Project 139: A History of Music

As it's been a year since we last did a music project, and the ukulele classes have been on hold due to the coronavirus, we decided it was time to do another music focused project.

Obviously the history of music is a rather big subject, so we started by revisiting the previous classical music project (Project 90: Classical Music), and then went through the development of twentieth century popular music with the help of Turn It Up! A pitch-perfect history of music that rocked the world. 

This week's reading

Unsurprisingly, most of the week was spent listening to a wide variety of music, although we did have time for some other activities as well.

We explored Stravinsky's Firebird using CBBC resources, and the children created their own Firebird inspired pictures.

Firebirds

Of course you can't have a music project without playing some music, so after introducing them to the blues we got them to write their own 12 bar blues songs. We created a template based on an online example (unfortunately we've lost the link!) and combined it with three ukulele chords they know.

Solomon's Vegetable Blues:

"I've got the Blues,The I have to eat my vegetables BluesEating courgette makes me sickSo a Domino's pizza would do the trick I've got the Blues, The I have to eat my vegetables Blues."

Monica's Going to Bed Blues

"I've got the Blues, The going to bed BluesI would rather stay up lateand go out for a skateI've got the BluesThe going to bed Blues"

Singing the Blues

They both really enjoyed singing their own blues songs, and insisted on singing them to their various grandparents over the phone/Skype.

Finally they explored some of the different elements that go into making up a song with another BBC resource.

Next Project: Presentations