Music request.

[rivka]

As I've said before, I'm co-teaching the preschool Religious Education class at my church this year. We're doing a unit on our senses and how they help us experience the world. I'm the lead teacher for this week's class, on sound and hearing.

One thing I want to do is talk with the kids about how sounds can be used to express feelings. I'm going to play short pieces of music and ask them what feelings the music suggests, what kind of a story might go with the music, and how we might move to the music.

So far I've picked out some bouncy, incredibly cheerful marimba music, some tense, angry music (the "Mars" movement of Holst's The Planets), and some awestruck music (Thus Spoke Tharathustra, a.k.a. That Music From 2001: A Space Odyssey.) I'd like something sad, and something sleepy. For the purposes of this exercise, it should either be instrumental music (ideally) or music with lyrics that aren't in English.

Suggestions?

Also, any creative ideas about activities that could be done with a collection of miscellaneous sound effects, other than a simple guessing game?

Comments

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

Sound effects - act them out?

[lizardling.livejournal.com]

Guess how you could redo the sound effects? Like hoofbeats made by the Monty Python coconut method?

[erbie.livejournal.com]

For sad, I'd suggest the Lacrymosa from Mozart's Requiem.

[lerryn.livejournal.com]

Check out Mary Jane Lamond's Gaelic mouth music and spinning songs. Some are fast, but some are slower and would be suitable. I have a great album of hers, but I'm at work and can't remember how to spell the title.

[geminigirl]

With sound effects, you can create a machine. In a line, or a circle, each person gets a sound. Each sound has a movement that goes along with it, so it's kind of a physical activity, and when things happen in the right order something happens, whether it's passing a ball down the line to put it in a bucket, or something more complicated with an older group.


I listened to a lot of classical music as a child (comes from playing viola, I suppose) and as a very young child, one of the first pieces that sounded sad to me was "The Swan" from "Carnival of the Animals" by Saint-Saëns. It was more accessible as a small child than other classical music. Other things that spring to mind are Ravel's "Pavane pour une Infante Défunte" and Beethoven's Sonata #8 in C minor, the Adagio Cantabile.

I'll keep thinking about it.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Goldberg Variations by Bach might do for sleepy.

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

I've no idea if this will be any good to you. This is music from the Final Fantasy VII game:

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/ff7mid.html

Aerith's Theme is a sad sounding piece. Tifa's also, but less so.

The chocobo tunes are very fun, fast silly things.

[telerib.livejournal.com]

Re: Sound effects

Maybe a story game, combined with the guessing game?

"What's that sound?"

"Clapping!"

"That's right! Why do you think the people are clapping?"

Could get chaotic.

Re: Sleepy song

Brahms' lullaby?

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

For "sad," I think Barber's Adagio for String Quartet (sounds better to me in the original than inflated for a string orchestra) would convey.

Leroy Anderson's little gem, "A Trumpeter's Lullaby" is very good, though it wakes up a little in the contrasting middle section. Maybe Debussy's "Clair de Lune" would do it, and for once I'll even recommend Stokowski's orchestrated version with 27 different kinds of twinkling sounds -- marimbas, chimes, bells, you name it. It also works on violin (with piano accompaniment), harp solo, and the original piano solo version.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

For sleepy, how about Beethoven's 7th?

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Sorry, no recomendations for the sad/sleepy music, but when you mentioned sound effects I started thinking Spike Jones.

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

Erica Kundidzora Azim (http://www.amazon.com/Mbira-Zimbabwe-Erica-Kundidzora-Azim/dp/B00004RDQW)'s music always seems sleepy to me.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

If Gaelic songs are okay, for "Sad," I would say Hò Mo Luran, Hè Mo Luran by Catherine-Anne MacPhee always sounded beautiful and sad to me. I have no idea what it's actually about, mind you.

Sad

[selki.livejournal.com]

For "sad," I think Barber's Adagio for String Quartet

Seconded.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

For sad, I like Bach's Suite #1 For Solo Cello In G Major.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. How could I forget the Sad Song:

http://www.fredoviola.com/the_sad_song.html

[(Anonymous)]

For sad, how about Schubert's Ave Maria? There are instrumental versions, or the choral versions are in Latin.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

"Dark Skies" by Pilgrimage feels sleepy to me.

"A Warm Place" by Nine Inch Nails?

"De Profundis (Out of the Depths of Sorrow)" by Dead Can Dance? or "Chant of the Paladin"?

[ailbhe]

Faure's "In Paradisum"? It's sad-in-a-good-way to me. So's the one that goes "C'est Tircis, c'est Sabaoth" but I don't know how those names are actually spelled.

And, of course, loads of instrumental stuff I can hum but not google for to find out the title because it's instrumental.

Re: Sad

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Thirded.

[ailbhe]

Sounds effects - have them tell their own Peter and the Wolf-esque story? (Actually, there's lots of emotional themes in that).

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Brahm's Lullaby is an obvious "sleepy" choice.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

And Taps is sad.

[timill]

No-one seems to have mentioned the Elgar Cello Concerto, a work for which the word "elegiac" could have been coined.

So I shall.

Plenty of quiet sad stuff in Wagner - Wotan's Farewell to Brunnhilde, Hans Sachs' "Wahn" monologue, maybe the Liebestod from Tristan, though my view of that is sadly distorted by "Last Tango in Bayreuth" (an arrangement in tango tempo for four bassoons).