Lesson video

Hi there, everybody, and welcome to this lesson on singing for the change we want to see in the world.

This is from our Singing Together unit, Music that Comments on Social Change.

In this lesson, we'll be bringing all the different components that the music we've been listening to in this unit has inspired, and we'll be creating our own protest musical pieces.

Here we go.

By the end of this lesson you'll be able to show how you can convey emotion through song, and know how songs can be powerful for change.

Let's look at our keywords for today.

Repetition.

The purposeful use of repeating a phrase in lyrics or music.

Texture.

The combination of different layers of sounds.

Structure.

The way the music is organized And dynamics, how loud or quiet the music is.

There are two learning cycles.

The first is composing our song for change, and the second one, sharing our song for change.

Let's begin with our compositions.

If we think back to the songs we've explored in this unit, they all have something in common, and that's that they use music to either speak the truth, offer hope, or inspire change.

Composers and musicians, they use a wide range of techniques to communicate powerful messages, and this creates an emotional response in their audience.

We are going to aim to do the same today.

First of all, we remember how important repetition is.

That powerful tool that can help us remember important messages, and to feel connected to the music, and indeed to each other.

Thinking about our piece, we can use repetition to emphasize the key message we want to say.

We can use it to make our music catchy and memorable.

We can create unity when we sing or chant together, and all of that will strengthen the emotional impact on our audience.

A few lessons ago, we created a short chant based on a topic that we felt passionate about.

In your small groups, I'd like you to remind yourself of that chant, and then, with the backing track playing, in your groups, take it in turns to chant your lyrics in time to the steady pulse.

When you've done that, you can listen to the backing track as you chant and you might in your groups be able to start singing the lyrics to compose a melody.

This is one option that we're going to use to create our piece.

So have an explore.

You can go quietly in your groups, and then maybe try it one group at a time, to see if there is a tune that you like.

And if you do, when you found an idea, you can just repeat that in time to the music, using that repetition until you feel confident with that tune, everyone's got it, and it feels powerful.

So pause the video here, and explore that where you are.

Off you go.

We have heard music in this unit that uses repetition a lot.

Think of the repeated patterns in "Wake (for Grenfell)." Think about the cello part in "Rise Up," and that endless groove in "Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense." To remind us, Aisha says, "A riff is a short musical idea that's repeated." And, "Riffs can build a strong groove that feels persistent and exciting," says Izzy.

What I'd like you to do now is to remind yourself of that riff you composed a couple of lessons back that used the five notes of the minor pentacle.

That was D-E-F-G-A, those five next door neighbor notes, and to play it, practice playing it together with the backing track.

Remember, you're gonna be successful if the riffs are four or eight beats long, so it's pretty short, okay, and just to use two or three notes.

We don't need to make it complicated.

Simple rhythms can work well, but riffs can also use syncopated rhythms. Like we might take inspiration from the Calypso rhythms we heard in the earlier lesson.

Okay, that might fit with the style and groove of the music.

Play the backing track, and remind yourself of those now.

Off you go.

Great stuff.

So what we're doing here all the while is we're adding texture.

When we play the riffs with the backing track accompaniment, we're adding texture to our piece.

Composers use textures in their music, 'cause they want to create particular effect.

Those thicker textures where lots of layers can feel powerful, they can feel emotional, sometimes even overwhelming.

And those thin textures might feel more lonely, peaceful, or calm.

What you're going to do now is remind yourself of those longer-held notes that we experimented with in the last lesson to create different textures.

Now if you remember, we were using our voice and instruments in exploring the different timbres that we can make both with our voice, and with those longer-held notes.

In your small groups, you can try different ways of doing this.

In the song "Remember Me," we took inspiration by creating different effects, so different notes at the same time, or just one note that could create thinner or thicker textures.

And then also with our inspiration from "Gay Guerrilla," we remember that notes don't always have to sound nice together.

We can experiment with notes that create dissonance to create that tension as well.

So have and explore, with the mix of instruments and voice, whether you're creating harmonious or dissonant, longer-held notes that will add to our texture.

Off you go.

Well, hopefully now you've got a few ideas that you can explore.

You can create different textures with your riffs and your held notes, and you can make the message in your song really powerful if you work together in your groups really well.

What you're going to do is build your song together using those ideas we created so far.

So we have the lyrics, whether they're chanted, sung, wrapped.

We have the riff, and we have those longer notes held as well.

Here's some top tips.

Work as a team.

Make sure everyone in your group has a chance to share ideas, 'cause every idea matters.

Use your strength too.

Some people might be great at lyrics, other people could be great at riffs, or maybe someone plays a flute or another instrument.

Whatever it is, play to your strengths.

Try, don't perfect.

What we mean by this is you don't need to worry if something doesn't sound perfect straight away.

It's not necessarily going to work out straight away.

It'll take a bit of time.

Try it out, see what happens, explore with these ideas.

This is what composing is about.

We make a mistake, we like something.

We make another mistake, we like that bit.

We change things until we're more happy.

We just keep trying.

We're not aiming for this must now be perfect.

And then be brave with your ideas, because something unusual can turn into your best bit.

Listen as you go.

Check, how does this sound? How do we think this sounds, everyone? Do we like this, are we listening? And ask yourselves, are those layers, are they starting to fit together? And is the message we're trying to get across, is that clear? Is there anything we can do to to accentuate that further to make sure that message comes across in a punchy, strong, deliverable way? Lastly, keep refining.

It is fine to keep changing things.

You want some things to stick that you like? There's something you're still not happy with? You can refine it, you can take your time, you can change it.

That's part of composing.

And once you've got your basic idea, take time to shape it into making sure that message is really powerful.

So here's your task.

You're gonna use those ideas to create your song.

Number one, you can experiment with different ways of layering up your melody, the riffs, and the long-held notes.

So the riffs that are played, the long-held notes on those instruments and voice, and the melody, the sung or chanted part of your protest piece.

Decide how you'll start.

This is really important.

You want to make sure everyone's gonna come in together, so are you counting in? And what's the first thing that happens in that piece of music? Make sure you're all on the same page so it begins neatly, strongly, and well.

And think about how you're gonna vary the textures.

Do things build up? Do those repeated patterns start to layer on top of each other more? Does more things start to happen? Does longer held voice notes stay in, or be become repeated more than one member of your group? What is happening to make your texture thicker, and maybe thinner? When do you want that thick texture? Is there a part of that powerful message where you want it to feel really impactful? So time to compose, time to explore in your groups, using those components.

Enjoy yourself.

Be creative, and I'll see you when you're done.

Wow, so much creativity happening.

How is it going? In this class, Andeep said, "We've changed some of our riffs, 'cause the rhythms all sounded quite similar." I don't know what that group's done.

Maybe they added some syncopation.

Maybe they've changed a rhythm to sound different.

Aisha says, "We're starting with one voice, and then we're gonna come in one by one and that starts to build the tension." Nice.

And Jun says, "When we added the long note under the melody, it sounded very serious.

And we might just save that for the ending part." So we're exploring when our layers come in and out, and when we're saving those bits to get that message across most clearly and powerfully.

Good job.

If you need more time on that, you can pause now and spend a bit more time.

Otherwise, we are moving on to sharing our song for change.

We listened to "Rise Up," and we listen to "Imagine." Now they are both songs with a message of hope.

"Rise Up" was written to inspire young people.

And standing up for change is powerful, but so is reminding people that things can get better.

So we're remembering those messages of positivity.

What we wanna think about is how we can include the lyrics that we wrote with a positive message.

Alex suggests, "We can include a rap, like the one in 'Rise Up' by Akala.

'" And Andeep says, "We could speak it over the music like the Beat Poetry in 'RipRap.

'" Both of these are great ideas.

We remember that structure is the way the music's organized.

So deciding where that comes in is a decision about the structure of the music.

Alex says, "We need to think about how we organize the music so that our message is clear.

We could repeat the melody maybe four times, building the texture each time before our poem or rap comes in towards the end.

Sam says, "Yeah, good idea, Alex.

And we could finish with everyone chanting our message without any instrumental rifts or melodies." So here is a group beginning to work together, listening to each other's ideas and building on those thoughts and ideas that the group has.

Then they're going to rehearse it.

Quick check in for you.

What is musical structure? What is that musical word structure? What does that mean? Is it the speed of the music? Is it the way the music's organized? Is it the combination of different layers of sounds? Or is it the type of instrument used? Think, structure.

Structure, what does that mean? Point to the one you think it is.

Well done.

It is B, the way the music is organized.

Now it's easy to mix structure and texture up.

These words feel interchangeable in our minds.

But texture is the combination of different layers of sound.

So you're gonna pause the video here, and in your groups, you're going to talk about how you might structure your piece, and jot down what happens when.

How does it start? Who's playing what? What is added in to make the texture thicker? How many times are things repeated? When does your positive message come in? Is it at the end? Do you save it for that? When do those long notes happen? Just make sure you know the order, so you're jotting down the order so that it starts to become more fixed.

And then try it out.

See if it has the effect you want.

And if you want to make changes to have a greater impact on your audience, then you can.

Okay, so pause here, and make sure you've got your structure completely set.

Off you go.

Great, so now we know our structure.

We know what happens when in our piece.

To make our message more powerful, we're gonna convey the emotion of the lyrics when we're singing and playing or rapping.

Think about the tone of quality of your voice.

How is that gonna match the mood? Is it bold? Is it soft? Is it tender? What does it need to be to make that message work.

And match the dynamics to the lyrics.

If someone's singing quietly, we need to be playing a bit more quietly too.

Get the balance of your sound right.

And then shape the part you are playing or singing like a sentence.

It should have direction, flow, and feeling.

So whether that is a repeated riff, play it with that expression, bring that emotion to it.

And then we can use our facial expression and our body language to communicate the meaning of the lyrics to the audience.

This final part of your rehearsal now is on you making sure that your message comes powerfully across, powerfully and clearly to an audience, whether that was to be an audience out on the streets, in a big park, seated audience, it doesn't matter.

Think about who you are trying to address how to get their attention, and make sure that your message comes clearly through your music and through your performance.

You might think about how to make it really expressive.

Like when we heard Reem Kelani's piece, "Ah! Ya Reem al-Ghuzlan." There's a lot of emotional expression coming through both the music and the vocals.

Lucas said that in their final rehearsal, they realized playing a rhythm over and over isn't enough.

And they had to really make that rhythm build to get the audience's attention.

And Aisha is reminding us, rehearsing actually help them find which bit needed to be louder and which bit needed to be quieter so that there was important bits of their message, whether that's in the in the vocals, stood out clearly.

So pause here, spend the last part of your rehearsal, making sure that, with all of you, that message is coming clearly across.

Off you go.

Okay, super.

We're ready.

Now, remember, when we perform, we're sharing our work with others and we want to feel proud of our work.

If we're thinking about the meaning of our song, of our piece, that's gonna help give it a really powerful performance, because it's something that matters.

So we stay focused, even if it's not our turn, we stay focused.

If we're not playing at that point, we're still part of that ensemble.

We stay focused and we work together.

If someone makes a mistake, we keep going.

We help them to feel supported.

We don't suddenly stop.

We carry on.

People will carry on too.

And even if you feel nervous, just, it's okay.

We can front it out, we can act confident.

It can really help pop a smile on and become ready.

And don't worry about being perfect.

Perfect doesn't really exist.

What matters is you doing your best at conveying a message that you think is important, and needs to be heard, whether that's spoken, sung, or on your instruments.

Who do you agree with most? Aisha says, at this stage, "Performing is about showing what we've worked hard on, making the audience understand how we feel.

And if we're confident, and we mean what we are saying, they'll really listen." Lucas says, "I think the most important thing is making sure we get everything right, 'cause if we make mistakes, they might not take our message so seriously." Who do you agree with? I must say I am leaning towards Aisha, because if we're meaning what we're saying, that audience is gonna listen and take note.

If we're worrying too much about getting everything right, we're not really focused on delivering that message, getting that message across.

So don't worry if mistakes happen.

You're now going to perform your piece to an audience.

And as a group, you can explain to the audience how the protest theme affected your musical decisions.

So you're explaining, after you've performed it, why we chose to build it up in this way, 'cause we wanted it to feel dramatic here, or this is a really important moment for us.

Whatever your musical choices were, because you've made them as your group, you'll be able to explain them to your audience.

And then ask your audience to share what moved them the most.

You're going to pause the video here to perform your protest piece.

Good luck and I hope all of your powerful messages come across strongly, and clearly.

You've got this.

Off you go.

Brilliant, brilliant work.

With that explaining your musical decisions to the audience you may have included things like this.

We use loud dynamics and syncopated rhythms to show how angry we felt about the issue and how serious it is.

That's great if you are combining these things, you're doing different things musically to each layer of sound.

This is fantastic.

Sofia says, "We structured our piece to get more intense near the end, so the message grew and felt stronger and more emotional." Great explaining.

I hope people really felt the messages and the passion that you are trying to convey.

Really, really well done.

And so in summary, we've looked right throughout this unit of how repetition is used as a powerful tool when creating music so that music and messages can be remembered.

We've been combining different layers of sound to create textures to give more impact to our piece.

We can structure our music to make the message in the music more powerful, and we can add our dynamics and that musical expression to connect and communicate with our audience.

You've been doing all of that today.

Really, really well done, and well done for working right throughout this unit.

All the best.