Scottish & World Music

National 4/5

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Scottish music Your teacher will select the most appropriate activities from the following options: Performing Learning Outcomes: Your will work on your own or as part of a group, learning to play a piece of Scottish music. Different parts and instruments will be available and, with help from your teacher, the part you should choose should be the most appropriate for your ability. You may also be given time to work on an individual programme of music. Success Criteria: You can play your part accurately and in time with others, where appropriate. You can identify strengths and areas for improvement in your playing. Understanding Music Learning Outcomes: Through reading information and carrying out practical tasks, you will learn about different Scottish instruments and different types of Scottish instrumental and vocal music. Success Criteria: You can recognise and describe the following concepts:

• Melodic: chord progression, drone, grace notes, pentatonic scale, vamp • Rhythm/tempo: compound time, dotted rhythms, scotch snap, simple time • Texture/structure/form: jig, pibroch, strathspey, verse • Timbre/dynamics: clarsach • Style: bothy ballad, gaelic psalm, mouth music, Scots ballad, waulking song

Composing Skills Learning Outcomes: You will learn how to create a vamp accompaniment. Success Criteria: You can play a two, four or eight bar vamp based on one, two or three chords. Technology/literacy Learning Outcomes: You will use the internet and/or books to research the influence of Scotland in the music of one from a choice of two composers. Success Criteria: You can present your findings in your own words in a suitable format, e.g. Powerpoint, information poster, talk to the class etc.

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Scottish music

What is Scottish music? • Traditional songs, dances and instrumental pieces which are influenced by life in

different regions of the country. History: • The oldest forms of music in Scotland are said to be Gaelic singing and harp

playing. • The earliest mention of bagpipes in Scotland dates to the 15th century. • The first collection of Scottish Folk songs known to have been written down was

written by John Forbes in Aberdeen in 1662. Interesting information: • Scottish songs feature at sporting events involving the national football and rugby

teams: o Flower of Scotland is popularly known as the National Anthem of Scotland o Scotland The Brave is used for the Scottish team at the Commonwealth

Games. • The Edinburgh Tattoo takes place in August every year, as part of the Edinburgh

Festival. It is an annual military event which combines the traditional sounds of the bagpipes and drums with the modern aspects of the armed forces. Military bands perform to an average of 217 000 people at the event, which sells out in advance every year.

A pentatonic scale is a sequence of five notes which are heard in ascending or descending order. As well as in Scotland, many different genres of music around the world have used the pentatonic scale as a basis for their melodies, including West African music, Greek traditional music, Chinese music and impressionist composers such as Claude Débussy. The melodies to the well known Scottish songs ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and ‘Skye Boat Song’ are based around notes taken from the pentatonic scale:

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The sharps and flats on a keyboard form a pentatonic scale:

C#/Db D#/Eb F#/Gb G#/Ab A#/Bb

Using a keyboard or guitar, familiarise yourself with the sound of a pentatonic scale.

After listening to the melodies of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and ‘Skye Boat Song’ again, on a keyboard or tuned percussion instrument, start on a low C# and try to work out how to play one or both of them, just using the black notes.

The Aberdonian singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé based her song ‘Suitcase’ on pentatonic notes. Listen to the chorus, which contains a repeated ascending pentatonic scale in lines 1, 2, 4 and 5:

My baby’s got a suitcase. He’s telling me it’s too late But don’t nobody, please don’t ask me why. ‘Cause all I did was love him But I can’t stop him walking My baby’s got a suitcase but please don’t ask me why.

Suitcase – Emeli Sandé

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The Dundee group The View wrote a song using a repeated chord progression. Before you listen to the song, play through the following four chord patterns to familiarise yourself with the sound of each one.

C G F G I V IV V

C F G F I IV V IV

C G C F I V I IV

C F G C I IV V I

Now, listen to the song and try and work out which chord progression is being repeated in the verses:

I’ve had the same jeans on for four days now, I’m gonna go to a disco in the middle of the town. Everybody’s dressing up, I’m dressing down.

Life’s one big circle, it does end, When it ends will you still be my friend? I’m not making a fool of myself, I said, I’m not making a fool of myself.

Same Jeans – The View

Your teacher will now tell you which one is the chord sequence used by The View!

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Scottish instruments You should already be familiar with the accordion, bagpipes, fiddle and Scottish dance band from the National 3 Music course. Ask your teacher about these if you would like a reminder or if you are not sure what they sound like. A Scottish Dance band is often used to provide live music at weddings or ceilidhs, where there is traditional Scottish dancing. The instruments often include fiddle, accordion, drums and piano, with the piano playing a vamp to accompany the other instruments. A vamp uses a bass note (the first, third or fifth notes of the chord in the left hand), alternating with a chord in the right hand, creating an ‘oom-pah, oom-pah’ style accompaniment. An example of a two bar vamp in the chord of C. The right hand plays the chord off the beat while the left hand begins on the main note of the chord and alternates the 5th and 3rd notes on the third beats.

Using the above picture as a guide, work out how to play a two bar vamp on the chord of G (G, B, D).

Extension Work out how to play a two bar vamp on the chord of F (F, A, C) then make up a four or eight bar chord progression using the chords of C, F and G before creating a vamped accompaniment to fit your chord progression.

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Bagpipes consist of an air supply, a bag, a chanter and usually a drone. A drone is a note or chord which is continuously sounded throughout much or all of a piece, being sustained or repeated. Most bagpipes have more than one drone – the one pictured has three.

• Although Scottish and Irish pipes have the greatest international recognition, bagpipes have historically been found throughout Europe and other parts of the world.

• The chanter has a double reed and uses fingering similar to that in recorder playing. Because the bagpipes are quite complicated to play, beginners learn to play the chanter separately before using it as part of the pipes.

Bagpipe music includes grace notes, which are short, extra notes to ornament the main melody. Can you work out which Scottish tune the main notes create below?

A pibroch is a slow and stately Scottish classical music form which is performed on bagpipes. It starts with a theme then there are variations which become gradually more complex and rhythmic as the piece goes on, with lots of grace notes. The original theme is played again at the end. A pibroch is used to commemorate specific events, including laments, salutes, gatherings and rowing.

Beloved Scotland, I leave thee gloomy - pibroch

The clàrsach is one of the oldest instruments of Scotland. Clàrsach means “small harp”.

• Harpers accompanied troops into battle till replaced by the bagpipes in the 16th century. Until the middle of the 18th century the harpers had a good position in society as they were employed to entertain clan chiefs and noble families.

• Clàrsachs can be strung with animal gut or metal. • They have 30-34 strings with different colours to identify the

Cs and Fs. • The strings are tuned diatonically (sounding like the white

notes on the piano), with blades at the top to raise or lower the pitch of each string by a semitone.

Dark Island - clarsach

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Scottish dances You should already be familiar with the Scottish dances of the march, reel and waltz from your Music courses up to National 3 level. Ask your teacher about these if you would like a reminder or if you are not sure what they sound like. Compound time is where the beat is divided into groups of three. If you say the word “lollipop” as you listen to music in compound time, the three syllables fit within each beat.

• Common compound time signatures are 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8, with the most

common one being 6/8. • In 6/8, the main beat in each bar is divided in to two, with the beats each

divided in to three.

A jig is a fast dance in compound time (6/8), which sounds jumpy due to the dotted rhythms. One of the most famous jigs is Strip The Willow, which is often danced to at ceilidhs and weddings. To recognise a jig, try fitting in the words, “Humpety Dumpety” or “Humpty Dumpty” along with the rhythm of the melody:

The Haymakers Jig

Simple time is where the music has two, three or four beats in each bar. Each beat is a crotchet (1 beat note) and can be divided into two.

• Common simple time signatures are 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4. • In any time signature, the top number tells you the number of beats in each bar

and the bottom number tells you the type of notes. • 4/4 means there are four crotchet (1 beat) notes in each bar. 6/8 means there are

six quaver (½ beat) notes in each bar.

A strathspey is a moderate to fast dance in simple time, with 4 beats in a bar. Strathspeys all incorporate the scotch snap rhythm. Three famous Scottish songs which are also strathspeys are Auld Lang Syne, Loch Lomond and Comin’ Through the Rye. To recognise a strathspey, listen for the jumpy scotch snap rhythms.

Strathspey (Skinner Medley excerpt)

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Scottish vocal music Mouth Music involves a single performer singing lighthearted lyrics in Gaelic.

• The rhythm and sound of the song resembles bagpipe music, with the intention of people dancing to it.

• The singing is similar to scat as the rhythm and sound of the song often has more importance than the depth or sense of the lyrics.

Puirt a Beul (Scottish Women) Waulking Songs are Scottish folk songs where, typically, one woman sings the verse before the others join in at the chorus, which often consists of meaningless vocables.

• They are traditionally sung by women while cleansing and thickening cloth. This involved a group beating newly woven tweed rhythmically against a table to soften it.

• One tradition is that it is bad luck to repeat a song during a waulking sesson, which may contribute to there being a large number of waulking songs which have many verses.

Waulking Song

Gaelic psalms are slow, a cappella Gaelic Presbyterian church songs which feature a male precentor, who sings a line of the verse to the congregation, who then repeat it. This could be called question and answer. Gaelic psalms are heard mostly in the Western Isles of Scotland.

Stornoway Psalm

Bothy ballads are folk songs sung by male farm labourers, specifically in North-East Scotland, telling the story of rural or farming life.

• Bothies are outbuildings on a farm, where unmarried labourers used to sleep in often harsh conditions.

• In the evenings, to entertain themselves, they sang old songs and often composed their own songs.

• The best known is ‘The Barnyards of Delgaty’.

Whistle Ower The Lave O't

A Scots ballad is a Scottish song which tells a story.

• It is in strophic form. • Flower of Scotland and Loch Lomond are examples of Scots ballads.

I Loved A Lass (Ewan MacColl)

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Scottish music Project Some internationally renowned composers wrote pieces with Scottish influences, including the German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) and the English composer Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006).

Mendelssohn Arnold

1. Choose which composer’s music you would like to research more about.

2. For your chosen composer, find out the name(s) of any pieces they wrote which had a Scottish influence.

3. Find recordings of the pieces and choose the one that you like best.

4. Find out: a. What influenced the composer to write it. b. What style/form it is (e.g. symphony, programme music, solo song,

binary, ternary, four movements etc.). c. Which instruments/voices it was written for. d. How they made their piece sound Scottish, mentioning the

instruments/voices and how they are used. If your piece is long, focus on a section of it.

5. Keep a note of where you source your information, e.g. write down website addresses or book titles. This is called a bibliography.

6. Choose a format to present your research, e.g. a talk, an information poster, a Powerpoint presentation etc. You can include pictures if they support your findings.

7. Make sure you use your own words. Copy and paste is not allowed!

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World music Your teacher will select the most appropriate activities from the following options:

Performing Learning Outcomes: Through practical activities, you will explore some of the instruments, playing techniques and rhythms associated with different genres of world music. You may also be given time to work on an individual programme of music. Success Criteria: You can demonstrate and describe how to produce a sound on the instruments of the bodhrán, pan pipes, tabla and castanets. You can describe and demonstrate cross rhythms. Understanding Music Learning Outcomes: Through reading information and carrying out practical tasks, you will learn about the history and development of music from Scotland, the Andes, Africa, India and Spain. Success Criteria: You can recognise and describe the following concepts:

• Rhythm/tempo: cross rhythms • Texture/structure/form: • Timbre/dynamics: bodhrán, castanets, sitar, panpipes, tabla • Style: African music, celtic, Indian music

Composing Skills Learning Outcomes: Working with others or on your own, you will create different cross rhythms. Success Criteria: You can create a three-against-two rhythm using quavers against triplets. Technology/literacy Learning Outcomes: You will explore interactive websites to explore more about the music of the Andes, Africa and India. Success Criteria: You can use your knowledge to recognise and describe traditions, instruments and their sounds.

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World music World music is traditional music (sometimes called folk music) of any culture that is created and played by indigenous musicians, or are closely informed or guided by indigenous music of the regions of their origin.

• Indigenous people are an ethnic group who live in the area with which they have the earliest historical connection, e.g. Australian aboriginees.

• World music includes western music, i.e. Celtic music.

Celtic music is a type of folk music which is a fusion of traditional Scottish, Gaelic or Irish folk songs with more contemporary genres such as rock. The Celtic group Capercaillie have had four albums in the UK chart and have been performing for over thirty years:

Kenny McDonald’s Jigs (Capercaillie)

A popular percussion instrument used in celtic and, more commonly, in traditional Irish folk music, is an Irish frame drum called a bodhrán.

• Bodhrán is pronounced differently in different Irish counties, but the most common ways of pronouncing it are: ‘bow’ (as in the bow of a ship) ‘ron’ and ‘bow-ron’ (as in ‘moron’!).

• The playing side of the bodhrán is made of goatskin and the other side is open-ended to allow for one hand to be placed inside, behind the drum head, to control the pitch and timbre.

• The bodhrán is struck either with the hand or with a stick called a tipper. Tippers were traditionally made out of a double-ended knuckle bone but are now commonly made of wood.

• The pitch of the sound can be varied by changing the hand position or by playing the drum head in different areas, making the sound more interesting and varied.

Brother Fusion - bodhrán

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The panpipes are an ancient and traditional instrument associated with music from the Andes. Each set of pipes consists of a number (usually 10 or more) of hollow tubes which are closed at the bottom and open at the top.

• The Andes are made up of the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

• The pipes of the pan pipes are typically made from bamboo or giant reed, although other materials include wood, plastic and metal.

• The pipes are carefully cut and shaped to tune them – longer tubes provide deeper pitched notes and shorter ones play higher pitched notes. They are played by blowing across the top, producing a gentle, flute-like, sound.

The soundtrack to the film Kill Bill features panpipes:

The Lonely Shepherd (Gheorghe Zamfir)

Did you know?

• The Siku pipes from Chile are the most commonly purchased type of panpipes. • A type of panpipe called Rontador is the national instrument of Equador. Each

pipe is chorded, which means it can play two notes at the same time. • The Greek god of rustic music was called Pan. • In Mozart's opera, ‘The Magic Flute’, bird-catcher Papageno plays panpipes.

Find out some more about the history and development of the panpipes and the physics of the sound by visiting the links below and reading the information, watching the videos and listening to the audio excerpts: http://pan-flute.com/home.html http://www.micheltirabosco.ch/Anglais/biographie.htm http://www.panflutejedi.com/pan-flute-history.html http://www.nativefluteswalking.com/panpipes-andean-american.shtml http://www.sarahtulga.com/panpipes.htm http://www.puscoiu-panflutes.com/puscoiu.php?l=en&p=stichting

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African music

What is African music?

• The music of the Ewe people of the West African country of Ghana centres around percussion instruments.

• A Ghanaian drum ensemble is made up of drums, shakers and bells which play interweaving rhythms called cross rhythms when they perform together.

• Cross rhythm is the effect produced when two conflicting rhythms are heard together.

History:

• Black African music was brought to America with the African slaves and was combined with the folk music of the European settlers to produce new styles of music such as blues, gospel and jazz. These went on to form the basis of pop music today.

Interesting information:

• In Africa, music is part of everyday activities. Everyone joins in clapping, singing and dancing to the music.

• Music also forms an important part of rites and ceremonies where it is performed by specialist master drummers and court musicians.

• It is not normally written down but is taught by rote and is passed down through the generations.

Maraca D (Madou Djembé)

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As well in African music, cross rhythms have also been used in Western classical music, with the composers Chopin, Schubert, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev all using cross rhythms in their piano and orchestral music.

One type of cross rhythm is the effect that occurs when the accents in a piece of music are different from those suggested by the time signature, e.g. the division of 4/4 time in to 3+3+2 quavers:

Another type of cross rhythm is when two notes are played against three. In Débussy’s Arabesque No.1, groups of two quavers in the left hand play at the same time as quaver triplets in the right hand. Your teacher will play it on the piano to let you hear:

With a partner, try creating some cross rhythms by clapping:

1. One person claps triplet quavers while the other claps quavers, then swap. 2. One person claps steady quavers with no accents while the other claps

quavers with an accent on every third one, then swap.

Now, following step 1, make up a four bar phrase which is similar to Débussy’s Arabesque No.1, with broken chords for the quavers and mostly triplet quavers for a melody above it. Find out some more about African music by visiting the links below and reading the information, exploring the interactive areas, watching the videos and listening to the audio excerpts:

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Music/ensembles/ghanaian.html http://www.dancedrummer.com/trad.html http://www.alokli.com/site/video/video.html http://www.alokli.com/site/audio/audio.html

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Indian music What is Indian music?

• There are many different styles of music in India, including North Indian (Hindustani) classical music and bhangra dance music.

• There are many Indian musical instruments, with the most popular and recognisable being the sitar and the tabla.

History:

• The Indian classical music tradition spans centuries and remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as sources of religious inspiration, cultural expression and pure entertainment.

Interesting information:

• Indian musicians learn to play patterns of notes called raga by imitating and memorising. The music is passed on from teacher to student by oral tradition.

• Most Indian classical music is based on a combination of rag (melodic form, tai (rhythmic form) and drone (sustained note).

• The biggest form of Indian popular music is filmi, or songs from Indian films. It makes up 72% of all music sales in India.

• Hindi film industry, popularly known as Bollywood, along with Indian regional film industries, produces thousands of films a year, most of which are musicals and feature elaborate song and dance numbers.

Bhangra is a style of Indian popular music which is based around riff or ostinati. It takes influences from the music and song of the Punjab region of India, as well as various Western musical styles. In the following excerpt, a sample of the theme from the television show Knight Rider is used as the ostinato, with Punjabi lyrics:

Mundian To Bach Ke (Panjabi MC)

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Ravi Shankar (1920-2012) was an Indian musician and composer who played the sitar. He is possibly the best-known contemporary Indian musician.

• In 1956, he began to tour Europe and the Americas playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and rock artist George Harrison of the Beatles.

• Shankar further combined Indian with Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s.

• He was posthumously awarded two Grammy awards in 2013, one for lifetime achievement, another for The Living Room Sessions Part 1 in the world music category.

The sitar is a plucked string instrument which has a long hollow neck and a gourd resonating chamber to produce a rich sound with complex harmonic resonance.

Norwegian Wood (The Beatles)

Often played alongside the sitar is the tabla. The tabla is a percussion instrument used in the classical, popular and religious music genres of Indian music. It consists of two hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres.

Nagin - sitar and tabla

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The film Slumdog Millionaire was set and filmed in India and won 8 Academy Awards, 7 BAFTAs, 5 Critics’ Choice Awards and 4 Golden Globes. It tells the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and exceeds people’s expectations. The police arrest him on suspicion of cheating, not believing a street kid can know so much. Jamal recounts in a flashback how he knows the answer to each question, as each one is linked to a key event in his life.

Which of the two Indian instruments you have just learnt about can you hear in the following excerpt from Slumdog Millionaire?

Ringa Ringa (from Slumdog Millionaire)

Based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel, the film Life of Pi is a magical adventure story featuring Pi Patel, the Indian son of a zookeeper. The family decide to move from India to Canada, travelling with the zoo animals on a freight liner. After a shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean, with four of the animals, all fighting for survival.

The following piece from the soundtrack features Indian instruments, including the sitar:

Meeting Krishna (from Life of Pi)

Visit the interactive website below to see videos of the sitar and tabla being played and explore more about Indian instruments and Indian classical music. http://aliakbarkhanlibrary.com/concert_experience/concert.html

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Spanish music What is Spanish music?

• The music of Spain is most commonly associated with traditions such as the Spanish classical guitar and flamenco.

History: • The music of Spain has played an important part in the development of

Western music, including the early phase of classical music. • Spanish music strongly influenced the development of Latin American music.

Interesting information: • The Spanish dance of the jota is similar to a waltz and includes instruments

such as the castanets, guitar, tambourines and sometimes the flute. • Different regions use a large variety of familiar instruments as well as Spanish

instruments in their folk music, such as the Spanish bagpipes, accordion, tambourine and tabor pipe – a three-hole wind instrument designed to be played by one hand so the other hand is free to play a percussion instrument.

An instrument commonly associated with Spanish music is the castanets. Castanets are percussion instruments that consist of a pair of concave shells joined on one edge by a string. A player usually uses a pair of castanets in each hand.

• The string is hooked over the thumb and the castanets are rested on the palm with the fingers bent over to support the other side.

• They are traditionally made of hardwood and produce clicks for rhythmic accents or a fast rattling sound can be created with more rapid movement.

The opera Carmen by the French composer Georges Bizet is set in Spain. Bizet included castanets in the opera to create a Spanish atmosphere:

Je vais danser en votre honneur (Bizet)

Flamenco is a genre of Spanish music that includes singing, guitar playing, dance and handclaps. It originated in the gypsy community. The costumes worn by male flamenco dancers include black trousers and, traditionally, a Cordovan hat. Females wear red or colourful long dresses with frills and a shawl that hangs off the shoulders.

Tacones Gitanos (Sabicas)