Part 2

Learning Area: The Arts

Strands: Music

Year Level: 7-10

Content Descriptor

• Experiment with texture and timbre in sound sources using aural skills (ACAMUM092).

• Develop musical ideas, such as mood, by improvising, combining and manipulating the elements of music (ACAMUM093).

• Manipulate combinations of the elements of music in a range of styles, using technology and notation (ACAMUM100).

• Improvise and arrange music, using aural recognition of texture, dynamics and expression to manipulate the elements of music to explore personal style in composition and performance (ACAMUM099).

• Australian music including music of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (ACAMUR098).

Learning Focus

• Students learn about and discuss Kram’s creative process.

• Students learn techniques to support their own improvisation and composition skills.

Watch the Jamming with Kram (Part 2) video.

Discuss the following quotes from the video with your class:

• “It’s the process of movement, that every time you get a new idea, it might lead you in a new direction”
• “Go in all different directions at once and you’ll always arrive at the right place”

Discuss the process from the last lesson and talk about any challenges that arose for the students.

How can they move through these challenges?

What you have already done in lesson associated with the first video is create one section of a song. This section is mostly likely a chorus, a verse or a bridge.

Ask the class to name the different sections that make up a song and specify the function of each section. Use the following as prompts:

• Intro – Gets you ready, introduces the song.
• Verse – Moves the story of the song forward.
• Pre-chorus – A bit of a lift before the chorus. Here comes the catchy bit that will get stuck in your head! Note that not all songs have this. Usually melodically the same each time it is repeated, but not lyrically.
• Chorus – The main idea of the song. Usually the same lyrically and melodically each time it is repeated.
• Bridge – Sometimes an instrumental break, but can also have lyrics. The bridge gives the song a bit of space from the verse and the chorus and is harmonically different from both of these.

Outro – Closes the song and brings it to a conclusion.

Analyse the Spiderbait song Calypso and write out the song structure.

Putting your ideas into a song structure.

Listen back to one of the recordings from the last lesson and decide as a class whether you think it is a verse, chorus or another section. Have a discussion about why you have chosen it to be this particular section.

Using the same techniques as in the previous lesson, create another section for your song – will it be a Chorus? Bridge? Verse?

Can you use something from your first section to inspire you in the creation of the new section?

For example, take the chord sequence from the first section and change the order of the chords.

Developing your song sections

Remembering Kram’s quotes, try the following ideas with any of your already created sections:

• Instrumentation – take the chords and instead of playing them on a piano, play them on a ukulele or any other chordal instrument available to the class.
• Try playing everything faster or slower
• Change the chords completely
• Create a different melody
• Trying playing something in reverse
• Use the same chords and melody but create a new rhythm

   

  Are you stuck for ideas?

  In small groups ask the students to listen to an appropriate song that they all like and know well. You may like to use the Australian Music Vault Learning Playlists developed for the Music Module of the online Digital Learning Kit. Please check songs beforehand for appropriate content.

   

  Two Way Traffic

  The Wild Ones

  The Real Thing

  Agents of Change

  Punk / New Wave

  Hiphop

   

  While listening through the song, write down the following.

   

• The tempo (a descriptor or BPM)

• The time signature – how many beats per bar
• The instruments heard in the song
• The structure of the song, eg intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro etc. Include how many bars in each section as well as a description of what is happening musically
• The mood of the song – does it feel happy, sad, hectic etc.
• Can you find the ‘tonic’ note of the song and from here the key? Or can you find some notes that sound good within the song?

Now use this as a map for your song.

Once you have at least two sections for your song, discuss the mood of the sections with the class. How does it make everyone feel? Encourage the students to be as descriptive as possible.

• Happy
• Melancholy
• Angry
• More…

Does it make them think of any particular stories or remind them of something that they have experienced or a place that they have visited? Using these reactions you can brainstorm lyrical ideas for this song. For more help with lyrics, see the resources Olympia Sound Bites video.