In their music lessons with Mrs Pope and Mr Wapshott, Year 9 have been exploring the musical genre – Minimalism.
Developed in New York in the 1960s by composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Terry Riley, Minimalism involves stripping music down to its bare essentials (and beyond) to focus on its pure sonic power, rather than anything it might evoke or represent.
Presented with this unfamiliar music, pupils were naturally led to developing their skills in empathy and accepting the views of others; some liked it and others were less keen! Armed with their new HPL ‘Lingo Bingo’ sheets, Year 9 recognised that their performance of Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ required practice, collaboration, confidence and risk taking. With the original arrangement just over one hour in length, Year 9 reduced their performance to around 5 minutes, following it with their version of Steve Reich’s ‘Clapping Music’. The next stage is to create their own Minimalist piece on MuseScore where they will really discover the magic of what you can create from a single motif.
