Fun Facts: Did you know?
Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal music!
The term ‘pop music’, coined in 1926, is short for ‘popular music’.
Justin Bieber’s YouTube play count is greater than the combined population of China and
India!
American composer, John Cage (1912–1992), composed a work in 1952 titled 4’33’’. It
consists of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence!
The name of the only member of ZZ Top without a beard is Frank Beard.
Before composing, Beethoven often dipped his head in cold water.
At only four lines long, the Japanese national anthem is the shortest national anthem.
The longest is the Greek national anthem at 158 verses long.
The harmonica is the world’s best-selling instrument.
A grand piano can be played faster than an upright piano.
A piano covers the full spectrum of all orchestra instruments, from below the lowest note of
the double bassoon to above the piccolo’s top note.
Having reached number one in the UK in 1968 with the song ‘What A Wonderful World’,
Louis Armstrong holds the record of oldest chart topper. He was 67 at the time.
So-called ‘gut strings’ for acoustic Spanish guitars were originally made from the small
intestines of sheep. The production material changed to nylon during World War II, when all
available gut was used in the production of surgical thread for wounded soldiers.
Stravinsky wrote a short piece of music for a ballet with elephants.
Ideas for Homework
Ideas for Homework
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Talk to parents and grandparents about music and dance trends that were popular
when they were young. Bring in findings to share on a class timeline.
Listen out for classical music used on TV. Can you spot any tunes you know?
Read a listings page in the local paper or a venue programme to see what bands are
playing near where you live.
Make a list of venues used in the local area for live music, from big arenas to park
bandstands.
Learn a song by heart or play a piece of music on an instrument. Practise and see if
you can do it without making any mistakes!
Think up a funny name for a new band! Design a logo for the band.
Make a ‘spot the intro’ quiz for your classmates or family. Play an introduction to a
song and see who can recognise it first.
Write a fan letter to a musical hero explaining what you like about their music.
Write song lyrics for a new song for your favourite band.
Watch a beat box choir or performer online. How do they do that?
Hear a choir sing or watch a performance online. Can you hear the low and high
voices? Find out what the different singing parts in a choir are called.
Have a sponsored silence! For how long do your grown-ups think you can keep
quiet?
Make a musical dictionary. Check out the meaning of beat, dynamics, harmony,
rhythm, round, chord, octave, major key, minor key, crotchet, quaver, semibreve,
sharp and flat. List the terms in alphabetical order.
Keep learning your times tables and related division facts
Make up some maths problems for your class to work out using times tables, adding
or subtracting.
Measure the perimeter of a room in your home, Can you work out the area? Explain
how you worked out the measurements.
Find out what a cross-section of a 3d shape is. Can you have a cross-section in every
3d shape?