We have learned a little bit about the musical genre of Jazz this term and we discovered that the very first piece of music to be played in space during the Apollo 10 mission was a song from the Big Band and Swing era called ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ by Frank Sinatra.

We learned that jazz music actually evolved from folk music which is traditional songs passed down from generation to generation.

One traditional folk song we have learned recently is ‘Obwisana’ from Ghana, in Africa. It is traditionally sung by children in a circle passing rocks in time with the pulse of the music. We adapted this by using drum sticks to keep the pulse and we also composed our own four beat patterns. Our performance takes the form (A), the song, (B) stick pattern 1, (A) song, (C) stick pattern 2, (D) own stick pattern, (A) song and the ‘coda’ which we have learned is an Italian term used to describe the ending in a musical piece.