Cliddesden Primary School

Brodowski Quartet

We learnt that all Quartets are made up of two violins, one playing high and one playing low, a viola which is slightly bigger and plays lower and a cello which is even bigger and plays lower still.

Some other facts we learnt:

• the bows are made of horse tails and need changing every 6 months and the hair needs to dry out for a year before used
• playing the instruments using the bow is called 'arco'
• plucking the strings is called 'pizzicato'
• the reason the musicians take a bow is to thank their audience for being good listeners

We thought about the quartet as a house.  The cello laid the foundations for all to stand on.  The viola was the walls, adding strength.  One of the violins was the roof and alongside the viola added the harmony. The second violin was the melody, adding all the beautiful things inside the house.

The children enjoyed playing a game of 'hat on, hat off'.  When the hat was on the musician they played their instrument. When the hat was off they stopped.  This demonstrated perfectly how each different instrument was important to how the music sounded.

We listened to a piece of Christmas music written 300 years ago by the Italian composer Corelli. We then time travelled to the type of music we listen to today such as Jingle Bells.

George, Ailani and Marshall enjoyed their moment conducting the quartet. We found out that the conductor was like the pulse, using their baton to control the speed and volume of the music.

Charlotte then played the tune to 'Away in a Manger' with the rest of the quartet accompanying her.  We had to guess when a different instrument started playing the tune.  We were pretty good at this.

Finally, the concert ended with a medley of carols.