Structuring a piece of music doesn't have to require any complex computer equipment or software, such as the multitrack DAW above. For many of the soundscape activities that your class could engage an audience, students will be making the layered sound themselves as a live performance piece. But recording the music digitally or performing a soundscape live still requires the students to have an awareness of how they can impact the mood of the sound they are making, the impact that this music will have on a potential audience. It requires an awareness of elements of music, beat, rhythm, pitch, tempo, dynamics and tone colour. It requires students to "structure the sound".
For example, for the choir to create their sound art piece of a thunderstorm they needed an awareness of how the tempo of their fingers clicking out of order created an impression of light raindrops falling, how the deeper pitch of peoples legs pounding on the ground sounded very similar to thunder and how this compared to the earlier sounds of fingers clicking - bringing in ideas of dynamics- the volume of the piece changed as more members of the choir clicked their fingers and then got suddenly louder with the thunder. The piece followed a narrative structure, it didn't start in the middle of the storm, the rain picked up and it raised to a crescendo of thunder and rain. A piece of sound art requires some awareness of music theory.
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Within the topic of
soundscapes, you may have the opportunity to introduce some basic music
elements. When discussing the elements of music try and get students to think
about the impact that these elements have on the audience response. Encourage students
to think about how a change in each element changes the mood of the soundscape.
E.g. “If the tempo increases how might that make the audience feel?” or “If the
soundscape is really soft, and then gets suddenly loud how might the audience
feel?”.
Here are some definitions and supporting ways of teaching such concepts in your classroom.
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Rhythm
Is there a certain rhythm to any of the sounds? What
rhythm would footsteps make if you were walking through the bush?
Rhythm is made up of beats and
rest. Rhythm can be thought of as patterns in the sounds . . . think of the
rhythms that are in nursery rhymes or clapping rhythms.
A good game to play with
children when introducing the concept of rhythm is a simple game called the
clapping game. It encourages good group work and listening skills and can help
to develop the children’s sense of rhythm.
There are 2 teams, 1 team
consists of the teacher and the other is the whole class. The teacher claps a
pattern and the children then copy the pattern. If the teacher only claps once
then the children must not clap. If they do then the teacher gets the point and
if they do not then they get the point.
Tempo
What is the tempo of the piece? Is there more
than one tempo in the soundscape? Can the tempo change?
Tempo is the speed or the
pace. An easy way to describe the tempo a piece could be comparing it to the
speed we walk/run. Walking, jogging, sprinting etc. Tempo can affect the mood
of the piece. A fast tempo can sound exciting or frantic. A slow tempo can
sound peaceful or sad. In a sound scape of New Zealand bush the tempo may be
determined by the footsteps we hear. The person may be walking so soundscape
may sound quite relaxed, or the person could be running which again would give
the piece a completely different feeling. Think of how tempo of someone’s
breathing changes the mood. To understand tempo students to attempt to create a small clapping piece where claps stay in time with a rhythm, the rhythm can increase in tempo until the students are clapping so fast that it is extremely hard to keep in time with the beat.
This is an interactive lesson that introduces the concept of tempo for younger children
Pitch
What low sounds can we hear in this piece? High
sounds?
High sounds, low sounds and
everything in between.
To introduce pitch to children there is a game called high,
low and middle.
Just play a note on a pitched instrument (you don’t
have to play the instrument to do this - just play random notes one at a time),
this could be a piano, ukulele, guitar, glockenspiel etc.
Then play either a high note (they stretch up), a low
note (they curl up like balls) and middle note (make a cross with arms). You
can always turn the game into a challenge and eliminate any children that get
it wrong or are slow or the last to act.
Melody
What are the tunes that you can hear in the
piece? What things in this sound scape are creating the melody? Are there
repeating melodies?
Melody is the tune in a piece
… a catchy tune that has notes that change in pitch. For the purposes of soundscapes it depends which sort of approach you want to take, some melodies such as bird calls could be used as a repeating motif in the piece.
Dynamics
Is this piece loud or soft?
Dynamics are related to the volume of the
piece
Dynamics can change suddenly,
soft straight to loud, or the dynamics can get gradually louder (crescendo) or
gradually softer (decrescendo).
In a soundscape the there may
be different dynamics for different sounds at the same time. The sound of the
river may start to fade out as the rustling of the trees gradually comes in;
this would indicate that you are walking away from the river towards some
trees.
This is another great interactive lesson that introduces the concept of dynamics for younger children
Texture
How many layers does this piece have? How many
things are going on at the same time?
Texture of a piece is
essentially the amount of layers a piece has and how those layers are related. Clicking on the bold links will link to some midi examples.
To get technical …
Monophonic – only one thing
going on, one melodic line
Homophonic – there is one
melodic line but there is an accompaniment (normally chords) going on
underneath it to support it (you could compare this to a backing track, you can
tell something is missing)
Polyphonic – two or more
melodic lines going on at the same time, each melodic line could stand alone
and still sound complete. Good examples of polyphonic texture are
rounds/cannons.
Throughout one piece, it may
have different textures.
In a soundscape you may want
to start off with just one thing happening (monophonic) and gradually layer
things onto as Andrew and Jonathan have done in their soundscape. If the
soundscape is based on taking a walk in the bush, the layering of the sounds
will depend on what you are ‘walking past’ at the time.
Timbre/Tone Colour
Does this piece sound light or dark?
Timbre is how the instruments
sound, the tone colour. It can be described in many different ways, bright or
dark, thick or thin, harsh or soft etc. The timbre of a instrument/element will
have a direct effect on the mood of the piece. Think of the sound of wind. We
could use bullroarer to create the sound of wind, the timbre of that could be
described as dark. Or a group could make soft whooshing sounds, the timbre of
this could be described as gentle.
This
website will be an interesting example to explore on structuring sound in a modern recording, in this example a music video from the Grammy Award winners Arcade Fire can be "remixed" and the different elements of the song can be removed. Students can identify what different elements or layers of the song achieve and that music can be comprised of layers.
As students work structuring their sounds they can create with their voices, found and constructed instruments and body percussion, they need to keep in mind what story the sounds are telling, how will this contribute to the audience's understanding. Utilising some effective feedback and feedforward with students can help in this process, scaffolding students understanding and getting students to develop their own ideas of how to improve their piece of music. A good idea is to record the students work on Garageband so that they can hear themselves and then address any issues with the sound, perhaps the rustling paper they are using for leaves is rustling too loud.
A fantastic support resource that the Ministry of Education put out is "Into Music 1" found at
http://artsonline2.tki.org.nz/resources/units/music_units/into_music_1/
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