September - If Music Be The Food of Love ..

We have been studying different composers and pieces of music in class.

We started this term with Hans Zimmer's Earth, creating an art work that the music inspired in us, practising 'shimmering' , learning about 'motifs' and adding in some of our own.

One of the children has taken on an individual research project on Beethoven and we have ridden on the back of her work too. She worked with one of our more musical volunteers and presented her exploration of his biography to us. We listened to his Sixth Symphony, listening out for the thunder and lightning and better understanding Beethoven's love of nature. We used what we learnt to try to understand better how someone hard of hearing might experience music through vibration, copying Beethoven's tactic of using a pencil against his piano, marvelling at the talent to compose music under those conditions.

Two of our students ice-skate and so we concluded our half term by listening to Ravel's Bolero, naming the different instruments as they are introduced into the piece. We watched the Torvill and Dean dance as a treat.

https://www.afar.com/magazine/watch-national-orchestra-of-france-perform-bolero-in-lockdown