Year 10 have been analysing the ground bass in Purcell's Music for a While for Edexcel GCSE Music. Over two lessons, each student composes a practice piece, not their assessed composition: the teacher sets a BandLab for Education assignment containing a four-bar ground bass in A minor that the teacher wrote, which students loop eight times and then build three variations over, one melodic, one rhythmic and one that changes the texture. Each variation goes on its own track, played in on a MIDI keyboard, so students can hear any variation alone or against the others, retake a phrase, and compare two takes before keeping one. At the end of the first lesson students submit, the teacher listens to every piece that evening and returns each one with a comment on which variation drifts from the harmony of the ground. In the second lesson students revise that variation, listen back against the bass, and resubmit with a two-line note on what they changed.
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.