rhythm.

And finally, when you think you're ready, play for a friend and ask for their feedback.

It's time for you to play the head and ask a friend to give you some feedback.

When it's your turn to give feedback, focus on commenting on the accuracy, the rhythm, keeping a steady pulse, and the quality of sound.

Try to give your friends some really specific feedback about what aspects of those they did really well.

You're going to want to do this at your own pace where you are.

So it's time to press pause and practice and share it with a friend when you're ready.

And you've got the audio button to help you whenever you need it.

It's time for a quick check-in with our learning so far.

True or false, the best way to practice is to play the piece from start to finish many times.

Do you think that's true or false, and can you have a think about why? Press pause to choose your answer and share your ideas about why.

Here comes the answer.

Hopefully you remember that, that is false.

Well done, if you remembered that.

Knowing how to practice effectively is a skill, you do need to play the head through but then think about what went well and what did not.

Use this to help you decide, which of the practicing techniques you should use first.

You don't just have to play the whole piece from start to finish over and over again.

So let's use those practicing strategies to do some proper practice now.

Practice the head to make sure that you can play it fluently and accurately.

I'll leave the practicing strategies on the screen for you to refer to, here they are.

So it's time to press pause and practice the head.

Remember to use the practicing techniques on the screen as you do so and you can use the audio button whenever you need it.

I'll see you soon.

Hello again, how did it go? What practicing strategies helped you the most? Here are some of our Oak Pupil's ideas.

Jacob practiced a tricky chunk, rather than playing from start to finish.

Jun changed the tempo, slowing it down.

Slowing it down is a great way to practice a tricky chunk to get it exactly right.

And Izzy repeated the head until she felt confident, it is useful playing a number of times.

I wonder what practicing strategy has helped you the most and why? You could press pause now to share your ideas about that.

Now let's move on to improvising using notes from the D minor pentatonic.

One of the reasons improvising with the minor pentatonic scale is so much fun, is because all of the notes sound good together.

We've got so many different options to make a great sound.

To improvise stylistically, it's a good idea to borrow musical ideas from the head.

Musicians love to borrow things and then use them again.

Listen to this improvisation example.

After the head, can you hear how the first phrase is inspired by the head? Can you hear that borrowing of musical ideas? Watch carefully.

(lively jazz music) (lively jazz music continues) (lively jazz music continues) Hello again, did you hear any borrowing of musical ideas from the head there? Perhaps you noticed that the first improvised phrase rises up in scale just like the head, but it improvises with the rhythm.

So we know that one of our steps for success in our improvisation, is to borrow musical ideas from the head, here's another one.

Melodies need room to breathe, so remember to include some rests in your improvisation.

This gives the phrases shape and it also allows you, the musician, time to think as you're improvising.

Let's have a look at this in action in our improvisation example.

Can you hear the pauses in the melody? Watch and listen carefully.

(groovy jazz music) (groovy jazz music continues) Here's another idea so that we can improvise successfully, music thrives on repetition.

That's how we remember our favorite songs, they repeat ideas over and over again, so we should also make use of repetition when we improvise.

Let's take a look at that in this improvisation example.

Can you hear any repeating ideas? (groovy jazz music) (groovy jazz music continues) Hi again, did you spot that the first phrase and the second phrase have a similar rising shape with only a slight difference in their notes? That's a great example of using repetition when you improvise.

Each phrase of the head moves up and down the notes of the scale in order.

There are no big leaps, so we should consider moving in a similar way when we improvise to keep the style the same.

Let's take a look at that in this improvisation example, can you follow the piano notes as they rise and fall? Watch the video.

(lively jazz music) (lively jazz music continues) Did you notice that the improvised melody moves along each note of the scale in turn? When there's a bigger leap to the top, it then descends with each note of the scale.

And our final improvisation top tip to remember, is that to create the tonality of the minor pentatonic, your improvisations need to revolve around la, in this case D, so we can start and end on D, and return to D often throughout.

How does the head create the minor pentatonic tonality? Press pause to share your ideas.

Did you spot that the head begins and ends on D? Well done if you did, and it returns to D for the start of each phrase, it's revolving around that D, isn't it, throughout.

It's almost time for your turn now, you're going to improvise short two bar eight beat long phrases using only the notes of the D minor pentatonic scale.

You're going to explore improvisations that revolve around la.

We want to try to use similar ascending and descending shapes to the head, but we're going to improvise with the rhythm and have some different rhythms in there.

We're going to move mostly in stepwise, up and down the scale with not too many leaps.

And we're going to use similar rhythms to the head, including simple one beat rhythms or a swung Ta-di, that long-short.

And we're going to try to repeat notes too and make use of repetition, and borrowing of musical ideas.

As you can see, there's actually a lot to think about when you're improvising not just making it up on the spot.

So it's good to try and think ahead to what you think the music is going to sound like.

Don't worry about trying to remember all the ideas we've looked at.

Just pick and choose the ones that you think will work for you.

And the best thing about improvisation is there is actually no right or wrong.

It's time for you to have a go at improvising now.

There's a backing track for you to use if you'd like to and when you're ready.

And remember, you can always pop back and refer to all of our top tip slides that we've just looked at, if you're in need of some inspiration.

Press pause and have a go at improvising now, good luck.

Hello again, how did your improvising go? Let's take a moment to listen to this improvised example.

Can you spot what makes it successful? There's a list on the screen here.

See how many of these points you can identify in this improvised example.

Here comes the video, then press pause to look at the list and share your ideas and what you spotted.

(cheery jazz music) We've come to the end of our lesson together today, but before we go, let's take a moment to think about everything we've been learning.

We know that in jazz, the head is followed by a series of improvisations.

And we know that although improvising is making music in the moment, there are actually many musical elements you can consider to create a stylistic improvisation.

For example, tonality, rhythm, and melodic shape, and we've looked at those in quite a bit of detail today.

And we know that practicing is a skill and there are many strategies you can use to improve your time spent practicing.

Fantastic music making today, everyone.

I'm looking forward to seeing you again soon for another music lesson, bye!.