KS3/4 idea: This cartoon is set in 'tin can alley' and pupils will benefit from some prior knowledge of the context of the 'tin pan alley' song factory of the day. Some think the name itself came from the cacophony of several different styles and pieces being heard all at once, and this is the premise of this cartoon and its title - a battle between jazz ('hep cat') and classical (symphony) styles.
There are a number of ways of using this cartoon in class.
1. Simply as a novel follow up to works that you may have been studying in other contexts (e.g. trad jazz, Poet and Peasant Overture, William Tell Overture, etc.)
2. Discussion of some of the musical jokes (e.g. contrary motion piano glissandi to match order that keys fall from keyboard that has ended up in cat's mouth!)
3. As a stimulus idea for a creative project on a 'battle of the styles' theme - pupils choose two pieces in different styles and find some way of combining them in a single piece - you could maybe add the stipulation that by the end they must work out some clever way of making the two pieces co-exist - this could lead on to an exploration of related composition techniques used by Charles Ives (e.g. in 'Putnam's Camp' from 'Three Places in New England').
Tags: contrary motion, poet and peasant, william tell, trad jazz, Classical
Resource type: This is a Video resource.
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