Teaching Sequence

Part A: Introducing Riffs
Part B: The Riff Game
Part C: Playing a Riff
Reflection

Ensure you have access to YouTube, a computer, projector or interactive whiteboard and speakers.

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Introducing Riffs

Step 1.

Play this video to your class showing how Riff's have inspired one of the 2015 Fanfare Competition participants:

Fanfare Competition - Riff Inspired Composition (https://youtu.be/YJImCxm0mBE)

Step 2.

Explain that a riff is a short piece of music repeated many times. Riffs are often used in pop songs (bass guitar and/or guitar and/or drum kit). Play some of these audio samples and discuss with students where the riffs start and end.

Part B: The Riff Game

Step 1.

Invite six student volunteers to come to the front of the class. Together they are to choose a short phrase or sentence to repeat over and over (for example, music makes the world go round; It rained on the way to school today; Who ate the chocolate?)

Step 2.

Start with one student, then gradually add the other five students. By the end, all six students should be chanting their phrase/sentence at once.

Step 3.

Show students Coldplay's Technicolour and ask them to identify where the riff starts.

Coldplay - Life in Technicolour (https://youtu.be/7zvc8T47V0)

Answer: At approximately 42 seconds.

Step 4.

Next, ask students “What’s the effect of having too many riffs layered on top of one another?” (For instance, the six layers just created by students).

Step 5.

Ask students to spend ten minutes creating a short piece of music using loops in GarageBand or on a similar piece of software. Highlight for students that they should avoid having all the loops/layers playing all the time.

Part C: Playing a Riff

Step 1.

In groups of three, ask students to improvise using instruments found in the classroom (including voice and body percussion). The first person should start with a riff on percussion or body percussion. The next person should introduce a different riff. The last person should improvise a short tune/melody (on glockenspiel/keyboard/recorder/voice).

Step 2.

Invite groups to share their compositions with the class, and ask the audience to determine which students were playing riffs.

Step 3.

Explain that when a riff is used in classical music, it is called an ostinato.

Step 4.

Listen to the first 1.56 minutes of Holst’s Mars from The Planets.

Gustav Holst - The Planets (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bcRCCg01I)

Step 5.

Ask students to discern the ostinato played throughout the first 1:56 minutes, noting that it swaps instruments.

Reflection

As a class listen to Bolero by Ravel and discuss Ravel's use of ostinato and repeated melody in this piece.

Ravel - Borelo (original version) (https://youtu.be/Q4wb11w0ZHQ)

Ask students to vote on whether Bolero is exciting or overly repetitive. Ask students to write a sentence about how riffs/ostinatos can contribute to musical unity in a piece of music. Write a second sentence warning about the danger of using too many riffs/ostinatos and playing all of them all the way through a piece of music.

Differentiated activities

Provisions for Learning Support: Many activities are in pairs or small groups, so try to group lower ability students with higher ability students. GarageBand is a simple app on the iPad. The hardest function is finding the ‘+’ button to add another layer or instrument; you may need to support students with this task.

Homework and extension opportunities

Ask students to write down several riff ideas on manuscript paper using musical notation on a staff.

Instruct students to study the details of the Fanfare Competition. Explain to students that they will be encouraged to write their own 30 second piece of attention grabbing music to enter into the competition (https://artology.org.au/fanfare/). Explain to students that they can start recording their ideas about composing a short piece of music using some of the concepts explored today.

Fanfare Competition - Riff Inspired Composition

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