This half term in Music, Year 5 have been looking at music throughout the years.
First, we listened to different pieces of Jazz Music, including; Nina Simone and Louie Armstrong. We learnt about a musician called Ella Fitzgerald, who was famous for ‘scatting’, which means improvising on the spot. The children had a chance to make up their own ‘scat’ and perform this at the end of the lesson.
We then looked into music from the 1950’s. We listened to the songs ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘Hound dog’ and ‘Rock around the clock’ and learnt this style of music is known as Rock ‘n’ Roll. We learnt that Cliff Richard, who is still alive today, was famous in the 1950’s, because his music was similar to Elvis Presley. Stuart told us that this sort of music was listened to on the radio and television and people would buy record player discs to play at home. Rock ‘n’ Roll developed and started to evolve in America. We discussed how record players have also become more popular over the last decade. We learnt about a musician called Ike Turner, who is married to Tina Turner. He played the guitar. The reason why the word ‘distortion’ came about in the world of music was because of Ike Turner, as his own guitar became distorted. Rock ‘n’ Roll also invented a dance called; The Jive. We also learnt that in the 1950’s, racism was incredibly large. A lot of music performed by black men and women was not allowed to be played over radios and on television. If you were black and if you were on a bus, you were told to sit at the back of the bus. If you were sat on a seat and a white person turned up, they were told to stand up and move. We discussed how times have changed as the years have passed since.
