Music with Mr E.

This term in music, we have been learning about Ludwig Beethoven.

His dad taught him to play the piano. Ludwig got too good for his father, so he got another teacher. He even got too clever for the teachers. Holly remembers that Ludwig's mother got really sick and then died. A nice lady came and looked after him. When his mother died, he was so sad that he didn't play music for two years. He began writing music when he was 25 years old.  He wrote music even though he lost his hearing. Ellie remembers that he got an ear infection and it got worse. Losing his hearing made him very unhappy. He died when he was about 56 years old. Ludwig was scared of his father.

We learned to play parts of his Symphony number 9. Before we learned to play some of it. we watched this fantastic video on youtube. Symphony number 9 is also known as 'Ode to Joy.' We noticed Beethoven writes symphonies that can be nice and calm, then go big and loud. They can also go slow, then fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbJcQYVtZMo

Fur Elise is another of Ludwig's music we listened to, and we learned to play a part of it with glockenspiels, keyboards and marimbas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mVW8tgGY_w