This afternoon we took the audio samples of the birdsong recorded in the field. We slowed them down and dropped the pitch using Audacity and then the student worked out the contour and rhythm of the melodies by ear.
Theses melodic fragments (in blue) will form the main motif for their ambient music.
Students' compositions will be in Ternary Form ABA1 and so the students developed imitative variations on the theme (green) to be used as a contrast in the A1 section.
Today we started by critiquing the teacher model.
Listening skills were clearly improving and the quality of technical language being used was very impressive.
Mr Said has some homework to do to redraft the model as the pigeon sample was recorded at a kennel that was too quiet and is noisy. He was told by B that it sounds too jumpy as the white noise is invasive in the mix.
J also asked Mr Said to consider spacing out some of the blackbird samples in the A section as the overlaps were too busy and detracted from the ambient mood that is the desired effect.
Below are the student responses. They were first asked to describe the piece both qualitatively and quantitatively. We then dug a little further for what made this a good model based on our knowledge of the birds and ambient music.
