Music focus:

Listen carefully to the Nina Simone song below- use your musical vocabulary to describe it:

O tempo (speed)

O dynamics (volume)

O pitch (high or low sounds)

O texture (how the different sounds fit together)

O instruments- what instruments do you hear and see in the performance? 

Who was Nina Simone?

Nina Simone was known as the ‘High Priestess of Soul’ and is an icon of American music. 

Is Nina Simone her real name?

No! Nina Simone is her stage name that she used so that her mummy didn't know she was performing music! Her real name was Eunice Waymon.

When was she born?

She was born on February 21, 1933 in Tryon, which was a town in North Carolina in the United States of America.

How did she start making music?

Her dad was a minister so she started singing and playing the piano at her Church in her hometown of Tryon. Did you know that she could play the piano by ear at three years old?

Why do we remember her? 

Nina Simone used her music to try and help people. She took a stand for things that weren't fair even when she was young. Lots of her songs talked about things that weren't fair for black people in America at that time. 

Lots of modern artists like Rihanna have used samples of Nina Simone's music in modern songs and others have covered her songs too.