Category Archives: Year 5

As part of our music curriculum this term, we have been focusing on the work of Lin-Manuel Miranda, in particular his use of Hip-Hop music in his musicals, Hamilton and In the Heights. Mr O visited us to help us explore the genres further through the use of Garage Band.

We began by using the app to discover more about different genres of music and the instruments commonly associated them.

Next, we focused on Hip-Hop.  Mr O showed us how to use loops of Garage Band to create a drum beat. We learnt that Hip-Hop has a strong, structured, percussion beat, with a snare sounding at the second and fourth beat.  We created our own individual sequences, shared them with the class and voted for our favourite.

Then, we began to add other instruments to our beat, including synths, strings and brass.  Our job was to create the best Hip-Hop beat, which we voted on and chose our favourite.

Finally, it was time to create the lyrics! We started by each coming up with two lines for our rap and used this to build our class rap.  We practised with the class, recorded it with the mic and created the final product! We had a great day!