Since Christmas, Year 6 have been writing, arranging and recording their very own song – and it’s finally finished! Using their amazing knowledge of genres, rhythm, pitch and harmony from term one, Year 6 decided to create “an up-tempo pop-rock tune, with rhythmic rapping in the verses and a catchily sung chorus”.

When it came to their lyrical theme, well… one of the things we adore so much about this class is their collective sense of humour. All ideas had to come from them, and they decided to write a song about the class bickering over various common themes, followed by a chorus from the perspective of the teachers, hence the name of the song “You’re driving me insane!”

Despite the light hearted nature of the (absolutely fantastic) lyrics, this was still a seriously educational process for the class. As a team, we worked together to write the drum beat, chords and bass line. The class acted as the producers, making all of the musical decisions and directing me on my music software, which was connected to the big screen so that they could learn about music technology and the modern recording and arranging process.

Here’s the tune!

Next term, year 6 will be working in pairs to create their very own songs using the Charanga YuStudio music app on the chromebooks, connected to our brand new midi keyboards! At the moment they are preparing themselves for this task with a “songwriters toolkit”, which so far has involved exploring chords on the guitar while fitting in with percussive rhythms, and getting to grips with programming their very own drum beats using YuStudio.

Great work Year 6!