Film Friday — Angry Birds Cover

In this fun video, the musicians of the band/group Pomplamoose use video and musical editing to cover the theme from the Angry Birds game.  My students are still absolutely obsessed with Angry Birds and not a day goes by that someone doesn’t walk by wearing a t-shirt with some sort of Angry Birds reference.  This video is great because students will recognize the music from Angry Birds and they’ll be able to hear some differences.

With this video you could:

•  Talk about melody and ensemble (the melody goes from the vocals to the instruments back and forth and they fight about who will take the lead).
• Discuss theme and variation.  How does this sound similar to and how is it different from the music of the Angry Birds game?
• Promote video/audio editing.  Ask the kids how there are multiple voices and multiple images of the same two people?  Get students to think less about Angry Birds and more about the mechanics of the video.  It forces them to think critically to explain very difficult subject matter for little minds
• Use listening skills and talk about what instruments you hear, what form the song takes, how the different versions of the song are different, etc.  Asking questions like this forces kids to listen critically and not just sit idly by while they watch the video.  They have to think about something and look for something while they watch and listen.  Requiring them to report back after the video is over keeps them more actively engaged while watching.
• I just showed this to my first graders and we talked about conflict resolution.  To quote a smart little kiddo, “He was just excited.  He wasn’t being mean.  He didn’t mean to take over.”  I said, “You’re right!  You can see that he’s confused in the middle of the video.  He doesn’t know why she’s hitting him.  What could she have done differently instead of punching or smashing his head in the piano.”  “She could have asked him to please wait.  Or she could have told him he could have a turn when she was done.”

There are lots of fun things to think about and learn as you watch (and seriously, they’re gonna love that it’s Angry Birds!)  Enjoy this little gem of a video!