Poem about Fen - A performance with instruments - Video

Our Dog, Fen (timbre, texture, silence)

Fen was my Border Collie and I wrote this poem about him for children to make music to. The music is intended to focus on expressiveness rather than on rhythm or pulse and the activity is easily adaptable to groups or whole classes, to everyone speaking, just individuals speaking, or just the teacher speaking. The process of activities like this is invaluable and the end result is satisfying. Here's Fen!

I'm going to show you a series of videos of the work we did using this poem with a small group. It works just as well with a whole class - you just have more children in each group. In the first video, I'm giving the children the chance to make a whole range of voice sounds at the start of the lesson, to plant the seed of the idea of being expressive according to word meanings.

• When our dog Fen was just a pup
• He used to fetch a ball
• He bounced on chairs
• He ran upstairs
• He jumped over the wall
• But now he's old he's good as gold
• He sleeps the hours away
• I wish that he was young again
• And he'd come out to play
• __
• ©Music-Playtime: Arts Enterprise Limited

The Poem (PSED links, being expressive)

When I showed the photograph of Fen, this led to some discussion of the fact that, in the natural scheme of things, our pets die before we do. Then we practised saying the words expressively. In the future, I'll be able to use the word, 'expressively' and the children will have experienced its meaning. I also did a bit of training in how to behave if you want to play an instrument!

Choosing instruments (timbre)

Next, I asked the children to choose an instrument that would make a good sound for the line of the poem they were going to say. I love the way they considered this instead of just picking one out - notice that Edward says of the instrument he'd picked up, 'I don't think that's quite the right sound'. We had already had a lesson in which I used the word, timbre (the distinctive sound an instrument makes) in relation to this box of instruments but I missed out on the chance to use it here!

A Performance With Instruments (texture)

Do you remember that I praised the children for silence at the start of the lessons? Here I'm applying it to our performance. I think the children did well to keep their instruments quiet until it was time to play, and to stop playing at the end (although we did have a bit of speaking). This was their first attempt at work of this sort so I was very pleased.

Final Performance - Instruments Only! (structure)

Here, the instruments are played without any speaking, so the children need to understand the structure of the music they are making. Again this was a first attempt! If you record the music and let the children listen to it, they can self-assess, make suggestions as to improvements and have another go. This is a good opportunity to use the words timbre, structure and texture.