Body and tuned percussion (Theme: Rainforests)

In this unit, we have been listening and appraising different pieces of music, focusing particularly on texture (the different layers) and structure (organisation of the piece).

The music used ‘body percussion’ we have learnt the skills using body percussion to create our own rainforest inspired pieces of music.

We watched Choirmakesrain and then we used our bodies to have a go at recreating what we had seen and heard.

We looked at the many ways we could use our body as percussion instruments. Once we had discovered these we composed and performed some basic body percussion rhythms, starting with something called ‘Boom, Snap, Clap’.

Once we could do the ‘Boom, Snap, Clap’ body percussion rhythm, we added a stamp into the rhythm.

Using our knowledge from our rainforest topic we thought about the 4 different layers of a rainforest. We thought about the animals that lived in each of these layers and how we could represent them with body percussion, thinking about the rhythm needed in each layer. 

We started our rainforest compositions with the forest floor and understorey layers, creating body percussion rhythms to suit the movement of the animals within those layers.

We then created our own melody (tune) to portray the canopy and Emergent layers of the rainforest. We thought about the tempo of each piece making the Emergent layer quicker and a higher pitch to represent the birds.

We then combined the four sections of our compositions, building structure through combining rhythms and melodies and adding dynamics and tempo.