Lesson video

Hi there, everyone.

Welcome to today's lesson on Composing Together using do, mi, and so!

This is from our Singing Together Unit: How Songs Unite Us.

My name's Mr. Croughan.

And together, we're gonna spend this lesson composing our own piece of music using do, mi, and so and notating it down so that we can use it again.

Are we ready to get started?

Let's go!

At the end of this lesson, you'll be able to say that you've contributed to the composition of a three note song using do, mi, and so.

And so let's begin then as we always do by looking at today's keywords.

The first one is melody.

And melody is a combination of notes to make a memorable tune.

A chant, speaking in time to a pulse.

4-time, this is the organization and the feel of beats as: ♪ Strong-weak-medium-weak, strong-weak-medium-weak ♪ ♪ That 1-2-3-4, 1 ♪ <v ->And we will explore that in more detail in a bit.

</v> Rhythm, the patterns of sounds and silences that we can play and sing.

And then pitch, how high or how low a note is.

We know how important it is to warm up.

We are gonna be warming up our bodies, our minds, our voices, so that we are gonna be singing safely, we're gonna be focused, we're gonna be able to play as an ensemble and for it to sound great.

So please follow along with these warmups.

<v ->Before we sing, we are going to warm up our whole body.

</v> Particularly our neck and our shoulders.

First of all, we're going to move our neck gently, round and round like a figure of eight on its side.

Imagine you have got a pencil on the end of your nose and you're trying to draw a figure of eight on its side.

Now, gently bend your neck to one side.

Maybe feel the stretch along here.

And gently bend it the other way.

Now, we're gonna do some shoulder rolls.

Roll your shoulders forward and up and back and round.

Let's do that a couple of times.

Can you do it the other way?

Go up and forward and down and back.

Let's do that a couple of times.

Now, let's take one arm over our head to the side aside and stretch.

And let's do it the other way.

Finally, let's scrunch our shoulders up to our ears.

And let go.

And scrunch!

And let go.

And scrunch!

And let go.

Last time.

Scrunch and let go.

Now, let's warm up our face.

Imagine you are chewing some bubble gum.

What flavor is your bubble gum?

Mine is cherry.

I am going to unwrap my bubble gum, pop it in my mouth, and have a good chew.

Why don't you join in?

Let's do some big chews.

And some little chews.

Oh!

My bubble gums got stuck behind my teeth.

I need to use my tongue to get it out.

That's enough chewing now.

I'm going to take it out and put it behind my ear for another day.

Join in with this breathing warmup.

We're going to draw a square in the air with our finger as we do it.

First we're going to breathe in for four beats, hold our breath for four beats, breathe out for four beats, and hold our breath for four beats.

Are you ready?

Well done!

Listen to this tongue twister: If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?

Now you join in.

If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?

<v ->Great job, people.

</v> Now, there are three more warmups that are available to you on your screen.

There is elevator.

You can use the backing track, you can remind yourself with the video if you would like to and play along.

Then there's Oliver Cromwell.

Again, a backing track and a video if you would like to.

And thirdly, singing letters.

Sing together as a two-part round with a backing track there to support you.

Best of luck.

See you when you're done!

Well done, everyone.

Thanks for that.

So if your mind is alert, you're feeling focused and ready, your voice is warmed up, then we are ready to move on!

There are two learning cycles in today's lesson.

The first one, many voices: the beaten rhythm.

Second cycle, many voices: composing a melody.

Let's begin with the beat and rhythm.

You're gonna start by singing "As I was Walking by the Lake.

" And this song uses the three notes of so, mi, and do which is what we'll use throughout today's lesson.

And as you sing, I'd like you to notice when the melody moves up in pitch or down.

Okay, the song starts on a mi.

So you could always have that hand signal ready, that sign.

Okay, pause here.

Use the track to help you.

Sing through "As I was Walking by the Lake" Brill, good stuff.

"As I was Walking by the Lake" was originally a chant without a tune.

And it's been given a melody.

And the melody just uses those three notes do, mi, and so.

Today, your job's going to be to set the chant, "Many voices, all aligned" that we've done in our warmups to a melody.

And you're just gonna use those same three notes.

Do, mi, and so.

This is how we're going to break it down.

The chant "Many Voices" is in what we call 4-time.

And 4-time means there's four beats in the bar and it has a feel that goes ♪ Strong-weak-medium-weak ♪ ♪ Strong-weak-medium-weak ♪ <v ->The first note is our strongest.

</v> And the third one has a bit of emphasis too.

So we can show that by tapping the beat on four fingers as we chant like this.

♪ Strong-weak-medium-weak ♪ ♪ Strong-weak-medium-weak ♪ ♪ Can you see that I'm keeping the four beats in the bar ♪ ♪ With strong-weak-medium-weak ♪ <v ->Why don't you try that along with me?

</v> Ready?

Hands ready?

Ready, steady.

Off we go.

♪ Strong-weak-medium-weak ♪ ♪ Strong-weak-medium-weak ♪ ♪ Strong-weak-Medium ♪ <v ->Last time.

</v> 1, 2, 3, 4.

Well done.

In your groups now, you are going to develop that one step further and you are gonna practice a 4-time pattern.

And we're gonna do it in a slightly fun way because you can be in groups of whatever size.

Four's good, five, six, whatever.

Table groups.

Don't move yet, but you are going to get a pencil in each hand.

So in your left hand, your pencil stays still in front of you as you can see in the picture.

And your right hand, this is the one that moves.

So beat one, tap the shoulder.

So you've still your pencil there.

Tap the shoulder.

Beat two, you tap your two pencils together.

Beat three, you tap your pencil on your neighbor's pencil.

That's why we're holding that one in front of us.

It never moves.

Tap it there.

And then back to our own.

Here is a video to demonstrate how that looks.

Here it comes.

<v Kid>Ready, steady.

Off we go.

</v> ♪ [All] 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ <v ->Now, if you watch that and you need to practice again,</v> practice before you do anything else.

Once you are confident in your groups that you can keep that, we are going to do this bit.

So pause if you need to.

Otherwise, we are gonna chant and follow the 4-time with our pencil pattern.

So ma-ny voi-ces, all a-ligned, keeps that strong-weak-medium-weak.

That 1, 2, 3, 4.

Top tip, let's not go too quickly.

Let's have our pencils ready and we'll set it at a tempo around ma-ny voi-ces, all a-ligned.

Feel the rhy-thm, keep in time.

That's a good steady tempo.

So we can get our pencils in the right places.

Pause here.

Make sure you're set up in your pencil tapping formations and chant that as you go.

See how well you do.

See you in a mo.

Very good!

Not necessarily easy when you're remembering the words, singing in tune, tapping your pencils at the right time.

Lots to get right.

Very well done.

If we think about the rhythm of the chant, it only uses Ta and Ta-di.

Those rhythms are the only ones that appear in this chant.

We can work this out using our beat fingers.

If I chant- Watch this, I'm gonna keep my ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ <v ->Like before.

</v> ♪ Many voices all aligned ♪ ♪ Many voices all aligned ♪ <v ->Which beat finger has one sound?

</v> ♪ Many voices all aligned.

♪ <v ->There we go.

</v> That one does.

Beat 4.

So beat 4, we can use a ta.

It has one sound, ta.

Then what do we notice about beats 1, 2, and 3?

♪ Many voices all a- ♪ <v ->They've all got two sounds for each beat.

</v> So we can use a ♪ Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di ♪ <v ->And finish on ta.

</v> That's how the rhythm will look when we write it down.

Guess what?

The rhythm's the same for the second bar!

♪ Feel the rhythm, keep the time ♪ <v ->Again.

</v> ♪ Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di, ta ♪ <v ->Great.

</v> Got lots of the song written down already!

I would like you to pause here and work out the rhythm for the next phrase, which is ♪ High or low, soft or strong ♪ ♪ Singing helps us all belong ♪ <v ->All right, you can use your beat fingers to help you.

</v> And I would like you to decide along there you're gonna fill in which ones are ta-dis and which ones are tas.

Off you go!

Right then team, well done.

Let's see how well we did.

If yours look like this, you are clearly marvelous.

So we have ♪ Ta-di, ta, ta-di, ta.

♪ ♪ That's high or low, soft or strong ♪ ♪ Singing helps us all belong ♪ ♪ Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di, ta ♪ <v ->If you've got that right, to yourself a pat on the back.

</v> Here is the rhythm of the whole chant.

It looks a bit overwhelming, but it's absolutely fine.

It's absolutely straightforward and based on everything we've done so far.

You can follow that notation.

We can see ♪ Ma-ny voi-ces, all a-ligned ♪ <v ->You can see</v> ♪ Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di, ta ♪ Most if I'm honest, bars follow that.

In fact, yes, there is only one bar that has a slightly different rhythm in it.

Can you spot it?

Yes, it is the high or low, soft or strong.

Otherwise, we're following ♪ Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di, ta.

♪ We can pattern sniff and find out, "Ah yes, I recognize those rhythms are the same.

" This is really helpful when we're reading music.

So here's your task.

You're going to work with a partner.

You are going to select three types of body percussion.

We want a strong sound.

A stomp or a clap or a whatever.

A medium sound or shoulder or something that's medium.

And then a weak sound, like a click or a little tap, something like that.

So we want- Beat 1 has its strong sound.

Boom!

Strong.

Beat 2 is a weak sound.

Beat 3, medium.

And beat 4, weak.

So if I, they're just ones that came to mind.

So I could go ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4 ♪ <v ->And so on.

</v> That's gonna help me identify 1 is strong, 2 is weak, 3 is medium, 4 is weak.

Okay?

Don't copy mine.

Create your own.

Just make sure that it goes strong-weak-medium-weak.

Do that now and then we'll put it into action.

Off you go.

Great.

So now that you've rehearsed your body percussion, you know your strong-weak-medium-weak and you can play that on repeat with your partner.

You're ready now to use it as we chant the rhythm names.

So on the screen is our ♪ Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di, ta ♪ <v ->If I just did the first bar</v> for you with my body percussion, it'll be something like ♪ Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di, ta ♪ <v ->All right?

</v> You are going to work through all of that, keeping your body percussion steady with your partner.

Are you ready?

Off you go.

See you when you're done.

Great stuff, everyone.

This is really good 'cause we're keeping in time and we're understanding that strong-weak-medium-weak.

An idea on the page.

I wonder if anyone did the same one as this, which is ♪ A clap, tap ♪ ♪ Clap, tap ♪ <v ->That's quite a nice one too.

</v> I hope whichever one you chose, you were able to identify those strong-weak-medium-weak beats whilst keeping the ta-di, ta rhythm ace.

Time to move on.

It is now the second learning cycle, which is many voices: composing a melody.

To begin, you are going to sing "As I was Walking by the Lake" again.

Now remember, this song only uses do, mi, and so.

So what I'd like you to do is show that with your pitch actions as you sing.

Okay?

So pause here.

Make sure you've got your hands ready to do this pitch actions so you can know which is the high pitch, the medium pitch, and the low pitch.

And come back to me so we can move on when you're done.

Good job, people.

Now, you can see this on the screen is stave notation.

And I'd like you to follow along as you sing and sign.

The helpful thing is you can see the pitch rising and falling in the spaces in the stave notation.

So pause here, use the track to help you if you'd like to, and make sure you're showing your signing as you're singing.

Off you go.

Great stuff.

Good.

Now, I'd like you to have a careful look at this stave notation.

You're gonna press pause and just have a careful look and tell each other, share what you notice.

There's definitely more than one answer here.

It's probably not a real wrong answer, it's just what do you notice about that stave notation.

Come back with some ideas.

Okay, good.

Good conversation.

I wonder if any of these things are stuff that you picked up on.

So here's an idea.

Do, mi, and so are all in the spaces.

If you said that, good BDIs.

Well done.

And then secondly, and I didn't notice the first time and then I looked carefully.

The notes above the middle line have the stems pointing down.

So the note heads are still in the same place but the stems go down.

So if you notice those, well done.

If you notice other stuff too, well done.

This is careful looking at music.

It's gonna help us to read it later and play it and compose it!

I'd like you to look at what we call the melodic shape.

That's the kind of the phrasing.

So in each bar, you can separate the bar by seeing there's a line, there's a line.

So that's a bar.

And then each bar, I'd like you to carefully look at the shape of them, the higher and the lower pitch.

The kind of- If you were to take a pencil and draw a line joining up those dots, have a look at what's maybe similar, different, or the same.

Pause here and let me know.

Great.

I wonder if you spotted either of these ideas that bars 1 and 2 and 5 and 6, they are the same.

I'm looking at that bar there.

So-so, Mi-mi, so-so, mi-mi.

The same underneath, I've got the same pattern.

If you spotted they were the same, well done.

And then thinking about the others at bars 3 and 4, then underneath it bars 7 and 8, not the same, but they are similar.

If you check note for note, it's only the last.

We've got a ta-di on the top line but a ta on the do on the bar 8.

If you spotted those, absolutely super.

Well done!

Now, here is an example melody for "Many Voices" Our chant.

And it uses only do, mi, and so.

I'm gonna play it for you and I'd like you to follow along and see what you notice.

Here it comes.

♪ Many voices all aligned ♪ ♪ Feel the rhythm, keep the time ♪ ♪ High or low, soft or strong ♪ ♪ Singing helps us all belong ♪ ♪ Many voices sing one tune ♪ ♪ Feel the joy from me to you ♪ ♪ All together sing us one ♪ ♪ Unity in every song ♪ <v ->You may have said things like:</v> The same two notes are sung on a Ta-di.

So if we've got that Ta-di rhythm, that's the ♪ Many ♪ <v ->Rather than going</v> ♪ Many ♪ <v ->If it's a Ta-di rhythm,</v> ♪ It uses the same note ♪ <v ->That helps it to be simpler, easy to remember.

</v> Every phrase ends on a do, which is really useful, comes back to the do.

And if we looked at both lines at the top and the bottom, both lines have the same melody.

So it uses repetition.

Alex says, and these are top tips I would like you to take away for this last bit of the lesson when you're going to do your composition.

Songs are often more successful if their melodies are simple, memorable, and make effective use of repetition.

So with yours, they're gonna be simple.

That will help it be memorable and you'll make effective use of repetition.

As a class, then you're going to compose a do, mi, so melody for the chant "Many Voices" This is how you'll do it.

Explore different ideas for each phrase before you settle on the final melody.

You think ♪ Many voices all in ♪ ♪ Do I like it going the ♪ <v ->Decide before you write anything down.

</v> Nothing set in stone, just offer some ideas.

"Oh, I like your idea.

Let's keep that one.

Can you remember that one?

Let's add another one to it.

" Okay?

Keep things simple and memorable.

♪ One pitch per beat ♪ <v ->Rather than</v> ♪ One pitch per beat ♪ <v ->Which complicates things more than we need to.

</v> Music loves repetition, so choose what to repeat.

You can repeat that melodic shape of a phrase which you saw happen in the example.

And then when you're happy, you can notate your melody and you will pay careful attention to the following.

This will make you successful.

Those note heads, we want to keep them in the spaces don't we?

And so belong in the spaces.

There's a good one there with the tick.

And one that's got, oh, it's got too big.

We want to be able to read it.

So that's why they must stay in the spaces.

Otherwise, it could look like a different note.

Your notation of the rhythm, that's not gonna change.

It's only where in the state of the do, mi, and so goes.

So if you've got our ♪ Many voices all in time ♪ <v ->Then you've got</v> ♪ Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di, ta ♪ <v ->If you would like to go back to the previous slide,</v> you can look at those rhythms.

Otherwise, you might use your beat fingers or speaking it to understand which, whether using ta or ta-di.

Okay?

Space your notes out evenly.

So nice and spaced out evenly is the first example.

And then it's all a bit bunched up and then spread out.

It's harder to read so don't do that one.

Okay, I think you've got all of the tools you need.

Enjoy composing.

Remember we're not writing down straight away, we're trying those ideas out first.

Singing those phrases with different combinations of do, mi, so.

This is what being a composer is about!

Try the idea.

"Do I like it?

Do you all like it?

Should we have that one?

" Listen to each other's ideas and you will create a full piece before you know it.

Off you go.

Fantastic composing, everyone.

Really well done.

Now we'll know if we've been successful, because we can follow our notation to sing our new melody.

That's what you're going to do last of all.

And you'll check after you've sung it.

Is your melody simple?

Is it easy to sing?

Have you repeated some of those musical ideas and phrases?

Have you gone, "Yes, I like that.

"?

Let's use that same tune again there perhaps.

Is it memorable?

Does it have a pleasing melody that you like that feels balanced?

Sometimes, we might ♪ Like to finish on a do ♪ <v ->'Cause it sounds like a very definite ending.

</v> Maybe you did something like that, like a question and then an answer.

Entirely up to you.

And then check if you could read your notation easily.

So last pause.

Have your notation ready and give yourself a ready, steady, off you go.

And you can all sing together your same class composition.

Off you go.

And that really is all we have time for for today.

So just a recap on your learning.

Melodies don't need to be complicated.

They can use simple rhythms and just a few notes.

And effective song melodies will use repetition of ideas.

Do, mi, and so work really well together to create pleasing melodies.

And notation needs to be written carefully and spaced out in order for it to be read easily.

Really well done today.

Lots of hard work, and I will look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye for now.