Are you controlling my mind, Mr. Composer?

Music is powerful!  It can stir up strong emotions, making us feel peaceful or excited or sad or silly.  This week students have discovered that these feelings do not happen by accident.  In reality, composers use special tricks to control our feelings and responses to their music.  They tell the performers how loud to play, how fast to play and even how to shape each note, all in the hopes of creating a specific mood for their piece.

Click HERE to listen to "Fossils".

Students in Grade Three read the book, "The Drumheller Dinosaur Dance" which imagines what it might sound like if the fossilized skeletons of dinosaurs reassembled for a dance party.  Then we listened to a piece called "Fossils" by Camille Saint-Saens while moving our bodies like the dancing bones.  Very exciting!  But after all this fun, we stepped back and considered how this music made us feel and what tricks the composer used to make us feel that way.  

Listen to the music by clicking on the link to the right, and then see if you can figure out how the composer controlled your mind.  Don't forget to use the musical terminology below to justify your response!

	Musical Terminology	Means  . . .
How fast is the music?	largo	slow
	moderato	medium speed
	presto	fast
How loud is the music?	forte	loud
	piano	quiet
How do you play the music?	legato	smooth and      connected
	marcato	choppy