Today we began our Music challenge. It is called 'Songwriter', and we will be exploring the relationship between lyrics (the words) and melody (the tune).

We listened to and learned the words of a song called 'I Wanna Sing Scat' (or skin cats if you are Mrs Davies). This song contains scat, bop and swing styles, which are different types of jazz music, origianally made popular during the first half of the 20th century by the great names of jazz, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington.

We had to invent an ostinato (a short rhythmic phrase which is played repeatedly), which we played on tuned percussion.

We then performed the song with the ostinato parts.

To do this we had to use communication and thinking skills (number skills too, if you include counting the beat).

Our next task will be to discuss how lyrics convey mood.

Eventually we will compose, perform and appraise our own 'blues' song.

To listen to the music of Dizzy Gillespie click the link below.

http://music.aol.com/song/player/audioplayer.jsp

To listen to the music of Charlie Parker click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NrfybzpsnY

To listen to some 'Blues' music click the link below.

http://www.nutsie.com/search/nutsie?filter=Memphis%20Blues