Hello St. John the Divine!

I hope you all happy and well!

This week, I thought we’d do something a little different. Throughout the lockdown, I’ve been playing the piano every day. This instrument has always been important to me, providing a place to rest my brain after a long day!

During the video below, I talk about a piece of music I learnt a couple of days ago. It is a piece by Mendelssohn, a German composer who worked in the first part of the 1800s. The piece is a ‘Song Without Words’. How can a song not have any words? Well, Mendelssohn only wrote the piano part. This means that the melody of the song is actually written into the piano part.

Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words were written over a large chunk of his short life. He wrote them as people really enjoyed playing them at home, people like you and me!

Click on the link below the image to go straight to my video.

When you listen:

How does the music make you feel? Can you describe how the music makes you feel in three words?
Can you hear the melody of the ‘song’ played on the piano?

Things to look up:

How many white keys are there on a piano?
How many black keys are there on the piano?
What category of instrument is a piano: string, woodwind, or percussion?