Lesson video

Hello, I'm Dr.

Southall and this is a unit called Atmospheric Music.

Join me for our learning today and we'll see how we get on.

In this lesson, you'll be able to identify how timbre can be used to create an atmosphere and choose appropriate timbre to create scary music.

There's four key words for this lesson.

The first is timbre, the sound or tone, quality of an instrument.

The second is staccato when the notes are played in a detached way.

The third is legato when the movement between each note is smooth.

And the fourth is sequence, a short melodic idea that is repeating in steps either rising or falling.

Part one of this lesson is called considering timbre.

Listen to this excerpt of music.

What do you think might be happening on screen? What happens with the pitch, tempo, and dynamics to give this impression? And what musical techniques can you identify? If you need to listen to the clip more than once, simply rewind the video.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music intensifies) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) Well, let's see what other people thought about that music.

I thought it was very intense.

It was low pitch to start, started quietly and got louder.

There was chromatic movements, ostinato, no clusters in the faster section, and the tempo did get faster from the beginning to the end.

What does it evoke? What sort of feelings do you do you have when you listen to that sort of music? Some of the instrumental choices that have been chosen to provide color and interest in the music, but have been chosen because of their timbre and add to the desired tension.

Listen again to the music.

Which instrument plays the opening motif and why is this a suitable instrument? What percussion instruments are used and what effect do they have? Let's listen one more time.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) Well, certainly gives me the chills that music.

The opening motif is played by a double base as well as being low pitched.

The strings are well suited to creating tension as they can be played with a bow.

This gives intensity to the sound.

Percussion, and particularly bell like sounds can also be effective for scary music.

In the clip you heard tuned percussion, which was a glockenspeil, untuned percussion, a bass drum, a woodblock, and a symbol played with a bow.

Did you hear each of those? Instruments can also be played in different ways for different effect? How is this melody played differently? Let's listen to both clips.

(instrumental music) That's clip one.

Let's hear clip two.

(instrumental music) How are they played differently? One is performed legato and the other, the second one, was performed staccato.

This is known as using different articulation.

Let's check for understanding which two families of the orchestra can be particularly effective for creating tension in music.

A, strings, B, woodwind C, brass, or, D, percussion.

Choose two answers.

Well, I hope you got that right.

It's strings and percussion.

Those are the two families of the orchestra, which are particularly effective for creating tension in music.

True or false? Legato is a type of articulation that means to play the notes detached.

Answer is false.

Legato means to play notes moving smoothly from one to the next.

And staccato means to play the notes short and detached.

Time for an independent task.

Listen to this excerpt, this musical clip, and when you do, there's a number of questions to consider.

So you may wish to listen to this clip a number of times.

Before you listen to it, let's have a look at those questions.

So first, which two contrasting articulations are used during the introduction? Question two, which tuned percussion instrument plays the main melodic line throughout? Question three, what musical devices used in the melody to make it sound creepy? Question four, describe four other features that make the music sound scary.

You could consider dynamics, timbre, tempo and musical devices.

Question five, which family of the orchestra plays an accompanying role in the fast section towards the end? And finally, question six, what story might the music be depicting? Now, I would take a couple of these questions at a time, listen to the clip, just answering those questions and then listen to it again, thinking of the next couple of questions, but I'm gonna play it for you now.

(instrumental music) (instrumental continues) (instrumental continues) (instrumental continues) (instrumental music intensifies) (instrumental continues) So when considering which two contrasting articulations are used during the introduction, we had legato, in the two note melodic idea, and staccato in the accompaniment.

When considering which tuned percussion instrument plays the main melodic line throughout, it's the glockenspiel.

What musical devices used in the melody to make it sound creepy? That was the chromatic movement.

And when describing four features that make this music sound ominous or scary, you could consider dynamics, pitch, tempo, and timbre.

An example response could be the dynamics are quiet, the tempo is slow and steady with a feeling of inevitability.

Long low pitch notes are played with the double bass, the symbol scrapes, lots of short repeated ideas, similar to an ostinato.

All of these are sorts of features that make the music sound ominous or scary.

Which family of the orchestra plays an accompanying role? That was the strings.

The music could be depicting a story such as an opening of something creeping or tiptoeing through the dark, looking over their shoulder.

And then towards the end it starts to feel like running or being chased or trying to escape from something.

Part two, choosing timbre.

Timbre allows us to recognize the difference in the sound and instrument makes.

When we discuss timbre in music, we are commonly talking about the instruments we can hear.

Different timbres in music can create interest due to the variety of different sounds.

However, sometimes composers choose specific instruments or timbres for a specific effect.

Listen to the same piece of music played on different instruments and see if you can match up the instrument with the most appropriate descriptive word.

So here is the first one.

(instrumental music) (instrumental music continues) (instrumental music continues) (instrumental music intensifies) Okay, so that was the organ.

And you need to match up whether you felt that was spooky, chilling, dreamy, sinister, dramatic or magical.

Let's hear the second one.

This is a glockenspiel.

(instrumental music) (instrumental music continues) So that was exactly the same notes, but obviously using a different instrument.

And did the sound of that instrument invoke any feelings of sort of being spooky or chilling, dreamy, sinister, dramatic or magical? And then finally the same music again, but this time played with a synthesiser.

(synthesiser music) That was the synthesizer.

So have a think again.

See if you can match some words to how the sort of feeling that's invoked by that music with that particular sound of instrument.

You may have described the organ as dramatic.

The glockenspiel is magical and the synthesiser is chilling or spooky.

It may be that a couple of those you match to different examples.

So for example, the organ may have had one or two of the same categories as the synthesiser.

The important point is that timbre can have a big impact on the feel of the music.

Strings, organs, synthesizer and bell like glockenspiels or music boxes or things like that sounds are effective and work well on an electronic keyboard.

Let's have a check for understanding.

Why do composers use different timbres in their music? Well, you may have decided it's something like adding interest and color or certain timbres can create a specific feel in the music.

Well done.

Which of these instruments would most likely sound dramatic? A glockenspiel an organ or a flute? Well, I think I've got the right answer.

B, an organ.

An organ usually sounds very dramatic 'cause it's got such a big sound.

Consider the Timbre use so far in your scary scene composition and develop your use of timbre to help convey the scene.

The success criteria for this task is to consider using a string, synthesizer, organ or bell like sound, like a glockenspiel, depending on the feel of your scene, and if choosing another timbre consider why it is effective.

And finally, use two different sounds for the different musical ideas or change the timbre at some point in the music to add color.

Best of luck.

I look forward to hearing some of these.

Enjoy.

Time for a bit of evaluation.

Have you used more than one timbre? Have you used string, synthesizer, or bell like sounds? Have used other timbres? If so, why are these effective and how would you describe them? Are they low or high pitched instruments, for example? Let's move on.

Part three of this lesson is called developing your ideas.

As well as using timbre, we can develop our compositions in other ways.

How does the initial motif extend in this example? How does the accompanying part contrast with the main melodic idea? Let's have a listen.

(instrumental music) (instrumental music continues) (instrumental music continues) <v ->Well, we've got some ideas here for you.

</v> First of all, the pattern repeats, but it's lower when it's repeated.

So the sequence changes slightly for the second part of the tune.

Second of all, there is a lower part to the music and the notes are longer and more sustained here, the pattern has fewer notes.

If developing your ostinato, play it in a sequence, extend the pattern.

If you're composing a second part, it needs to contrast.

It could add note clusters or a pedal as a second part.

Let's have a check for understanding.

Which of the following best describes a sequence.

A, the pattern is repeated and stays exactly the same.

B, the pattern is never repeated.

Or C, the pattern is repeated and moves up or down in pitch.

The answer is C, the pattern is repeated and moves up or down in pitch.

We're gonna listen to two more clips.

How has the music developed here from the original idea? Give as much musical detail as you can.

Here's the original idea for a witch flying through the night.

(instrumental music) So that was the original.

Now we're going to listen to the developed idea.

(instrumental music) (instrumental music continues) (instrumental music continues) So again, how has that music developed from the original idea to the developed idea? Try and use some of that key vocabulary we've been thinking about.

Well, here's some examples.

The two note motif develops into an ostinato.

The ostinato develops into a rising sequence.

In other words, it gets higher.

A pedal is added at the start.

I don't know if you heard that.

There is a contrasting idea, longer notes with a very low pitch contrast with the shorter notes that are a higher pitch that were from the original.

And the timbre has changed to strings.

There's also a note cluster at the end, if you heard that kind of discord.

In which two ways can you develop a musical idea into a composition? A, use a sequence to extend the ostinato.

B, change the tempo.

C, add a contrasting idea to the original idea, or, D, compose a new idea instead of the original idea.

The answer is A, that's one of the ways you can use a sequence to extend the ostinato.

And also C, add a contrasting idea to the original musical idea.

Well done.

Time for some independent practice.

I want you to develop your composition by using one or more of the following, a sequence or extend the musical idea, compose a contrasting idea or add a pedal or note cluster, use the appropriate articulation or changing articulations, or consider repeating the same idea with a change of timbre.

Always listen and check that your music conveys your scene choice.

Remember, if you want to hear any of these sorts of examples that we've already played, you can repeat this video, rewind this video to the clip that you need.

Here's some points for reflection for you.

Have you used a sequence to develop your ostinato? Have you composed a second musical idea which contrasts with the original? And how does it contrast? How have you changed the timbre? How do your ideas create tension and convey your chosen scene? Well, we've reached the end of today's lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed it, and I hope you've really been able to refine any compositions that you've made to make them even better and even more sophisticated.

Let's have a quick recap of a couple of the key themes of this lesson.

So the first is that, timbre can be used to help create atmosphere in music.

Strings are effective as they have quite an intense sound.

Tuned percussion can also be effective in making music sound creepy.

We can use different articulations, including staccato and legato for different effects, and we can use sequence to develop and extend our musical ideas.

I hope that wasn't too scary for you, and I hope you've enjoyed it.

Good luck.

Will see you next time, and thank you for listening.