KEY STAGE 3

Different times, cultures, genres

Using an advanced search, you can find music from many different places, styles and eras. Tracks can be saved as files and used in the classroom to teach world music, classical music, jazz etc. Similarly you can find music to complement other subject areas, or simply for listening to whilst filing in and out of assembly. 

Pupils can then compare and contrast music from many different sources, can use playlists to help with aural exercises and are enhancing their ICT skills by becoming competent users of the technology.

Written work

Playtime can be used as a basis for individual written projects. After teaching your class how to use the system and to perform a simple search you could encourage them to use the collection rather like the internet to research projects.

Pupils can search for music from different places, decades, genres and save lists as files to then use as examples in written work or for further study. They can compare different versions of the same song by several different artists.

Compare and Contrast

Use the system to find the following tracks:

      Chopin: Preludes no 20 in C minor

      Barry Manilow: Could it be magic

      Donna Summer: Could it be magic

      Take That: Could it be magic

(The simplest way to find these is do a title search of Could it be magic. The latter three tracks should pop up instantly. To get Chopin, do an advanced search in the genre of Classical.)

The following project could be done as a class listening exercise, in groups or individually or even as an exam!  

	Play the opening of each track to your class. Ask them to write down what they hear playing particular attention to the elements of music (instrumentation, timbre - singers’ voice, speed, rhythm, pitch etc.)
	Ask them to spot similarities and differences. They will probably realise that the final three are the same song, but will they recognise it in its classical form?
	Ask them to guess what year each was composed.

You can use this example merely as a listening exercise; listen, analyse, compare and contrast and a few structural questions, or you take it further into composition…

Theme and Variations

Explain to your class that they have just listened to one theme in four different variations (or versions, or mixes).

Other examples of Theme and Variations (which can be searched for and listened to using Playtime) are Britten’s Young Person’s Guide, Elgar’s Enigma, other songs based on classical melodies (Celine Dion: All by myself and Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 2) and numerous recent tracks using samples or with several different club mixes.

Teach your class the main melody of the Chopin. It’s not difficult when you really strip it down. It looks like this: (I’ve changed the key to cut out most of the black notes; the beat of the bar is written underneath  

C      C      B      B      | A      B        G#-F# E

1       2      3       4      | 1       2        3   +   4

A      F      E - D  C      | C      D       C - B  A

1       2      3  +   4      | 1       2        3  +    4

Explain that this is their theme. It is the same as Chopin wrote and the others varied. Set them the task, either individually, for homework or in groups to create a new piece of music using this theme.

You might like to further advise them that the theme doesn’t have to remain the theme – it could become a bassline or accompaniment. They don’t have to use all of it, they could just use its shape or the rhythm or just a fragment of it. The most skilled composers used to enjoy hiding the theme cleverly within their variations.

This composition task can be done on whatever resources you and your pupils have, and in whatever style is appropriate for their age, ability and curriculum. It is one of a thousand ways the Playtime Collection can become a starting point for further exploration and classroom work in line with the National Curriculum.