Ga-what? - Gavotte

30/11/12

After our short unit on ear training we moved on to a much more advanced unit called Ga-what? We are now learning about classical music and later on will start composing our own piece of classical music. For the past 2 lessons we have been focusing on playing a famous piece called Minuet G major composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. We had to learn the first 8 bars of the piece on either piano or guitar. I choose piano which meant that I had to use both my left and right hand to play two different rhythms at the same time. I thought it was quite easy actually and was surprised that I managed to learn the whole 8 bars during the two lessons.

 

So at the end of the last lesson everyone had to perform as far as they knew the piece. After that we got some feedback. Mine was to play the 5th and 6th bar with different fingers for the left hand. Also I have been playing it wrong and played A,G instead of B,A  for the same two bars.

I practiced in the following way; I played 2 bars with the right hand until I knew it well, than learnt the left hand as well.

It was a little difficult for me to play the last two bars because I had to play more with my left hand which made it a little complicated since I was right handed, but I think I managed well even though I could only play the last bar quite slowly.

 

4/12/2012

 

Today we made mini-composition on either the piano or on the guitar. Again I choose piano. We already had the chords at the start (one time in the middle) of each bar, so we just had to put one note that was unclouded in the chord that we had to use as the first note, and then pick any notes you wanted after that.
 

I could only finish the first 2 bars but the feedback I have got after I played it was that it went very well with the left hand (which was already given).

 

12/12/2012

 

For the last two lessons we have been working on the second composition exercise. We also learnt some techniques composers use to compose a piece of music. We learnt that they use phrases. Phases are musical ideas which are used to build up a piece of music. Our task was to take the first phase (bar 1-2) and move the notes on the while keeping the same rhythm. For the 5th,6th and 7th bar we had to come up with something original while still taking inspiration from the original phase.

I decided that for the 3rd and 4th I would move all the notes two lines up, and for bar 5-7 I decided to use the way the notes went up in the original phase. I thought my composition sounded very good , but kind of sad at the same time. I also unclouded a sign which showed that at the end of the last bar the notes are supposed to sound quieter and quieter, making it sound even sadder.

 

19/12/2012

 

Gavotte is a French folk dance, which became popular in the court of Louis XIV. Due to the success of this type of music, a few other composers of the Baroque period started composing these types of suites. Johann Sebastian Bach is the best known composer in this area. A gavotte can be played at all different tempos.

 

A gavotte is typically in binary form, which means that it has two related sections, both of which are usually repeated.

 

An upbeat is one or more unaccented beats that occur before the first beat of a measure. In a gavotte the upbeat is usually half a bar. The picture shows an example of an upbeat.

 

Johann Sebastian Bach was a famous German composer,  organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist who lived in the Baroque times. His work became famous in the beginning of the 19th century even thought he lived between 31 March 1685 and 28 July 1750.  This is a picture of Bach in his old age.

 

 

Works Cited:

 

"Binary Form." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 4 May 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2012.

"Gavotte." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2012.

"Johann Sebastian Bach." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Dec. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2012.

"Upbeat." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Dec. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2012.


16/1/2013
Last lesson we worked on Tension, Relaxation and Endings. We learnt that each part of a song has an ending which is less tense than the parts before it. Tension and Relaxation help the composer make the piece of music more interesting. To create more tension the composition has to include faster notes, whereas to create relaxation (which usually comes after a very tense part) the composition has to include slow and long-lasting notes.
The last note usually lasts at least 2 beats but usually more, so the audience does not feel like the composition was just cut off at a random place. The last note is always chord note. If the composer does not want the piece to have such  a definite end he/she will use a chord note, but if the composer would want a clear end to the melody he/she would use the root note for the chord. Before the ending of the composition there is usually a part with tension.
Our task for the lesson was to do the last two bars of a composition with the right ending and a tense bar before it.
(could not upload the picture)

25/2/2013
For the last few lessons we have been working on our final gavottes. We had to come up with 2 original phrases, one for the each part (A,A,B,B). We also had the chords given to us, and were told to have a 2 beat upbeat at the beginning.


 

So far I have finished the first/A part of the gavotte. I have also gotten some feedback for it. People said that it sounded good and that it was following a very straight forward pattern. I have also had some trouble with the 4th bar, but people said that it sounded good so I left it how it was.

I have learnt how to play the gavotte, quite well.

I am having a difficult time deciding what the upbeat should be because I feel like nothing sounds good with my piece.

 

7/3/2013

I have almost completed the second half of my gavotte. I decided to have two separate phrases in it. One that came from the original phrase used in the beginning of part "B" and another one that is based around one note and the two noted next to it (A,B,A,G). I think the second half is sounding a little bit more interesting than the first one, but that might be because the chords are a little bit more challenging to match which makes the choices of the notes a little interesting sometimes. This has also caused the second half to be quite difficult to do, but I am hoping I can get it done by the deadline. (not the right picture, but it is the only one I found of my second page) 

 

7.5.2013.

It has been quite a while since i have updated my developmental workbook! during that time I finished and have started practicing my work. Here is the final version of my gavotte: (could not find the picture on itslearning)

 During these two month I have finished my gavotte and I can safely say that I am proud of it. It sounds the way I wanted it to in every way; it is slow and a little bit depressing, but it has its little twists, like the way it changes from B,C,B,A to a D sharp, in part B.

The feedback that I ended up getting after completing my work was:

• The melody fits the chords in most bars, which I believe is only partly true because we have learnt that if the note on "3" does not fit the chord it is not a problem until the note on "1" does. I actually ended up getting good feedback on the way the it sounded.
• The amount of note values added up with the time signature in every bar. (4/4) 
• I had recognisable original musical ideas or phrases.
• The complexity of my gavotte was moderate, meaning that it was not complex but not too simple.
• The melody in my piece of music was melodious.
• Tension, relaxation, and communication of ending were clear.

The feedback I have for my self is that the ending could have sounded more like and ending and also I could have had more phrases for the first page (part A).

 

We have been rehearsing for 4 weeks now and even though I have learnt my gavotte by heart on the 2nd lesson of practicing and could play the whole thing, I still struggle with keeping the same beat for the whole performance at times. I have worked with the metronome last lesson which helped me keep the same pace and also made me realise that my gavotte was much slower than I thought it was. I am looking forward to the performance next lesson and feel like I am ready to perform my own gavotte.

 

Evaluation (29/5/2013):

Our unit started out as a mystery. What could ga-what? mean. After a few weeks into the project we found out that ga-what? stood for gavotte, which we had to write a brief introduction about (see above). The final assessment was to write our own gavotte on a chosen instrument (guitar or keyboard). After writing our gavottes we also had to play them.

 

I believe I have written quite a nice gavotte with two different, but at the same time connected parts. The "A" part was slower and a little bit more boring in my opinion, while the second "B" part had a more interesting sound, because I used different rhythms and in general had more interesting sounds. I think that taking the fact that this is the first time I have ever even heard of a gavotte I did quite well, or at least better than I expected myself to do.

 

One part that I got really good and very surprising feedback on was in part "B" 4th bar. I was told that what I have written was a musical technique (which by the way I have never learnt before) that sounded very nice and interesting. The reason why it was so surprising is because at first I was not even going to use that note because in my opinion it did not sound good, but then Mathias told me that I should use it because it sounds good, so I did and now, at the end of our unit, I realise that it does sound very professional and good.

 

The performance went quite well for me. I have learnt my gavotte a couple of lessons before the performance, so I was not nervous which made it a lot easier to perform, especially knowing that when I was writing it I practised it many times over and over again. Still there was one place where I almost messed up but luckily at the last moment I managed to correct my mistake.

 

During this process I have developed my keyboard skills. At the beginning I though it was quite hard especially when I had to change the note that I was playing with the left hand in the middle of the bar. But at the end it became a lot easier and I think it is safe to say that from now on it will not be that hard for me to play the left hand for a musical piece.

 

So in conclusion I think that this unit was fun and very helpful. I have learnt some new things about composing and perfected some of my older skills. Hopefully what I did was enough. So knowing everything we have done during this unit, I can safely say I am proud of myself and the progress I have made on keyboard and also the gavotte I wrote.

 

THE END

MYP4 - Rhythm ear training

10.9.2012

We have just started our new unit about rhythm ear training, which basically means that if someone has clapped a rhythm you should be able to tell them the note values that they have just clapped.

Our guiding question was: How do we transfer sound to paper?

Since we have started this unit (2 weeks ago) we have done many different exercises most of which was listening to the teacher clapping different rhythms then at the beginning just clapping it, then  some time after putting it down with actual note values. I found that when listening to notes that last for more than 1 beat there are more than one way to write it.

Also we have gone through some terminology like the note values and some words like beat, bar and tempo.
Here is a short explanation of the words:

Beat: A steady pulse that goes on throughtout a piece of music.
Bar: Devides the beat into groups.
The Time Signature: Tells how many beats each bar has.
Tempo: How fast the beat is.
BPM: (Beats Per Minute) A way of measuring tempo.
Note Values: Tells how long a note lasts for.
Rhythm: A mix of note values.

Here is a picture explaining what note values there are and how long they last for:

 

 

It was nice to go over the note values once again because I forgot some of them during the summer.





Blues music

23/1/2012

We have just started a new unit about blues music. We are going to do some band playing and some history, which we have already done. Here are some of the songs we have listened to:

• Before You Accus Me (Eric Clapton)
• Trouble So Hard (early 1900)
• Crossroad Bluse (Rober Johnson, 1930’s)
• Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues (Skip James, 1930’s)
• Manish Boy (Muddy Waters, 1950’s)
• Da Thrill Is Gone From Here (Chris Thomas King, early 2000)

Concepts:            

o       Improvisation

o       Shuffle beat

o       12-bar blues progression

Some facts about blues: It started in the late 19th century in southern United States and it was most common in the 20th century. It is usually played on guitar, double bass, piano, trumpet, bass guitar, drums, saxophone, harmonica, vocals, trombone

I also had to find out somethings about Robert Johnson:

He was born in May 8, 1911 until August 16, 1938. He was an American blues singer and musician. He wrote songs, played on the guitar and also sang. There is also a legend about him which goes like this:

As a young man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi, Robert Johnson was branded with a burning desire to become a great blues musician. He was "instructed" to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery Plantation at midnight. There he met with a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar and tuned it. The "Devil" played a few songs on it, then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. This was in effect, a deal with the Devil mirroring the legend of Faust. In exchange for his soul, Robert Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous.

Bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues

4/2/2012

I have discovered the song, er songs that we are going to play in our bands. One of them is " Started out with nothing" by Seasick Steve and the other one is "Before you accuse me" by Eric Clapton.
We were asked to choose two instruments that we want to play on. I chose piano and drums.
We were also asked to learn the 12 - bar blues progression, which looks like this and it is almost the base of every blues song;
D7/D7/D7/D7/
G7/G7/D7/D7/
A7/A7/D7/D7/

There is also another version which we are going to play;
D7/G7/D7/D7/
G7/G7/D7/D7/.
A7/G7/D7/A7/

We also tried to play it on either guitar or piano. I chose piano. It was easier to play it than I thought it would be.

11/3/2012

Since the last time I have written something we have done drumming which I can not really do because when the others did it for the first time I was not there so I just had to learn it during the lesson. We also did some improvisation. We learned the blues scale which is D,F,G,G#,A,C, and used it to compose a short solo. On each lesson we played n the piano /guitar. By doing that we learned the 12-bar blues progression by heart, so now we do not have to think about what note comes next just about the way we need to put our fingers. We also learned how to play the cords on the bass. I think that bass is the easiest instrument to play on so now I would actually want to choose that instead of the drum.

On this lesson we did some band playing (not in the actual bands, because we still do not know them). I was in a band with Tsion, Isabella and Emil. The girls play on the piano and Emil plays on guitar. When we got to our station the first thing we had to do is to check if every cable is in the boxes, then we had to sort out which cable is used for which instrument.It went quite well.Then we had to inform the teacher and only when he said that everything was in place we could start playing. During the playing time we rotated on the instruments every 5-10 minutes. I played on the bass and piano. We realised that Isabella was playing the 12-bar blues progression upward and I was playing it down so since she did not seem like she would want to change the way she plays I had to learn to play up. It actually went well but it was harder than it was playing down.

17/3/2012

On this lesson we continued playing in pre-bands. I played on all of the instruments. I only struggled with the drums but the teacher said that he could not hear that it was not so good. Sometimes I stopped playing because I messed up but then I could easily go back to playing, which was quite good to know because if in the real bands  I am going to be the drummer then now I know I would be able to continue playing if I mess up, which would probably happen.
On the bass; first I started playing the shuffle beat but then I realised that I should have just played normally; once per beat.

9/4/2012

On the last lessons we have played in the pre-bands. I developed good drumming skills through these band-playing lessons. Now I can play the drums without doing any mistakes, but I can not always remember the suffle beat, so I can never really play the drums first because I do not know the beat.

On last lesson we have played in the pre-bands that were a bit changed. We tried our solos on our chord instrument while the other group members were playing the normal 12-bar blues progression. It went quite well except that it was hard to play on the same beat that the others were playing because I practiced them on another one and did not try to do some other beat. Another thing that I had as a feedback is that should not play my different solos right after each other. I think other ways it went well but it was hard for the first time.

11/4/2012

Last lesson we played in pre-bands. We rotated on the instruments while playing solos. There were two chord instrument players so the only way to play the solos was to play the 12-bar blues progression twice without stopping between. It was hard to switch from playing the solo to playing the normal beat. After some time we realised that the person who plays his/her solo first needs a little help with getting back on track. So since the bass player was the only instrument that played the 12-bar blues progression for the whole time he/she would look at the drummer who would do a short extra to make the person realize that it was the last bar. It worked out quite well, but we did not have so much time to do it this way because the lesson ended.

My personal thought was that it was hard to swap from solo to normal beat.

17/4/2012

Today we discovered what instruments we are going to play on. My instrument is drums. We were also told that if we want to get a higher achievement level than we need to do an advanced way of playing. It is very easy with the drums because I just needed to add one more hit with my foot. I also had to add a fill-in for the last A7 which was pretty hard to do because it is not easy to get it on the perfect beat. 
My strategy to develop further is to practice slowly hitting the drums one by one and slowly go faster until it is the right speed.

1/5/2012

We have started playing in our bands. We played the 1st and 2nd verse. We just focused on getting the beat and the song correctly because this was our first time playing. It was very hard for me to do the fill-in on the correct beat. After a while I realized that if I watch what my foot was doing I could to the fill-in at the correct time. Sometimes I forgot to hit the drum twice whit my foot, because it was hard for me to play drums for a log time. Also sometimes I went faster than I should have so I also had to be careful with keeping the beat.

13/5/2012

Today we worked on solo+4th verse+solo ans the 1st+2nd+3rd verse. We focused on going from the solos back to the verses. The others struggled with the advanced versions of the song so we spent quite a lot of time practicing individually. I worked on doing the fill-in at the correct time at the solo changes. I tried to pay attention to what was the bass player was playing so that I could do the fill-in at the correct time and it worked.

20/5/2012

Today was our last chance to get everything together because next lesson was the PERFORMANCE!!! On this lesson we were missing our keyboard player which gave us some struggle because almost all of us were concentrating on what the piano was playing and when we had no keyboards the only person I could listen to was the bass player because the guitar player was playing the advanced version of the song which I did not know so I could not recognize each part, but it was also a little difficult with the bass since the bass player was also playing the advanced version but it was easier to recognize the parts .
We practiced the solo-changes and some of the verses, but we did not manage to go through the whole song. I am just hoping that we can pull it together for the performance. I concentrated on the fill-in, and doing it on time. I know the basic drum beat well but I sometimes struggle with the fill-in. I also practiced my solo. I came up with some new phrases which is good because over the lessons I forgot one and I needed some more.
I hope we will do well next lesson with the PERFORMANCE!!!

4/6/2012

2 lessons ago we performed our solos and the song. We did not have our singers so it was a little difficult to get used to the other singer who came to help us.

The above video is me playing the 12-bar blues progression and my solo. For the 12-bar blues I completely forgot to do it with the suffle beat, but othervise I think I manage to do it good. My timing was good and I did not mistake any of the bars. For the solo playing I actually made up some of things that I was playing but I think that my timing and use of phrases were good, my only concern about it was that it did not sound blues like. To improve my individual performance I should have done the 12-bars with the shuffle beat. For the solo I think I should have had more seperate solos an not one long one.

For the band playing I did not manage to put up the video. We performed twice because we felt that the first one was very bad and that we could do better with our actual singers. I think my timing was perfect I only did one of the fill-ins one second late but othervwise I think it was good. Even when the pianist was not playing the 12-bars but the solo I manage to do the fill-in at the correct time. I did not get lost anywhere in the song once or twice I might have been one second late but I found my way back. The things I could do to improve would be keeping the beat and not being one seconds late, which could effect the whole group and what beat they play in.

I have developed a lot during thins unit. Before I could not even notice that there was a blues sng playing in  the radio for example, but now I can play a whole range of blues songs. I have learned how to play the suffle beat and the 12-bar blues progression. I have also learned to play solos by learning the blues scale. I  think I have learned more through out this unit than I have ever learned during any music units. I also learned how to play the 12-bars on different instuments like keybrd, bass and drumms. I have also improved my improvisational skills and the use of phrases. During group rehearsals I have learned to communicate in a band and lead the band since that is what the job of a drummer is. I managed to improve my time management and learned th amounts of times that one needs to practice on different parts of songs or on differnet instruments. I think that my developmental workbook is fine and I have shown all of my development through out the unit/year. To improve on it I could have writen more ofthen in it but I think I always managed to catch up.

I think this unit was a very usefull one and I have learned a lot!!! :)

THE END