Issue 33: Pease Pudding and London Bridge

I have made a start on my lesson planning for Wider Opportunities programmes for the coming term. I shall be using these two tunes in my keyboard, clarinet and treble recorder classes, to revise the notes that they already know and to develop ensemble skills. They will also make a useful platform to introduce left hand single fingered chords for the keyboard players. I know that it isn’t necessary to repeat the C chord at the beginning of the second, third, and fourth phrases, but it makes the chord pattern for each phrase clearer. You will need to transpose the notation up an octave for treble recorders.

Partner songs are groups of songs which can be sung at the same time, making a good starting point for ensemble work. These two songs also provide differentiation, as Pease Pudding is much easier than London Bridge which has a range of six notes. There are opportunities for all kinds of rhythm work, including dotted quaver-semiquaver patterns. London Bridge provides an opportunity for composition/improvisation, creating new verses, and there is a pulse activity for Pease Pudding which I will post next week.

other ideas;

Using flash cards or a whiteboard, see if the children can match the rhythms of the phrases to the words

Create ostinato patterns from the rhythms, or play the chord letters on pitched percussion.

Work out the melodies on chime bars or glockenspiels

If any children play other instruments, especially guitar or ukulele (use G7 instead of G), encourage them to accompany the rest of the class. Beginner violins could pizzicato E and G instead of C and G; cellists can play C and G.

words for Pease Pudding; (two verses)

Pease pudding hot, pease pudding cold, pease pudding in the pot, nine days old.

Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot, nine days old.

 

words for London Bridge; (there are dozens of verses, rather like “There’s a hole in my bucket”)

London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London bridge is falling down, my fair lady.

verse 2; Build it up with iron and steel, etc   verse 3; Iron and steel will rust away, etc

verse 4,5,6,7,…. verse 99; look them up on the web, or make up your own!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted in Clarinets, Composition, Keyboards, Recorders, The organised teacher and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

 

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.