Unit: Experimenting with sound

Part A: Performing and composing in graphic notation

Lesson outcomes

Performing activity

Display OHT 2: Storm Music, covering up the performance directions. Ask students to identify what the music is depicting by looking at the graphic symbols used. They should easily identify it as a storm.
Discuss the symbols used:

How many different sounds are shown?
What aspect of the storm does each one represent?
Why are some louder, longer, larger, higher, denser than others?
What is the function of the vertical lines evenly spaced along the score?
Ask students to suggest ways of creating the required sounds. Compare their ideas with the performance directions.

Divide students into four groups to make the required sounds. Ensure students understand the score reads from left to right, with each group playing when their symbol appears.
Discuss ways to ensure everyone is following and coming in at the right time. Outline the importance of a conductor and highlight the instructions to the conductor for this piece.

Perform the piece several times, choosing a different conductor each time. Tape some of the playing and listen to the results. Discuss which was the most successful performance and why.

Notating group composition

Send students back to their initial percussion composition groups to work on notating their original piece. The aim is for each group to produce a score which is clear enough for other class groups to play from and achieve a similar result to the original performance.

The score should be set out carefully to show when each instrument plays in relation to one another. Explain the convention of putting the high instruments at the top of the score and the low ones at the bottom, so a percussion score might be arranged with the triangle or finger cymbals at the top and the bass drum at the bottom.

Students should devise symbols that clearly show what all the instruments play. Write one instrument to a line and indicate changes in pitch, dynamics and duration. Explain that this is what composers call a score.

Resources

OHT 2: Storm Music

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