Musical Visit

Friesian Class were extremely lucky to be visited by Mr Rasch (Paul’s dad), a music composer. He began by taking us through music written a long time ago and played us music from different countries and cultures from around the world.

He explained to us that our Western music is made up of twelve tones. He took us back to the oldest piece of European music and then played us a range of Western music, including Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings.

He then told us about the structure of an orchestra and why they sit in a certain formation.

The four elements that music consists of are Rhythm, Melody, Harmony and Counterpoint. He showed us an example of each of these. He talked us through the process of composing a piece of music. It is a long process and starts by writing down notes that are in

We then played a game. The children asked Mr Rasch to play something funny, sad, happy, scary or other adjectives that they could think of. He would improvise and play something that sounded like these.

Finally, Mr Rasch played us a video of an orchestra performing one of his pieces. It was a brilliant experience for the children and they learnt a lot about the history of music.