Year 9 Music
Year 9 Elective Music students have had an exciting year exploring a wide range of musical genres through performance, composition and analysis activities.
Some of the topics included Small Ensembles, Composition in the Classical era and Rock Music.
Fusion Rock
To end the year with a bang Year 9 Music created a Fusion Rock cover combining two class favourite songs: "Freedom 90" by George Michael and "Love Story" by Taylor Swift.
They incorporated some jazz chords as well as some chamber instruments and a metal tone with an electric guitar solo.
Rock Projects
In Term Four, students formed Rock Bands and created an arrangement of a Rock Song.
Frankie, Sienna, Kirra, Lachlan Z, Brayton and Lachlan W performed "Under Pressure" but with some groovy back-up dancing it was a pretty light-hearted and low-pressure setting.
Mary, Strahan, Aden, Mia, Ally and Ezra performed "Something's got a hold of me".
Due to COVID restrictions at the time they were not able to perform live with multiple singers so as an extra challenge they made a music video to go with their recording!
Student Websites
This year students created an individual website to showcase their work in Stage 5 Music. There are some very vibrant and engaging websites which include recordings of performances and portfolios for their assignments this year.
Check out their websites by clicking the links below!
Small Ensembles
Year 9 started the year off looking at Small Ensembles which looked at music from various genres and styles and during online learning they created cover performances of Pop songs using a variety of recording softwares such as Logic Pro and GarageBand.
They had to add their own musical touch to make it different from the original. This was a challenging task given that they had to use the instruments they had at home and experiment with new technology.
Have a listen to a few of their creations!
Aden
Mary
Mia
Aden completed a cover of "Killer" by Kali Uchis. He focused on the musical concepts of Structure and Tone Colour.
Mary made a jazzy version of "Are you gonna be my Girl" by Jet and changed the instrumentation to reflect a completely different style.
Mia made a stripped back version of another Kali Uchis song "Dead to me".
Sienna
Sienna made an instrumental cover of "Marvin Gaye" by Charlie Puth and Megan Trainor.
Frankie
Frankie created a version of "waves" by Dean Lewis, utilising sound samples of the ocean and body percussion.
Other Highlights
While exploring vocal ensembles, in pairs the students created their own "word layer compositions" based on a theme of their choice. Some themes included; Transport, Forest, Space, American Politics and the contents of a pencil case.
Mary
Graphic Notation by Aden & Mia.
Ezra & Strahan
Aden & Mia
Composition
Students investigated the impact of technology in creating small ensembles by creating their own music using loops and sound sample.
Have a listen to Brayton's track.
Mia's Riff
Composing for their own instrument has been a big focus during class activities. In term 1 the year 9 students created and performed their own riffs.
In term 2 the class took a walk back to the Classical Period and studied motivic development through composition.
Students created a new piece in the Classical Style based on the opening melody from Haydn's Surprise Symphony. They used the program Flat.io to notate their composition and created a graphic plan which mapped their use of development techniques, dynamics and structure.
Have a listen to some of their compositions.
Aden's Graphic Notation