Dates: b. 1978
Nationality: British
Period: 21st Century
Genre: Body Percussion
Key Musical Elements:
- Timbre
Anna Meredith and Radio 1's Dev introduce her body percussion piece Connect It.
Anna Meredith is a Scottish composer who writes electronic and acoustic music. She likes to work with orchestras, bands and choreographers to create music that uses clapping, stamping, shouting and beatboxing instead of instruments.
In Anna Meredith's body percussion piece 'Connect It' a variety of rhythmic sounds and movements are passed between the performers. This musical effect is known as a canon. A canon is where two or more instruments, voices or sounds play the same music, but starting at different times.
Listen out for: The repeated rhythmic patterns and sounds made by people using their bodies as instruments. Timbre is how sound is used in a piece of music. Maybe how an instrument is chosen or played in a special way. Connect it uses the body and explores how different sounds can be made by different parts of the body and voice for effect.
Watch the full body percussion performance of Anna Meredith's Connect It from ±«Óătv NOW.
Anna Meredith
Anna Meredith is a British composer and performer. She was born in London and then moved to Scotland when she was 2. She studied music at York University and the Royal College of Music. During her career she has so far won many awards and has written several pieces for the ±«Óătv Proms. Anna writes for instruments and orchestras and also creates and performs electronic music.
Her piece Connect It doesn’t feature any instruments at all! In 2016 she released an album of her music called Varmints which then toured many of the UK's major musical festivals to great acclaim. Anna's sound is often called 'uncategorisable' because she mixes many different musical worlds together including classical, pop and experimental rock. Her music has been performed across the world and now her voice is heard across the world as she becomes more and more in demand as a broadcaster. She regularly presents for ±«Óătv Radio 3 and 6 Music and even crops up on TV from time to time!
MP3: Listen to or download the music
Download the
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Lesson Plans
Download lesson plans for six weeks of learning and activities for Connect It, as Powerpoint presentations or PDFs.
To enable all images to work in the Powerpoint files please save the file to your computer. To save to your computer: PC - right-click and save, Mac - ctrl-click and save.
Primary lesson plans:
Lesson plan by Rachel Leach
Suitable for:
*Key Stage 2 in England and Wales
*Second Level, P5-P7 in Scotland
*Key Stage 1/Key Stage 2 in Northern Ireland