Spin, Earth, Spin

School Radio > Music > Join in with Music

This gentle but stately piece takes the ‘Around the World’ theme out to the solar system.

The video

Spin, Earth, Spin

This gentle but stately piece takes the ‘Around the world’ theme out to the solar system, where the Earth wibbles, wobbles, whirls, twirls and swivels in rotation around the sun. There are verses for the moon and also for the other planets spinning around the sun.

The main tune for the verses rises and falls gently and the video uses small, bright circles in the night sky to suggest its ups and downs - ovals are longer notes. Children can follow the shape of the tune by moving their hand up and down in similar patterns as they speak or sing the words.

There is also an interlude introducing scientific terms and ideas - light and dark, gravitation, day and night, orbit and rotation - to phrases with repeated notes of D, E, F sharp and A, with gaps for percussion instruments to copy. Practise a few times to get the timing of the rhythms together.

There are parts to join in for glockenspiels, metallophones or chime bars, xylophones, penny whistles, recorders and keyboards, as well as woodblocks, tambourines, triangles, cymbals and small drums (the video also shows a big timpani drum, which features in the backing track). You can choose whichever instruments from your school collection are most suitable for each verse.

String instruments - such as ukuleles, guitars, violins and cellos - can also join in, especially with notes D and A in the introduction and links between verses.

Chord instruments can prepare chords D, G, Em and A.

The fourth verse, like Verse 1, is about the spinning Earth and has a coda with the last phrase extended using just F sharp and A - ‘Spin, Earth, Spin, Earth, Spin, Earth, Spin, Earth, Spin’ - the last note being extra long. Here, listen out for a guitar pattern of repeated low Ds - all instruments can join in with this final rhythm.

You could use the piece to help create an astronomical spinning dance with whirls, twirls, swivels, wibbles and wobbles. Pairs and groups can show different sizes and speeds of rotation. As well as the piece itself, groups can use some of the phrases as starting ideas to compose their own music about the Earth and solar system. How about adding some real spinning sounds - eg from coins, canister lids and jar lids?

Resources

School Radio > Music > Join in with Music