2015 Term 4, Week 2: How to do the Hand Jive

We are learning to do a hand jive to Johnny B Goode. 

The hand jive is a dance particularly associated with music of the 1950s -  rhythm and blues especially. It involves a pattern of hand movements  and sounds keeping in time with the beat of music. It was first seen done by teenagers  in 1957 in London in a basement coffee bar called The Cat's Whisker. It is believed to have been invented by girls dancing to a band in a crowded room where there there was no space to dance with their feet. 

               

Here's a simple set of step-by-step instructions for the hand jive. 

Here's the original song called Willy and the Hand Jive written and performed by Johnny Otis. 

This is  version of the Hand Jive Song  from Glee.

This is a version of the Hand Jive Song from a stage production of Grease.  

We have based our Johnny B Good Dance on this version of the hand jive. 

Michael J Fox (as Marty McFly) does Johnny B Goode in the movie "Back to the Future".  
He adds a bit of  heavy metal to his version. 

 

Rhythm practice:

Clap these rhythms while counting 1 2 3 4.  Then choose any group or groups  of four counts and clap along to Roll Over Beethoven or Johnny B Goode.  

Name these Notes: 
Use "I knew You were Treble" for help.  
Then play this notation game before trying to name the notes below.

 

More Dances: 
Cotton Eye Joe
Barbara Ann  

Juniors:
I'm Gonna Catch You!
Jump Up  
The Monster Shuffle     

Notes on the Line do the Rhyme; notes in the space spell FACE

Name that note game:
Here's a game where you have to click on the name of the note. You can go as fast or slow as you like.  
  

2015 Term 4, Week 1: Rock and Roll - Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry is considered to be one the most influential musicians of the 20th Century. He  was one of the first rock and roll guitarists, with a mix of blues and country music in his style. Many of the world's greatest rock and roll musicians and singers have covered his songs, played on stage with him, or acknowledge his influence in developing their own style.  Chuck Berry, himself, was influenced by the rock/gospel/blues style of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who has been largely overlooked as an early icon of rock and roll guitarists and singers.

He was born Charles Edward Anderson Berry on October 18, 1926, in St.Louis, Missouri. Both his parents were the grandchildren of slaves. His father was a carpenter and a deacon in his church, and his mother was one of the few black women of her generation to gain a college education. Berry grew up in a middle class black neighbourhood and had never seen a white person until he saw firemen putting out a fire when he was three. He thought they had turned white with fear of the flames.

Berry learnt to play guitar as a teenager and performed first at his high school. He was involved in an attempted armed robbery and spent some time in a reform school, then worked for his father and for General Motors as a janitor. He also studied hairdressing and cosmetology at night school and became a beautician. In the 1950s he joined a band and had his first Top 10 hit with Maybelline, followed by several others, including Sweet Little Sixteen,  Roll Over Beethoven, and Johnny B Goode which is in the top ten rock songs of all time and is considered to be one of the most recognisable rock songs of all time. It was the first hit song to be written about rock and roll music, and is loosely auto-biographical.

 

In the early 1960s, he spent two more years in jail for employing an underage waitress, and by the time he was released, British bands were releasing music in USA - including some of Berry's own songs.   He has made several more recordings and appeared in several films.

In 1986, Berry was one of the first musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But he was also being investigated for income tax evasion and spent 100 days in prison in 1988.  In 1990 he was charged with drug offences and was given a suspended jail sentence and ordered to donate $5,000 to a local hospital.

 
Chuck Berry is also famous for his duck walk. Although other guitarists may have done it before him, he popularised it and is credited as the inventor.  Berry said that he used to do it as a child to entertain his family, and that when he performed it on stage in 1956, the audience loved it so much he included it in his routine from then on.

 Berry has continued to tour the world giving concerts, often with other classic  rock and roll stars of the past. He is now 88 years old.

This is an interview with John Lennon who talks about the influence of Chuck Berry on his music, and on rock and roll music overall. Then Chuck Berry talks about John Lennon's influence on rock and roll music and musicians, and sings Johnny B Goode with John Lennon's son, Julian. (1986)

Johnny B Goode has been covered by over 100 different singers and bands including: AC/DC, Aerosmith, The Beach Boys, The  Beatles, Bon Jovi, Green Day, Jimi Hendrix, Bill Haley and the Comets, Buddy Holley, Elton John, BB King,  John Lennon, Jerry Lee Lewis, Judas Priest, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Meat Loaf,  Elvis Presley, Prince, The Rolling Stones, Carlos Santana, Slade,  Bruce Springsteen, Status Quo, George Thorogood,  Johnny Winter, and The Who.

Roll over Beethoven: Chuck Berry' 1956 Roll over Beethoven is also one of the most recorded rock and roll songs of all time. It's been recorded by: The Beatles, Electric Light Orchestra, Status Quo, Jerry Lee Lewis,  and The Rolling Stones.  The lyrics seem to change slightly in various versions. 

Some vocabulary and references to help you understand the song: 
DJ - disc jockey: This was the name of the person who played records (discs) on the radio. People used to write letters to the radio station to request the songs they wanted to hear. 
Roll over:  The saying "to roll over in the grave" means that someone who is dead (and buried) would be so outraged or offended by something that they would not be able to stay settled and at peace in their grave. The assumption is that Beethoven (and Tchaikovsky) would not have liked rock and roll. 
Jukebox:  A machine which plays music selected by  a person who pays for it by depositing money in a slot,  and this sets off the automated process of playing the music. 
Blowing a fuse: When a machine breaks down because it can't cope with the electrical load on it. 
Rhythm review /revue: a show where a lot of featured artists would be advertised to perform with a big show band. 
The blues:  A style of music evolved from African-American communities in the southern states of USA.
Reel, rock, roll, two by two, wiggle: names of dance moves or steps  
Pneumonia:  is an infection of the lungs
Arthritis:  is a painful condition that affects joints of the body 
Dig: a slang saying which means to really like something 
Blue suede shoes:  refers to a song written by Carl Perkins and sung by Elvis Presley 
Hey Diddle Diddle: refers to the nursery rhyme "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle . . . " and also refers to another rock and roll singer called Bo Diddley who played the violin as well as electric guitar. 
Glow worm:  Insect larvae that glows in the dark - and wiggles . . . 
Dime: A dime is the equivalent of NZ 10 cents - which was quite a lot of money in the days this song was written. You had to drop a dime into the juke box slot to activate the music. 

Use glockenspiels/ ukuleles / guitars to accompany Roll over Beethoven 

Introduction: D  D  D  D;  G  G  D  D;  A  A  D  D

Guitar solo: D  D  D  D;  G  G  D  D;  A  G  D  D 

Learn how to play Roll Over Beethoven here.

Beethoven turns up in other  less-than-classical contexts. Here's a short story about places Beethoven has appeared in jokes, songs or movies.

Notation Practice:
Let's practise our favourite way to learn the names and places of the notes. 

I knew you were treble when you walked in.  
Ode to the Treble Clef - '50s rock ballad 
Notes on the Line do the Rhyme; notes in the space spell FACE

Name these Notes: Are they on they line? Do they rhyme? Are they in the space?

Favourite Dances for this week: 
Cotton Eye Joe


This week's tongue twister: 

  Can you keep a rhythm while you are saying these?

2015 September - October holidays

As promised, here's a few videos and activities for the holidays.

Watch five men play the one cello in this piece called Bolero by Maurice Ravel.

See how this film maker and musician used traffic passing a certain point to create music.  Does that sound strange?  See how it works.

This song (below) is from the movie "Five Pennies" and features Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong sing "When the Saints go Marching In".  You might recognise some of the composers they mention.

 

Here's one of the notation games we have already done before to help learn the names of notes.   Drag  the correct note letter to the note symbols to spell a word. 

Here's a compilation of animals playing musical instruments. 

And here's some funny animals talking . . .  

One of these two cockatoos really likes Elvis - and the other doesn't! 

Check out this video for some ideas on home-made musical instruments you can make over the holidays. 

This is an online jigsaw puzzle of a violin.  You can change the shape of the pieces and the number of pieces you want in the puzzle. 

One of my favourite Donald Duck cartoons. This is from 1951 and is called Dude Duck.

Here's a colouring in picture. You may find it easier to go to the picture site. 

2015 Term 3, Week 10: End of Term 3 - Favourite and Funniest Moosic

This week we will look at our favourite songs and dances from the term - and we can measure how much we have learned by how funny we find the jokes. If we understand them, we must have learnt something new this term!

Some of our favourite composers have a bovine connection . . .

Here's some annoying moosic - with a cow playing a guitar. . .

And this is just plain weird - someone had fun with computer graphics and cows, but it's also a bit of fun, with dancing cows.

For Juniors: A song to get stuck in your head over the holidays: The Duck Song

I knew You  Were Treble . . . .    A Taylor Swift parody to help you learn the notes on the treble clef.

Here's the Swedish chef from  The Muppets showing you how to make popcorn - and how to play music in the kitchen while you wait for the popcorn to cook.

 It's been a while since we've seen Danny Kaye's story of the Little Fiddle.

And our favourite conductor - Bugs Bunny

Here's something funny to check out over the holidays - singing dogs.

2015 Term 3, Week 9: Who were the best women guitarists?

We have learnt about stringed instruments in the orchestra, and learnt about guitars and famous acoustic and classical guitarists. So far all the guitarists we've learnt about have been men, but did you know that some of the most influential guitarists have been women?  When you  see and hear them playing you may think that they sound like a male guitarist you have seen and heard, but did you know that some of the most famous singers and guitarists were influenced by these women - who did this music first?

Because some of these videos and recordings are so old, the quality of the picture and sound is fairly poor - by our expectations today - but I'm sure you will enjoy them, just the same.

 

Sister Rosetta Tharpe singing Up Above My Head   
See "Songs We Sing" for lyrics.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She was most popular in the 1930s and 1940s but has influenced a lot of the most famous guitarists since then - including Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Johnny Cash, Meatloaf, Tina Turner and Little Richard.

She was a gospel singer first and included rock guitar accompaniment. She has been called “the original soul sister” and “the godmother of rock and roll”. Her music was a mix (or “cross-over” ) of pop, gospel, blues and rock and roll.

She was born Rosetta Nubin in 1915 in Arkansas, USA. Her parents were cotton pickers and her father was also a singer. Tharpe's mother was a singer, mandolin player, evangelist and preacher in a church which encouraged music and dancing in praise and allowed women to preach. Tharpe began singing and playing the guitar from the age of four and joined her mother singing in a travelling band.

She married a preacher called Thomas Thorpe, and changed her stage name to Sister Rosetta Tharpe after the marriage ended.

In 1931 Tharpe became a successful recording artist, with many songs recorded over the next years. She continued to perform at concerts and night clubs and many of her church-going gospel fans were quite shocked when she performed with blues and jazz musicians and dancers. People were not used to seeing women guitarists then either.

She travelled round Europe and Britain and one of her most unusual concerts was a concert at an old train station - in the rain - with her on one side of the tracks and the audience on the other.

1n 1970 she had a stroke and then she had a leg amputated because of diabetes. Sister Rosetta Tharpe died in 1973 after another stroke and was buried in Philadelphia. In 2007 she was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and in 2008 a concert was held to raise funds for a gravestone for her grave.

A very short video talking about how Elvis Presley and other legendary musicians were influenced by  Sister Rosetta Tharpe 

This week's tongue twister: Selfish Shellfish

Check out the way some of the most famous composers drew treble clefs (above).

Scroll down to last week's blog for some notation games.

 Follow this link to learn about notation - the names of the notes we use in music. 

Here's another way to learn notes on the space spell FACE.  
Here's some mnemonics  to help learn the  notes on the lines. 

Here's  fun song about the treble clef, in the style of a '50s rock ballad.  

This week's unusual use of a guitar . . .

2015 Term 3, Week 8: Guitarist John Williams

                       

This is John Williams playing Cavatina.

John Williams was born in 1941 in Australia. He is one of the most accomplished classical guitarists in the world and is well known for playing in ensembles as well as solo performances. John’s father was from England and his mother was Australian. Her father was an Australian-born Chinese and he was a very well-known lawyer in Melbourne.

John’s father, Len Williams, played jazz and classical guitar and gave John his first guitar when John was four years old. The family returned to England in the early 1950s and Len started up a guitar school. Later on, Len set up a monkey sanctuary in Cornwall and was as well known for that as he was for his music school.

John Williams went to music schools and academies in England and Italy, and studied piano at the Royal College of Music in London - because there was no guitar department. When he graduated from there, he was offered the job of creating the first guitar department at the Royal College of Music in London.

He started playing concerts and had immediate success, being recognised as “a prince of the guitar”. He performed in many countries around the world and recorded many albums of classical music - at a time when most people associated guitarists with pop and rock music.

As well as being known for his classical guitar playing, John Williams has also played in a group called Sky, playing a mix of rock, classical and jazz music. He even played with Pete Townshend of The Who and has composed and arranged music.

He is possibly most well known for playing Cavatina (composed by Stanley Myers), which became the theme for the movie The Deer Hunter (1978).

This is Sky playing an arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. John Williams is playing the acoustic guitar.

This is a video of John Williams at the BBC Proms in 2005 performing with an orchestra. 

This week's tongue twister:

Is this a giant rat or a miniature guitar?

 In this game you can make words by dragging the note names FACE and EGBDF to under each note on the staff. 

Note names

 Here's a game where you can name notes on a staff. It has 100 notes in each round, so be prepared for a long game.  It has a range of very easy (where we are starting) to very advanced. You can adjust the speed too.

Speed note reading tutor

Here's this week's unusual use of a guitar. Can you work out what parts are used where?

Juniors: 

Here's a Muppet video about a turtle. The turtle in our poem?  

2015 Term 3, Week 7: Guitarist Django Reinhardt

 This is Django Reinhardt performing live with Stephane Grapelli and the Quintette du Hot Club. 

Django Reinhardt is considered to be one of the world’s all-time greatest guitarists. 

He was born in 1910 in Belgium   His parents were  French gypsies and he grew up in gypsy camps near Paris, in France.  His father was a musician and entertainer, and his mother was a dancer.  His real name was Jean  but he was called Django which means “I awake” in the Romani language of his parents.  

When he was young, he learnt to play the violin and an instrument which was a cross between a banjo and a guitar.  He mostly taught himself  to play by copying other musicians, and he never learnt to read or write music.  By the time he was 13 years old,  he was able to make a living playing  music.   He had very little school education and  only learnt the basics of reading and writing when he was an adult.

A young Django Reinhardt - before his fingers were damaged.

He  played popular French music and then became interested in American jazz music and he was becoming a very promising musician in the Paris  club scene in  the mid 1920s. 

In 1928 he suffered serious burns in a fire in his caravan and he severely damaged the fourth and fifth fingers on his left hand and could no longer  use them to press on the guitar strings.  He continued to play the guitar using on his index finger, middle finger and thumb for guitar solos.  (Watch the video to see how he did it.)

Famous French singer Edith Piaf looks at Django's damaged hand.

Can you see how his fingers and hand were damaged in the fire?

He developed a new style of  jazz guitar technique - sometimes called ‘hot’ jazz or gypsy swing. Django formed a band with another French musician called Stéphane Grappelli who played the violin.  They were called  the Quintette du Hot Club de France and were considered to be one of the most original jazz bands of all time.  

Reinhardt died in France in 1953 from a massive stroke. He was aged 43. 

Here's another video of the Quintette du Hot Club playing J'attendrai.   What do you notice about the guitars?

This is a short video about the death of Django and his funeral. It has some interesting information about gypsy customs and culture. 

Follow this link to learn about notation - the names of the notes we use in music. 

Follow this link to the website for this image.

 Dances:Seniors
Surfin' USA  (Beachboys)

Juniors 
I'm Gonna Catch You!

This week's tongue twister:

Mystery Picture: Do you know what this is? 

Scroll down to the end of the post to find out. 

 

This week's unusual guitar. 

This guitar boat was made in Australia  for this music video by Josh Pyke, called Make You Happy .

Mystery picture answer: 
It's the inside of a violin. Can you see the sound holes (f-shaped holes)?