Welcome to BeatSwap!

The BeatSwap project is an exciting inter-school music project designed by Andy Fowler of RhythmZone and Claire Hurst (Deputy Head) of Oxford Road Community School. Follow us throughout the year to see children from four Reading schools develop and perform their own piece of world percussion music.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Andy's top videos!

Here's my two favourite YouTube videos right now! They both show how lots of people working together can make something really special.

The first shows some Egyptian and Turkish drumming (after a short introduction). It takes a little while to build up but the rhythms are really cool and well worth watching / listening to.



The second one is an INSPIRATIONAL group of deaf and dumb dancers. This is amazing!




Think about your performance.... What ideas do you have that will make it more interesting for the audience? Write down your ideas so you don't forget them!

Make your own rhythms here!

You will need to come up with a few of your own rhythms for the project. Why not make them now using the beatlab website!

Click the beatlab logo to see the site or read on for some helpful hints and tips:



Write your rhythms down and try coming up with a topic and words for them. It will help you get ahead - you can always change them when we get together in the BeatSwap club.

Hints and tips:

Click on the boxes to turn sounds on and off. Try starting with beats on the four pulses (darker grey) and then add more beats from there.

The top three rows represent the bass drum, high hat and snare in a drum kit. You can pretend these sounds are Bass, Tone and Slap for the Djembe. 

Here's some other music making resources you might like:

Tonematrix uses the same 16 beat pattern as us. Click some boxes and see what happens! You might come up with some cool rhythm ideas from playing around here.

Pulsate is a little bit more unusual. Click in the big black box a few times and see what happens!