Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Presents Peter and the Wolf Teacher Resource Booklet Prepared by Kim Allen, Angela Chapman and Jenny Johnston ©2018 Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Pty Ltd Table of Contents BACKGROUND INFORMATION ........................................................................................................................ 1 MOTIFS IN MUSIC .................................................................................................................................................... 2 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................. 2 TUNING IN ........................................................................................................................................................ 2 STAGE 1: LISTEN, MOVE AND SING ............................................................................................................. 3 STAGE 2: WORKING WITH MOTIFS IN THE COLLECTION OF WORKS ...................................... 5 STAGE 3: COMPOSITION ................................................................................................................................. 7 STAGE 4: PERFORMANCE ................................................................................................................................. 8 *JUST A THOUGHT: ANOTHER POSSIBLE TASK DIRECTION ....................................................... 8 TIMBRE INTO PICTURES ........................................................................................................................................ 9 DANGEROUS DANCING .................................................................................................................................. 9 CONSIDER THE TANGO.............................................................................................................................. 9 CONSIDER THE RHINOCEROS ............................................................................................................... 10 PLAYING A DANGEROUS TANGO ........................................................................................................ 10 ** Playing and dancing A Dangerous Tango .............................................................................................. 11 BUT WHAT ABOUT THE RHINOCEROS? ............................................................................................ 12 THE SPIDER’S WALTZ ...................................................................................................................................... 14 INVITATION TO THE DANCE ................................................................................................................. 14 A NOT-SO-INCY SPIDER ............................................................................................................................ 15 PLAYING A NOT-SO-INCY SPIDER ........................................................................................................ 16 EXPLORING A NOT-SO-INCY SPIDER’S WEB .................................................................................... 19 LISTENING AND ANALYSING ANOTHER SPIDER’S DANCE ....................................................... 20 GNAT YOUR AVERAGE MUSIC .................................................................................................................... 20 GETTING INTO FOCUS .............................................................................................................................. 20 PLAYING ALONG.......................................................................................................................................... 22 LISTENING AND ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................................... 22 MAKING COMPARISONS ........................................................................................................................... 23 HOW ARE PICTURES PAINTED WITH SOUND IN PETER AND THE WOLF? ............................ 25 DRAWING ON PREVIOUS LESSONS ..................................................................................................... 25 ACTIVE LISTENING ....................................................................................................................................... 25 ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................................................................... 26 NARRATIVE - MUSIC - NARRATIVE ................................................................................................................. 28 A: TUNING IN: HOW CAN WE PORTRAY TENSION OR DANGER IN MUSIC AND MOVEMENT? ........................................................................................................................................................ 28 LISTEN AND ANALYSE................................................................................................................................ 28 CREATE, EXPLORE, REFINE AND PERFORM ....................................................................................... 29 B: HOW COMPOSERS CREATE NARRATIVES WITH MUSIC: PETER AND THE WOLF ...... 30 WHAT’S THE STORY? WHAT ARE THE FEELINGS IN IT? .............................................................. 30 CHARTING THE TENSION ........................................................................................................................ 31 LISTEN AND MATCH THE MUSIC TO THE POINTS IN THE STORY ......................................... 32 C: COMPOSE YOUR OWN MUSICAL NARRATION ......................................................................... 33 WAYS INTO COMPOSING A SOUNDTRACK FOR PICTURE BOOKS ...................................... 34 MAKE YOUR OWN PETER AND THE WOLF MUSIC ....................................................................... 35 APPENDIX A: PETER AND THE WOLF – TEXT ONLY ......................................................................... 36 APPENDIX B: STORIES AND PICTURE BOOKS THAT HAVE A ‘THREAT’ NARRATIVE .......... 38 NATIONAL CURRICULUM FOR MUSIC ASSESSMENT OUTCOMES ................................................... 39 BACKGROUND INFORMATION Rhinoceros Tango Matthew Hindson Matthew Hindson is one of the most-performed, and most- commissioned, composers in Australia. Chair of Composition at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, his music often displays influences of popular styles within a classical context; driving rhythms and high dynamic levels are typical. Rhinoceros Tango is a movement from his suite Dangerous Creatures, written in 2009 as a contemporary take on Carnival of the Animals and filled with animals that can hurt or harm us. It was commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra for their FunHarmonies family concerts series. Rhinoceros Tango features solo double basses. Arach’s Dance Dean Stevenson Melbourne-born Tasmanian resident Dean Stevenson is a multi-instrumentalist, song-writer and much-commissioned composer of film scores, theatre works and collaborative projects. Arach’s Dance (Spider Waltz) was commissioned by the Bookend Trust for Sixteen Legs, a film about the Tasmanian Cave Spider, premiered in 2018. It is scored for solo bassoon, accompanied by strings and piano. I Danced with the Gnat Anatoly Liadov Russian composer, teacher and conductor Anatoly Liadov (1855-1914) was born in St Petersburg to a family of eminent musicians. He was associated with the group of composers known as The Mighty Handful (Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin). Like them, he was drawn to Russian subjects and much of his music is programmatic, making use of legends and folk music. I Danced with a Gnat is No 4 of his Eight Russian Folksongs for Orchestra, Op 56. It is alternatively known as Humorous Song, and alludes to “the buzzing and biting of the gnat”. It opens with muted strings, then features flute and piccolo with pizzicato strings and a rhythmic accompaniment from the triangle. Peter and the Wolf Sergei Prokofiev Prokofiev (1891-1953) wrote Peter and the Wolf in 1936. This ‘symphonic fairy tale for children’ has become his most frequently performed work. There are many recordings, movies and book versions, including a Disney read-along book, with narrators as diverse as David Bowie and Peter Ustinov. Teaching materials are at least as numerous as recordings, are very easy to find, and they all focus on the use of musical themes, associated with particular instruments, to depict characters in the story. This teaching resource aims to do a bit more than that. 1 MOTIFS IN MUSIC A motif is a short musical idea (shorter than a phrase) that occurs often in a piece of music. It can be melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic, or all three. It is a musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition. (Wikipedia) INTRODUCTION The music collection used as a focus for this outline has the common theme of creatures. Each creature is characterised by a distinctive motif. The unit explores how the elements of music are employed to illustrate or ‘paint’ the characters. Students will develop an understanding of these elements through an investigation of the motifs. Activities in this section of the resource support the development of student understanding of the musical elements of dynamics, pitch, rhythm, tempo, texture and timbre. Some revision of these may be necessary, for example: Dynamics: