The Polar Express

Film music is possibly one of my favourite types of music to listen to and enjoy. It is something which undeniably transforms the beauty of movies into something even more magical, just for the pure pleasure of the audience to watch. So when we entered music lesson this week and we found out that we would be composing film music; being thrilled at the idea is an understatement!

The concept of the lesson evolved around watching the film trailer for the 'Polar Express' without any sound, and then we split into groups to re-create the music for the scene we watched. The experience was so much fun and it was the first time I felt that our group really got together to create a piece of music to fit what we were watching. We had to work together to make sure we fit into the timings of the music for example when the scene pans from outside to inside, when the train whistle blows or when the train instructor begins to speak.

After we performed the pieces we discussed how we could present this in a classroom setting.

Questions you could ask in school could be "what did you experience musically?"

"How did you overcome problems which arose?"

We emphasised that this sort of project may take several lessons to accumulate the same result for children and that we shouldn't rush these types of activities because of the endless possibilities of results etc.

I really enjoyed this lesson because, despite it being Christmas themed in November it allowed us to begin to formulate ideas for possible lesson opportunities in school on placement that we may be able to deliver on a Christmas theme. This also allows children to have the freedom to explore the kind of sounds and effects they want their music to make; but has enough structure by having the video to supplement their work and scaffold their music to help with ideas for each section in the music. The beauty of this is too, that tuned instruments are not a necessity in this instance. Our group made use of primarily percussion instruments and chimes to achieve the effect of snow; so this also allows children to explore what kind of objects or instruments they can use to achieve different sound effects like snow, rain, or mimicking the sound of the train.

After this we also looked at arranging silent night as a Christmas song which could also be used as a year 5 or 6 activity which the children could take part in and therefore use it in their nativities for example, meaning they have a greater connection with it as they were the ones to create it in the first place. It also allows pupils who play a musical instrument to use their skills to get involved while children who are less musical can still use percussive instruments or take part in other areas such as technology and sound or possibly conducting.