Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to your music lesson today.

My name is Miss Al-Hanoush, and in today's lesson, we're going to be exploring how you can compose a countermelody.

So to be able to compose a countermelody, we need a main melody.

And for that, we're going to learn a song.

So up on your feet for our warm-up.

For today's warm-up, we're going to learn a song called "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." So before we do that, we need to warm up our minds, our body, our breath, and our voice.

So just take a moment and take a deep breath in for me for four counts and see if you can hear the sounds around you.

Here we go.

And breathe out.

And again.

And breathe out.

Once more.

And again.

Last time.

Breathe out.

Okay.

Raise your head up to the ceiling and down to the floor and look left and look right.

And then give a big stretch up to the sky and a big stretch down to the floor.

Touch your toes.

And can you stretch out and try and touch both sides of the room and roll your shoulders backwards and roll them forwards.

Excellent.

Okay.

Brilliant.

Make sure you're all nice and loose and make sure your feet are shoulder width apart when you're standing and pretend there's an invisible string holding you up like a puppet so we're nice and straight with our posture.

Well done.

Okay, let's warm up our voices.

I would like you to sing the following scale.

Copy me.

♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪ ♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪ One, two, three, four.

♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪ ♪ La, la, la, la, la ♪ You do it with a zz.

Ready? One, two, three, four.

♪ Zz, zz, zz, zz, zz ♪ ♪ Zz, zz, zz, zz, zz ♪ It's a bit harder.

Can you do it with a mm? Ready, one, two, three, four.

♪ Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm ♪ ♪ Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm ♪ Last one with an oo.

One, two, three, four, ♪ Oo, oo, oo, oo, oo ♪ ♪ Oo, oo, oo, oo, oo ♪ Really well done.

Did you recognise which scale we were singing there? It was the F major pentatonic.

So if you heard that and you recognised that, well done.

We're going to have a look at "Swing Low," which uses the F major pentatonic, and "Swing Low" was a song that was a African-American spiritual song, and it was composed by a man called Wallace Willis.

And he's singing about chariot taking him to heaven.

It's a really popular song and it's sung a lot at the rugby.

If you're a rugby fan, you might recognise it.

So we are going to be using this song throughout our lesson to compose a countermelody with.

So we need to learn it first.

Repeat the lyrics after me.

Swing low, sweet chariot.

Swing low, sweet chariot.

Coming for to carry me home.

Coming for to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot.

Swing low, sweet chariot.

Coming for to carry me home.

Coming for to carry me home.

Easy.

Here's how it sounds.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ It's actually a little bit high for me, but let's have a go.

So first line, I'll do it, and then you're going to repeat.

Here we go.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ Your turn.

One, two, three, four.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ Brilliant.

♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ Your turn.

Three, four.

♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ Brilliant.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ Three, four.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ Just watch that third line.

It's slightly different because it goes a little bit higher, okay? So it hits a top D.

Let's have a go at singing all four phrases.

I'm going to give you a count in of three.

One, two, three.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ If you think that's quite high for you, you can sing the octave below it if you like.

So.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ If you want to sing it the octave below and that's easier for you, you can do that, as well.

Particularly my boys, that might be easier for you, okay? This time, whilst you sing "Swing Low," I'm going to do something different.

I'm going to be singing what we call a countermelody.

So I will sing the first line with you, and then I'm going to switch.

So don't be put off when I switch.

Let's have a go.

Ready? One, two, three.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Ooo ♪ ♪ Ooo ♪ ♪ Ooo ♪ This lesson is going to explore what I just did underneath what you have just sung.

Let's take a look at what we're doing.

Hopefully now you're all nice and warmed up and ready for the rest of the lesson.

So in this lesson, you will need a piece of paper, a pencil, an eraser, and a keyboard, or if you don't have a keyboard, an application.

I'm going to use a free virtual instrument that's called Virtual Piano.

And if you would like to use an app with me, please ask your parent or carer to help you find one.

Mine's called Virtual Piano, and it looks like this, and we'll be able to play all of the notes of the pentatonic.

On it, like so.

So really worth downloading one if you don't have a keyboard to hand.

You will also need a quiet space to work in and to make sure that any apps or notifications on any electronic devices are switched off so they don't disturb your learning.

If you need to go and get any of that equipment, please go and do it now.

You can pause the video and then resume once you're ready to start.

Here is today's lesson agenda.

You're going to begin by learning what a countermelody is and then explore some examples of countermelodies in both vocal and instrumental music.

You'll then learn how to play "Swing Low" on the keyboard and then compose a countermelody to "Swing Low." So let's begin by learning what a countermelody is.

I'm going to play you "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" on the keyboard.

It uses the F major pentatonic scale.

You might recognise it from our warm-up.

I would like you to spot the difference.

I'm going to play it twice, and the second time I'm going to do something different.

What am I doing that's different? Here we go.

What was the difference between the first time that I played "Swing Low" and the second time that I played "Swing Low"? Well, the first time, I just played the melody, and the second time, I added a countermelody.

So I actually had "Swing Low" prerecorded on my keyboard and then I played a countermelody with it.

Did I play my countermelody at the same pitch that I played "Swing Low"? No, our countermelody was lower.

So I actually played it an octave lower than I played "Swing Low." So "Swing Low" I played up here.

And then I played my countermelody down here.

So you could hear the contrast between my main melody, "Swing Low," and what we call my countermelody.

A countermelody is a melody that's supporting my main melody line.

Melody is the main idea or ideas in a piece of music.

What about countermelody? Well, a countermelody is a secondary melody.

It's played at the same time as the original melody, and it's there to complement and support the main melody, not take over it.

For your first pause task, on your piece of paper, take five minutes to write down what a melody is, what a countermelody is, and any examples of countermelodies that you can think of in the music that you listen to.

Pause the video to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

Now that you know what a countermelody is, we're going to explore some examples of countermelodies in both vocal and instrumental music.

So to start with, we're going to look at some examples of countermelodies in vocal music.

So I would like you to listen to the first example, which is "Scarborough Fair" by Simon & Garfunkel.

This song was originally a folk song which they then made into their own version, and they added some countermelodies.

I'd like you to think about what is playing the main melody line and which instrument is playing the countermelody in this extract.

Here we go.

♪ Are you going to Scarborough Fair? ♪ ♪ Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme ♪ ♪ Remember me to- ♪ So which instrument was playing the countermelody and which instrument was playing the main melody? Wow, well done if you said it was the vocal line that played the main melody and it was the guitar, an acoustic guitar that was playing the countermelody in that extract.

Let's have another listen, but I would like you to listen to the guitar and notice how it complements the melody line.

It doesn't overpower it.

A countermelody should be able to stand on its own as a melody line.

Have another listen.

♪ Are you going to Scarborough Fair? ♪ ♪ Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme ♪ ♪ Remember me to- ♪ Hopefully you were able to hear that beautiful acoustic guitar countermelody.

Let's listen to another example, "Help!" by the Beatles.

In this one, I would like you to listen out for the guitar countermelody at the beginning, but I would also like you to listen out for the bass riff, too, because it plays a nice melodic riff accompaniment and it shows that all accompaniment and countermelodies don't have to be complex.

They can also be quite simple.

Have a listen ♪ Help, I need somebody ♪ ♪ Help, not just anybody ♪ ♪ Help, you know I need someone ♪ ♪ Help ♪ ♪ When I was younger, so much younger than today ♪ ♪ I never needed anybody's help in any way ♪ ♪ But now these days are gone, I'm not so self-assured ♪ ♪ Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors ♪ So hopefully you heard those quite fun guitar countermelodies in there, as well.

So countermelodies don't just appear in vocal music.

They can also be in instrumental music, too, and they've been around for a very long time.

Let's listen to a couple of examples of instrumental music that use countermelodies.

We're going to listen to "Magnificent Seven" by Bernstein first.

I want you to listen out for how the melody played by the violin is complemented by the rest of the orchestra.

There are lots of beautiful countermelodies in this piece.

And also listen out for the variety of low versus high-pitched melodies, which is done so that you can hear each melody clearly.

Did you hear the low versus high-pitched melodies there? And did you hear how the violin was complemented by the rest of the orchestra? Our final example shows how countermelodies have been around for a very long time.

Let's take a listen to Beethoven's number seven in A, where he uses a variety of countermelodies which have similar rhythms So in this example, we can see that countermelodies can actually be quite simple, too.

Did you notice how they also ended on their tonic note? And bear that in mind when you compose your own countermelodies later on.

For your next pause task, I would like you to take five minutes, and on your piece of paper, write down three things that composers do when composing a countermelody.

As a stretch, I'd like you to think about why you think they do those things.

Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you're finished.

Now that we've explored some examples of countermelodies in vocal and instrumental music, you're now going to learn how to play "Swing Low." Listen to me play "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" on the keyboard and try and follow the notation on screen.

Can you work out where the question and answer phrases are and how many bars are in each phrase? Did you work out where the question was? Our question is the very top line.

What about our answer? Our answer is the bottom line.

So how many bars are in our question and how many bars are in our answer? Let's work it out.

We're in 4/4, so we've got four beats per bar, and we've got our helpful bar lines to tell us where the bars end to.

So bar one, bar two, bar three, bar four.

And our answer is the same, bar one, bar two, bar three, and bar four.

What do you notice about our question? The last pitch.

What does it end on? Remember we're in F major pentatonic.

So F, G, A, B, C.

It's our dominant note.

And what about our answer? What does that end on? Excellent if you just said it ends on our tonic note, as well.

Okay, what can you tell me about the rhythm of both the question and the answer? So the last three bars are exactly the same rhythm, aren't they? Dotted crotchet, quaver, quaver, dotted crotchet, dotted crotchet, quaver, quaver, dotted crotchet, quavers, quavers, crotchet, quavers, quavers, crotchet, and then semibreve at the end, semibreve at the end.

What about our first bar? How does this differ to this bar here? So the question and the answer.

It's only the very first two notes of our answer that are different to the rest, aren't they? These are quavers whereas this one is a crotchet.

So when we're playing this, it's actually quite easy to follow the same rhythm, knowing that actually you only have to change the beginning of your answer for the rhythm.

So does this piece mainly step or does it mainly leap? Well, it's not necessarily in step, but it's very, very close.

It doesn't leap all over the keyboard.

They're quite close notes.

You don't have to move your hand position very much.

So we've got some steps here.

There's a couple of leaps.

But it moves mainly very closely in pitch.

What do you notice about the pitches of phrase one and phrase two? Well, bar one is slightly different to the bar one of our answer.

So our question and our answer, they're different.

But our second bar is exactly the same and our third bar starts off exactly the same, and then we end on our dominant or our tonic note.

So again, it's good to note that there's some similarities there for when you begin to play this, as well.

Here is the finger position for "Swing Low" using the F major pentatonic.

This time, whilst I play, can you say the numbers as I play? So for example, ♪ Three one, three one, one one two ♪ ♪ One one one one ♪ And so on.

Here we go.

Three, four.

Well done if you managed to keep up with that.

This time what I'd like you to do is to tap out that finger position on your laps.

So the ones in blue, dark blue are your right hand, and the ones in pink are your left hand.

You can say it, as well, if you like.

And to help you, I'm going to put my keyboard in the top right-hand corner so you can see my hand play this on the keyboard.

Three, four.

Well done if you managed to keep up with that.

Notice how my fourth finger this time has to stretch to that C and my fifth finger has to sit on that top D there for our beginning of our answer phrase.

Let's just do that one more time.

Here we go.

Watch my finger position.

Three, four, Again, well done if you managed to tap that out on your laps and if you managed to say the fingers whilst I was playing.

Really well done.

So this sheet is also available as a download if you want to print it off, and then you can practise with the finger numbers and the finger positioning whilst you play on your keyboard or your app.

For your next pause task, I'd like you to take 10 minutes to practise "Swing Low" on the keyboard or your app.

If you find this easy, can you add an accompaniment? So for example, you could add a drone or an ostinato or triads in your left hand, or you could always get somebody at home to sing along as you play, too.

Pause the video to complete your task and then resume when you're finished.

Now that you've learned how to play "Swing Low," you're now going to compose a countermelody to "Swing Low." To begin composing a countermelody, we must use the same pitches as our main melody line.

So we're going to stick with the pitches of the F major pentatonic.

So, so far we've been playing our melody line for "Swing Low" up here.

But because I want to be able to hear my melody line, I'm going to play my countermelody at a lower pitch, so on the left-hand side of the keyboard.

So you're going to see me switch my webcam around now so that you can see the left-hand side of the keyboard, and I'm going to pre-record my main melody onto my keyboard so I can focus on composing my countermelody alongside it.

Okay, so my webcam is now on my left-hand side of the keyboard.

So it's now in my bass notes And I've prerecorded my melody line of "Swing Low" into my keyboard.

So you can see my hands are not playing this.

It's pre-recorded.

And personally, I think that when you're composing a countermelody, if you can hear that melody separately and you can focus on the composing part of it and not having to play both at the same time, I think that is the easiest way to do it.

So if you can record it maybe on your phone or an app or on your keyboard, then I would suggest doing that, or get another person in your household to maybe play it along with you, or you could play it to my video that I played when I played it earlier and you can play along to that.

I think that would be the easiest way to start composing your countermelody.

So again, we're still going to use our notes of the F major pentatonic.

And I want my countermelody to have the same number of bars and time signature as my original melody.

So can we remember how many that was and what my time signature was? That's right, it was 4/4, and there was four beats, four bars for each my question and my answer melodies.

So I'm going to do the same kind of thing and see if it'll fit with my version of "Swing Low." I'm going to stick around my dominant and my tonic pitches, because I think that they are the ones that are the main pitches in the F major pentatonic scale, and therefore they're probably going to be the ones that are going to fit the best as a countermelody.

Now, composing is trial and error, so don't be afraid to try a few things out.

You might not get what you want the first time, and that's absolutely fine.

Creating melodies is also personal choice, and it's your taste and what you want to get out of this, as well.

So you have to trust your ears to see what you think suits alongside the main melody.

My suggestions are if you're struggling, only use a few notes and keep the rhythm really simple.

So just crotchet rhythms. So let's see if we can try that, and we'll just do a very simple one to begin with.

Actually, let me just take my left hand out for this one and I'm just going to see if I can compose just using my right hand only, okay? So really focus this time on my tonic note.

Let's have a go and see what I come up with.

Okay, so you can see there I really focused on my F, my A, and my C, because they make up an F triad.

And that fits quite nicely with this.

So that was a really simple one.

What about if I start to put in my left hand? Can I use my dominant note here, as well? Let's have a go.

Did you notice how that time I actually mimicked some of the original tune? And that's fine, too.

You can steal rhythms. You can steal pitches out of the original, as well, and see if you can go alongside them that way.

Have a listen to this example.

What do you notice about my melody versus the main melody? Did you notice that time that whenever the main melody went down.

I actually went up.

At the same time.

Have another listen.

I'll see if I can replicate that or something similar and show you that when the main melody's going down, so descending, I'm ascending with mine.

Here we go.

Ascending.

And I did the same down here, actually.

So you can play around and see what you think fits best.

Let's have one more go and see what I come up with.

So at the moment I'm improvising and I'm playing around with lots of ideas and I'm stealing some of the ideas there in that main melody, too.

One more go.

That one sounded quite nice.

I quite like that.

I'm happy with that one, as well.

So there's a few things that you can do to compose a countermelody.

Stick on the same pictures as the original melody.

So in this case, it's the F major pentatonic.

Try and focus on using your tonic and your dominant notes, because those are the ones that are the main ones within your main melody, as well.

Also try and maybe focus on just doing many steps.

Keep the rhythm quite simple, because we don't want to overpower our main melody.

And also remember that you can steal ideas from that main melody.

You can steal rhythms. You can steal pitches.

And I sometimes like to do the opposite.

So when the melody line is descending, I'll ascend, and when the melody line is ascending, I will descend.

And that gives it quite a nice kind of complex variety within your countermelody.

So what do you think you can do when you're composing your countermelody, and which ideas will you steal? Remember, it's not going to happen the first time that you do it, or if it does, you're very, very lucky.

I would also try and pre-record before you start so that you can just focus on that countermelody.

And if you really want to challenge yourself, you can play your main melody in your right hand, on the top half of the keyboard, so in the treble.

Whilst you try and play your countermelody down underneath, so.

And so on.

Okay? So have a go at playing around with lots of ideas in your next pause task.

For your next pause task.

I'd like you to take 15 minutes to see if you can compose your own countermelody.

If it's helps, you can pre-record "Swing Low" and play along to it, or play along to my version earlier on in the video.

And you can work out your countermelody alongside the pre-recording.

You can always download the resource, as well, and write your pitches on there, too.

As an extension task, can you compose for a different instrument? And if you have other household members available, could they sing or play the main melody and you perform your accompaniment? Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you're finished.

I hope today has given you some really good ideas of how you can support your main melody lines by composing a countermelody.

So on the green screen at the beginning of the lesson, there was question, and it said, how can you compose a continuity? So on your piece of paper, I would like you to take a couple of minutes and write down a couple of tips for how you can compose a countermelody.

Pause the video to complete your task and then resume once it's finished.

What did you write down? So here are a few steps that we discussed earlier on in the lesson.

So you can compose a countermelody by making sure that you're using the same key that your original melody is in, use lots of repetition, and use your tonic and dominant notes because they are the main notes in the key that you're working in.

Also, maybe move in step with just a few leaps, and that will really help to solidify your countermelodies and make sure that they don't overtake your main melody.

So again, I hope this has given you lots of ideas for composition when you get back into school or if you want to compose at home.

And one final thing for me today is just to say please don't forget to complete the end of lesson quiz to show how much you have learned today.

And if you would love to share your beautiful countermelodies and share your work with Oak National, I would love to see it and I'm sure some other people would, too.

So if you would like to, please ask your parent or your carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and hashtag LearnwithOak.

That's all from me today.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Go and have a little rest, and I'll see you soon.

Goodbye for now.