Year 5 have been composing their own ‘Icelandic Dances’ inspired by our recent trip to perform alongside the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. So far we have composed the ‘A’ section of our dances, which sounds a bit like a ‘march’, has an ‘irregular metre’, and a simple melody. An ‘irregular metre’ includes two or more different time signatures, for example a combination of 2-beats, 4-beats and 3-beats per bar. It makes it hard to identify the ‘pulse’. This creates a ‘wonky’ rhythm, which is uncommon in most Western music.
Some of the groups took up the challenge of adding a ‘harmonic fifth’ (a note that is five notes above the melody).
Can you identify the ‘irregular metres’ in these compositions? Which group(s) added a ‘harmonic fifth’?
