Author: mrsfostermusic

Extra curricular music @ Hayes this term:

We are SUPER excited to get started with you all. Let’s make 2021-2022 as musical as possible!

Instrumental and singing lessons @ Hayes:

Behind the Doodle:

“Summertime” is a song by American hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. The duo consisted of rapper Will Smith (the Fresh Prince) and disc jockey Jeff Townes (DJ Jazzy Jeff). The song was released in May 1991 and became their most successful single.

The song samples the 1974 song “Summer Madness” by the American band, Kool & the Gang.

Have a fabulous summer holiday! Maybe do some really lovely musical things – try a new instrument, learn a new piece, or listen to something different. We look forward to hearing all about it next term.

Adam Ben Ezra (born 1982) is an Israeli self-taught multi-instrumentalist, composer and educator, known for his double bass performances. He is also an online sensation with more than ten million hits on YouTube and a strong social media following. He was introduced to the double-bass at age 16 and was instantly attracted to the instrument’s rich sound. He incorporates elements of Jazz, Funk, Latin and Mediterranean music into his playing, and often uses a combination of electronic effects and pedals to loop his notes in order to deliver a rich wall of sound.

Find out more about the double bass here

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899 – 1974) was an American composer, pianist and big-band bandleader who composed thousands of scores over his 50-year career. He composed “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)“ in 1931. The lyrics were written by Irving Mills. The song is now accepted as a jazz standard.

A big band is a type of ensemble of jazz music. They dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing music was most popular and the big bands provided the accompaniment for dancing. Swing music uses subtle syncopated rhythms (rhythm patterns where stressed notes are placed off the beat).

In contrast to the typical jazz emphasis on improvisation, big bands relied more on written compositions and arrangements. They gave a greater role to bandleaders, arrangers, and sections of instruments rather than soloists. Big bands usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section.

Click here for an excellent whistle-stop tour of an orchestra. See and hear the instruments of the orchestra, played by the musicians of the BBC Philharmonic from their own homes during lockdown.

This is Rondo alla Mambo (inspired by the Third Movement of W. A. Mozart’s Horn Concerto No.3) played by French Horn player, Sarah Willis, and the Havana Lyceum Orchestra of Cuba. Sarah Willis is a horn player in the world-renowned Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. She travelled to Havana in Cuba to teach and discovered that music was everywhere, and was very surprised to come across a monument commemorating Mozart. This was the inspiration for her project ‘Mozart y Mambo’ a one-time musical experience combining Mozart’s horn concertos with traditional Cuban music. Find out more about this project here.

The mambo is a genre of Cuban dance music which originated in Cuba in the 1940s. Listen out for the syncopated rhythms and exciting percussion. Compare the mambo-style melody in today’s extract above (from 57 seconds) with Mozart’s original version here from the 1780s.

Do Not Be Afraid is a choral song composed by Philip Stopford with words by Gerard Markland. It is based on four verses from the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 43.

Philip Stopford (born 1977) is an English sacred music choral composer and choir director. He is known for his contemporary a cappella and accompanied settings of traditional Latin and English prayers and hymns. A cappella means vocal music performed without instrumental accompaniment as can be heard in today’s piece. A cappella is Italian for ‘”in the manner of the chapel”‘ – it was originally used in religious music.

Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian composer and conductor from the late Romantic period of music. Today’s piece, the Symphony No. 1 in D major was mainly composed between late 1887 and March 1888.

The extract is from the start of the fourth movement.

Things to listen out for:

• The introduction consisting of an abrupt cymbal crash, a loud chord in the upper woodwinds, string and brass, and a timpani roll, all in succession.
• Fanfares in the brass section

The symphony is scored for a very large orchestra, consisting of the following:

• Woodwinds – 4 flutes, 4 oboes, 4 clarinets, 3 bassoons 
• Brass – 7 horns, 5 trumpets, 4 trombones, 1 tuba
• Percussion – 6 timpani, 1 bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam
• Strings – 1 harp, 1st violins, 2nd violins, violas, cellos, double basses

Flight of the Bumblebee is an orchestral piece written by Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899–1900 during the late Romantic period of music. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 –1908) was a Russian composer who is regarded as a master of orchestration. Orchestration is the practice of writing music for an orchestra.

The composition of today’s piece is intended to musically evoke the seemingly chaotic and rapidly changing flying pattern of a bumblebee. 

Things to listen out for:

• The rapid chromatic scales played by the solo violinist. A chromatic scale is a pattern of notes consisting of semitones. A semitone is the smallest gap between 2 notes, for example C to C#. Using semitones creates musical tension.
• The virtuosic melody line with a light accompaniment from pizzicato orchestral strings. Pizzicato means the instruments are played by plucking the strings with the finger instead of using the bow.
• A steady pulse