Music is quite simply a way of life here.
Prep Schools Orchestral Day is one of the treasured highlights of our musical year. To see the melange of colourful blazers darting around the school quads, feel the energy emanating from the open windows of various rehearsal rooms around the school campus and experience the sound of three hundred children of all ages and abilities unified in joyous music making, is a glorious assault on the senses that we shall sorely miss this year.
Whilst the pandemic may have temporarily silenced our live music making, we have all found an unexpected and powerful ally in creative digital solutions to keep these group experiences alive. Below are a few musical projects that we hope will bring some colour to what, musically, has been a particularly insipid year. In the introduction videos below, each of our five departmental faculty heads introduce their interactive project with comprehensive instructions on how you and your pupils can participate. Whether you choose to engage with each, or merely browse, they are a genuine and sincere attempt to bridge the gap left by the cancellation of this event and I hope, if anything else, will be fun and engaging to watch.
It goes without saying that we are very much looking forward to welcoming our regular Prep Schools back in person in 2022, and are always looking for new schools to add to the list - do contact us if you would like to take part in future events! Having recently taken over as Director of Music, I am keen to get to know as many of you as possible and to share with you all our exciting vision for the future of music at Uppingham.
In the meantime, I do hope that this digital stopgap might play its part in evoking some of the fun and spirit of the day itself.
Wishing you all a very happy 2021!
Andrew Kennedy
Director of Music
Faculty Introductions
Keyboard Faculty resources | String Faculty resources |
Singing Faculty resources | Wind, Brass and Percussion Faculty resources |
Jazz, Pop and Music Tech Faculty resources |
Recording Tips
You can record your performance on a camera, laptop or mobile phone. Make sure you listen to the click track or backing track through headphones on a different device as you record, so on your video, we only hear your wonderful contributions! Try to make sure you are positioned centrally in the screen and that we can see you and your instrument clearly. It would be best if your background is as clear and plain as possible, and remember to make sure you are wearing appropriate clothing - including any vibrant rainbow colours for the Singing Faculty project!
To submit your videos, please send your video files using WeTransfer to [email protected]. The Music Office will email you to acknowledge receipt of these files.
If you have any further queries, please contact us at [email protected].
Wind, Brass and Percussion Faculty
This pack contains everything you will need to be able to join with our fabulous Wind, Brass and Percussion department in an online performance of “Can’t Stop The Feeling”.
Above is the recording we made to give you an idea of the music. If you record the fragments of music along with the click track and send them in to us, we can then create a video montage of everyone’s contributions.
There are the following parts, which you can download here:
Flute and Oboe (in C - Recorders could also join in with these)
Clarinet and Trumpet (in Bb - Tenor Sax could also join in with these)
Bassoon
Saxophone (Alto, in Eb)
Horn
Trombone
Euphonium and Baritone
Tuba
As well as the instrumental there are dedicated percussion instructions done by our very own percussion teacher, Tim Gunnell. We would love to see some animated clapping and finger clicks too.
The icing on the cake - if anyone would like to do an improvised solo over the chord sequence given, that would be superb.
Please make sure you record yourself performing with the click track through headphones rather than a speaker - we only want to hear your wonderful contributions!
You can download the click track to play along to here.
Dress up, be outrageous and have a lot of fun! We can't wait to see what you produce.
Jazz, Pop and Music Tech Faculty
Below are all the files you need to join in with our Bob Marley-inspired 'All Along the Watchtower' project, put together by our Head of JPMT, Mr Smith, and our fantastic Creative Music Technology teachers, Mr Reynolds and Mr Pike.
Please make sure you record yourself performing with the backing tracks through headphones rather than a speaker - we only want to hear your wonderful contributions!
Along with some helpful tips for recording and submission, you can download the audio and part files to play along to here.
Most of all, we hope you enjoy yourselves making music with this fantastic song!
Singing Faculty
We are very excited for you to join us in a performance of 'Rainbow Song'. There are two backing tracks you can choose to perform to - the first includes the melody for you to sing along with, and the second is just the accompaniment, with no melody.
Please make sure you record yourself performing with the backing tracks through headphones rather than a speaker - we only want to hear your wonderful contributions!
You can download the backing tracks and the music for the Rainbow Song here.
Keyboard Faculty
There are four pieces to choose from, at the following varying standards of difficulty:
Flaxy: Primo (Grade 2-3), Secondo (Grade 3-4)
Choro Mazurka: Primo (Grade 6), Secondo (Grade 5), Terzo (Grade 4)
Scriabin's Depressed: Primo (Grade 1), Secondo (Grade 2)
Dr G: Primo (Grade 5-6), Secondo (Grade 4-5)
Please make sure you record yourself performing with the backing tracks through headphones rather than a speaker - we only want to hear your wonderful contributions!
You can download the music for all four pieces here.
You can download the accompaniments, backing tracks and click tracks below:
'Scriabin's Depressed' backing track
String Faculty
We hope you enjoyed the performance of Romanian Polka in our introductory video. Below are two videos for each part - one 'lesson' video explaining the part and teaching you the music, and a 'play-along' video for you to record your part along with the other parts performed by Uppingham staff.
Please make sure you record yourself performing with the backing tracks through headphones rather than a speaker - we only want to hear your wonderful contributions!
Violin 1
Violin 2 and 3
Cello and Bass
Four-part play-along
You can download the music for this project here.