Harp Melody and Friends

# Melody, Melody

# Listen to the music, let your mind run free

# Melody, Melody

# From a castle or the jungle to the Arctic Sea

# It could be as loud as a storm

# Or quiet as a sigh

# As dainty as a dance step

# Or soaring high in the sky

# Melody, Melody

# Listen to the music, let your mind run free

# Melody, Melody

# The musical imaginings of Melody. #

And friends!

Today Mum and I are going to the school to meet some friends.

I skip with excitement as we walk up to the doors.

This is my friend Cherry and she plays the harp.

MUSIC PLAYS

-Oh! Oh, Melody, I can hear a harp.

-It's lovely.

It's really dreamlike, it's really nice. Shall we go and have a listen?

Yes, please. Let's go.

-Ah!

-Hello.

-Hello, Cherry.

-Hello.

Thank you so much for letting us come in and see your harp.

-Melody, what do you think of the harp?

-Wow.

-It's amazing, isn't it?

And all these lovely strings you've got coming down here.

They've got different colours. Why is that?

So we don't get confused. There's too much string.

This one is C. All the red ones are always C.

-Yeah.

-And all the black ones are F.

-They are different notes.

-Yeah.

-In between C and F, that's D and E. G-A-B.

-Do you want to pull them?

Yeah, go ahead.

Wow! It makes that vibration and

all these little bits up here, what do they do?

Those are for the pedals, they're connected to the pedals.

There's three different sounds for each string.

SHE PLAYS THREE NOTES

-Wow!

-Yeah.

-The shape is quite amazing.

It almost looks like a ship or something.

In olden times, people used to hunt using bows and arrows

and when the string was fired from the bow,

it made quite a nice sound, so they thought they would add more

strings and the bow gradually expanded and became the harp.

-Wow!

-So it's literally from a bow and arrow. It became the harp. Wow!

'Cherry asked if I wanted a go. I couldn't wait.'

OK. Sit down.

-All right.

-That's good.

-Don't want to squash you!

'The harp was bigger than I was!'

-It might be a bit big for you.

-It's huge, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Twice the size of you.

-If you just strum.

Have a go at strumming. We're holding on. Oh!

It's like angel music. Cherry, would you be able to play for us?

-Of course, yes.

-Shall we have a listen?

-Yes, please.

-OK.

-OK.

-Just come back and sit by Cherry so you can see...

-All the cool things.

SHE STRUMS

-Wow!

-Here you can make harmonic.

SHE PLAYS THREE NOTES

You can make it the same pitch as this - and there's this.

-Ah, when you pull up.

-Yeah.

-How do you play it on your fingers, do you get different effects?

-Yes.

If you play like this, but you can also play with your nails.

On your nails, oh!

Make this sound.

-Can you hear the difference?

-Yes.

-It's a bit sharper.

-Yes.

-Twangy.

-A twang sound.

-And here's what's called the xylophone noise.

HIGH PINGING

-Ahhh.

-You see the difference?

-Yes.

So it's whether or not you're letting the strings ring or keeping

them quite tight which is great. Could you try another? Is it called

-a gliss when you played it?

-Yes.

-CHERRY PLAYS GLISSANDO

Wow!

-The floor's vibrating.

-It's like we're in heaven.

It's beautiful. Thank you so much.

'Now, Cherry is going to play something for us.'

SHE PLAYS A PRETTY TUNE

'Cherry played so beautifully. It sounded magical.'

-Amazing, wasn't it?

-Amazing.

-Melody, we've got to get going,

the recital starts in a few minutes.

-We've got to let Cherry get ready. Thank you so much.

-Yeah.

'I have some friends arriving

'who are going to listen to the music with me.'

-Hello, everyone. Are you excited to watch the performance?

-Yes!

Remember to listen to the music.

'I wonder what it'll make them think of!

'I think we're nearly all ready and Fudge too! Hee, hee.'

We are going to play Piazzolla's Nightclub 1960

from Histoire du Tango.

'Cherry isn't playing alone.

'She's playing with Matt who plays the flute.'

MUSIC: Nightclub 1960 by Astor Piazzolla

'I can hear Cherry's fingers moving quickly across the strings.

'Matt is an excellent flautist.

'And then I start to imagine...

'I imagine the beautiful blue bird, flying around.'

MUSIC SLOWS

'Oh! He settled down for a moment.'

BIRD TWEETS

BIRD SINGS

'He's looking for something.'

BIRD TWEETS

'Look! Another bird, a yellow one.

'Aw! They found each other and they're flying away.

'I don't want them to go.'

'They are dancing in the sky.'

MUSIC SPEEDS UP 'Oh, that sounds different.

'The music sounds like claps of thunder now.

'The poor birds, they don't like the storm.

'They're flying higher now, into the clear skies.

'That music really makes my imagination go wild.'

HARP FLOURISHES

'The music was amazing. And Cherry played brilliantly.

'Well done, Cherry and Matt.

'After the recital,

'Mum and I go and meet up with our friends who watched it with us.

'I would like to find out what the music made them think of.'

-Hello.

-Hello, everybody.

-Hi!

-How are you?

-Good.

Did you enjoy listening to the piece of music that Cherry played

-for you on the harp?

-Yes!

-And the flute was played by Matt.

They were brilliant, they were so good.

-Would you like to listen again and see what it makes you think of?

-Yes.

MUSIC: Nightclub 1960 by Astor Piazzolla

'It wasn't long before Isla had an idea.'

Like somebody was dancing in the forest.

Like somebody is skipping through the forest.

Wow! I could definitely see that forest in my imagination, could you?

-Yes.

-It made me think of somebody dancing in the middle of nowhere.

-How were they moving? How were they dancing?

-They were soft dancing.

Let's listen to the next piece and see what you see this

time, if it's any different.

'The next section sounded very different.'

MUSIC PLAYS SOFTLY

Right. That was a very different sound, wasn't it?

I thought it sounded like somebody was searching a castle.

-Were they rushing through, Freddie?

-No, they were creeping.

-Creeping, tiptoeing, who could they be, do you think?

-Robbers.

-Robbers in the castle. That's good. What about you, Ben?

-I saw Egypt.

You saw Egypt? Yeah.

Shall we have another listen to that and see if we can see what you

were seeing in your imaginations.

SLOW MUSIC PLAYS AGAIN

'I could really imagine what Freddie had said.'

I could really see the sun set over Egypt.

-You could see it just like Ben?

-Yes.

-I loved that idea, it was so good.

Now we'll listen to the last section to see what it makes you think of.

LIVELY MUSIC PLAYS

Evie, what did you see?

At the start of the music it made me feel like a mermaid jumping up

-and down the waves and then her tail splits apart and she gets legs.

-Wow!

Shall we have a listen again and see if we can see your mermaid?

'I can see the mermaid!'

SPLASH!

Wow! What a lot of lovely ideas. Thank you so much.

You've got brilliant imaginations.

-We loved them, didn't we?

-Yes, they were all amazing.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

-Bye.

-Bye!

'Everybody has different ideas and all from the same music.

'I love it when so many ideas happen.'

-So, did you like the ideas that the children had, Melody?

-Yes.

I didn't think of Egypt and I loved the sunset.

-Me either, they were brilliant ideas.

-Amazing!

Isn't it interesting how the same music can make you think of

different things to different people.

-Can we listen again, please?

-Go on.

'I loved all the different ideas my friends had.

'Egypt, mermaids and even a castle.'

That music made me think of two beautiful birds.

What did it make you think of?