Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mr. Pate.

I am very much looking forward to making some great music with you in today's lesson.

This unit is called "Compose and Create: composing a minor melody on a stave." And this lesson is called "Reading the five note minor pentachord scale." By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to read and notate the ascending and descending minor pentachord on a simplified stave.

Here are some of the keywords that we'll be using in today's lesson.

We'll be using the words stave, and the stave are the lines on which musical notes can be placed.

We'll be using the phrase minor pentachord, and this describes the first five notes of the minor scale.

These are la, ti, do, re, and mi.

We'll be using the word rhythm, which is one of our elements of music.

Rhythm is the pattern of sounds and silences that we play and sing.

Finally, we're going to be improvising today.

And the word improvisation means creative, in-the-moment musical composition.

Before we start our music lesson though, it's important to warm up.

We are going to do some exercises to get our voices, bodies, and brains engaged and ready to make music.

When we do this, it can help us with our posture standing correctly and at ease when singing.

It can help us with our breathing.

And it can warm and stretch our vocal cords, ready to protect our voices from injury.

Join in with these warmups.

Let's warm up our bodies.

We're gonna start with shrug, shrug, shrug and shimmy, shimmy, shimmy.

Ready.

Here we go.

Shrug, shrug, shrug and shimmy, shimmy, shimmy.

And again, shrug, shrug, shrug and shimmy, shimmy, shimmy.

Shrug, shrug, shrug and shimmy, shimmy.

One more time.

Shrug, shrug, shrug and shimmy, shimmy, shimmy.

Great.

Well done.

Now let's, with our shoulders, try and do a nice little working, rolling them forwards like this.

There we go.

Rolling those shoulders forwards.

Lovely.

Very good.

And then back the other way.

There we go.

Lovely.

Excellent.

Now with your head, we're gonna go round in a circle like this, just a gentle circle.

Round and round, and round.

There we go.

And then back the other way.

Good stuff.

Great.

Give everything a bit of a shake.

(Mr. Pate blows raspberry) Shake it out, shake it out.

Lovely.

And then finally, let's have a big cartoony yawn.

(Mr. Pate yawns) Here we go.

Ready? (Mr. Pate yawns) Let's start by warming up our face.

We're gonna start by imagining we're chewing a big, tasty toffee.

So in goes the toffee, and then we're gonna chew it, really exaggerated big chews, and it's delicious.

We're gonna go, mm.

Here we go.

Mm.

Good.

Really feel that jaw working.

Mm.

Lovely.

Now I want you to imagine you've just seen something amazing and you're gonna go, "Wow," with a big wide open mouth.

So ready.

Here we go.

Wow.

And again, it's really amazing.

Here we go.

Wow.

Now we're gonna do some breathing exercises.

First, let's practice breathing in really deeply.

And when you breathe in deeply, I want your shoulders to stay where they are, but it wants to feel like your tummy is inflating.

So shoulders stay level, tummy inflating.

Ready? Nice deep breath.

And (inhales deeply) and then breathing out (exhales deeply).

Lovely.

And again.

And in (inhales deeply) and out (exhales deeply).

Lovely.

Now this time when we breathe out, we're gonna try saying the letters S (hissing), F (hissing), and then we're gonna blow like we're blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.

So we're gonna go (hissing).

(Mr. Pate blowing) Ready? Here we go.

So breathing in (inhales deeply) and (hissing).

(Mr. Pate blowing) Lovely.

And again.

And breathing in (inhales deeply) and (hissing).

(Mr. Pate blowing) Now let's try a tongue twister.

We're gonna say nice and slowly.

She threw three free throws.

Try it with me.

She threw three free throws.

And again.

She threw three free throws.

And one more time.

She threw three free throws.

These next songs and games will help us warm up even more, getting our voices and bodies ready for making music.

Join in with the song "Wayfaring Stranger." (mellow guitar music) ♪ I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger ♪ ♪ I'm traveling through this world below ♪ ♪ There is no sickness, toil, or danger ♪ ♪ In that bright world to which I go ♪ (mellow guitar music) ♪ I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger ♪ ♪ I'm traveling through this world below ♪ ♪ There is no sickness, toil, or danger ♪ ♪ In that bright world to which I go ♪ (mellow guitar music) <v ->Now join in with the warmup,</v> I'm stretching very tall.

♪ Ready, steady, off we go ♪ ♪ I'm stretching very tall ♪ ♪ And now I'm very small ♪ ♪ Now tall, now small ♪ ♪ Now I'm a tiny ball ♪ <v ->Finally, join in with the warmup, Captain Jack.

</v> This is a call and response warmup.

So when I say.

♪ Hey yo, Captain Jack ♪ You'll repeat after me.

Let's get a bit of a march going.

(upbeat music) Get ready.

Here we go.

Ready and here we go.

♪ Hey yo, Captain Jack ♪ ♪ Take me down that railroad track ♪ ♪ Got my boots, got my hat ♪ ♪ I'm gonna be in a marching band ♪ Great.

Let's do it again.

♪ Hey yo, Captain Jack ♪ ♪ Take me down that railroad track ♪ ♪ Got my boots, got my hat ♪ ♪ I'm gonna be in a matching band ♪ Well done.

And again.

♪ Hey yo, Captain Jack ♪ ♪ Take me down that railroad track ♪ ♪ Got my boots, got my hat ♪ ♪ I'm gonna be in a marching band ♪ One more time.

♪ Hey yo, Captain Jack ♪ ♪ Take me down that railroad track ♪ ♪ Got my boots, got my hat ♪ ♪ I'm gonna be in a marching band ♪ Well done.

Hopefully, you are feeling really warmed up and ready after all those songs.

Are your muscles feeling relaxed? Does your throat feel warm? And are you concentrating, ready to learn? Well, let's begin.

The learning cycles for today's lesson.

We are going to do are, firstly, reading and notating the minor pentachord, and then reading and composing rhythms. Listen to the song, "Ah, Poor Bird." It's a song with a minor tonality.

(mellow piano music) ♪ Ah poor bird ♪ ♪ Take your flight ♪ ♪ Up above the sorrow ♪ ♪ Of this dark night ♪ ♪ Ah poor bird ♪ ♪ Take your flight ♪ ♪ Up above the sorrow ♪ ♪ Of this dark night ♪ Now we've had a listen.

Let's sing the song together.

And when we do, have a think about this, does the melody of the first two lines ascend, go up, or descend, go down? Let's sing the song together.

(mellow piano music) ♪ Ah poor bird ♪ ♪ Take your flight ♪ ♪ Up above the sorrow ♪ ♪ Of this dark night ♪ ♪ Ah poor bird ♪ ♪ Take your flight ♪ ♪ Up above the sorrow ♪ ♪ Of this dark night ♪ So now you've sung the song.

What did you think about that question? Does the melody of the first two lines ascend, go up, or descend, come down? As Alex points out, the melody ascends.

♪ Ah poor bird ♪ ♪ Take your flight ♪ The melody goes up or ascends.

The melody follows the minor pentachord, which is the first five notes of the minor scale.

You can see the minor pentachord written out here with the note names and Solfege hand symbols.

Try singing the minor pentachord up and down using the Solfege hand symbols.

♪ La, ti, do ♪ ♪ Re, mi ♪ ♪ Re, do, ti, la ♪ And again.

♪ La, ti, do ♪ ♪ Re, mi, re ♪ ♪ Do, ti, la ♪ Now musical notes can be written out on horizontal lines called a stave, and this lets us easily see which notes are higher or lower, and it lets us work out which pitch to sing or play.

In the diagram below, you can see the stave, the three lines written across, and you can see a symbol on the left-hand side that shows us where do is.

In this case, it's in the first space.

Working around that, we can work out where the other notes sit.

The note, la, which is the start of the minor pentachord, sits just below that bottom line.

Ti on the bottom line, do in the first space, re on the middle line, and then mi in the top space.

Let's see if you can work it out for yourself.

Here's a melody, and the first few notes have been written out for you.

La, ti, do.

Using the minor pentachord, la, ti, do, re, mi, can you work out what the last four notes of this melody would be? The answers are, ti, mi, re, and la.

How did you do? Now let's try singing these notes.

Try singing the notes you can see written down.

You'll hear the first three.

What would the next four sound like? (mellow piano music) ♪ La, ti, do ♪ Let's try that one more time.

(mellow piano music) ♪ La, ti, do ♪ Now let's hear the answers.

(mellow piano music) ♪ La, ti, do, ti, mi, re, la ♪ Let's draw our own stave.

Start by drawing three straight horizontal lines like this.

This symbol shows us where the note do is.

Draw it, showing that the note do is between the bottom two lines, like this.

If you need to pause the video here to do that, please do.

Now let's draw a note onto our stave.

Draw a one-beat note on the pitch la on the stave, like the example below.

Pause the video to draw your note.

Now let's continue.

Let's add ti on the line just above.

Now continue by adding the notes do, re, and mi.

Can you work out where they go? Pause the video to finish your ascending minor pentachord.

So how did you do? You've now drawn the ascending minor pentachord on a stave, and it should look a little bit like this.

Now try drawing the descending minor pentachord right next to it.

This will be the same notes, but coming down the scale, starting with mi and ending on la.

Pause the video and draw the descending minor pentachord.

So your final ascending and then descending minor pentachord should look like this.

How did you do? Now let's try writing out the melody for the first line of the song we sung earlier, "Ah, Poor Bird." Let's just sing that song again so we remember how it goes.

(mellow piano music) ♪ Ah poor bird ♪ ♪ Take your flight ♪ ♪ Up above the sorrow ♪ ♪ Of this dark night ♪ ♪ Ah poor bird ♪ ♪ Take your flight ♪ ♪ Up above the sorrow ♪ ♪ Of this dark night ♪ Now we've remembered how the song goes, we're gonna try and write out those notes on a musical stave.

The first three notes.

♪ Ah poor bird ♪ Uses the notes.

♪ La, ti, do ♪ Let's draw a stave.

Firstly, draw your three horizontal lines and the symbol to show that do is in the first space.

Pause the video here if you need to, to draw your stave.

Now let's add the first note, which is la.

Can you add the next note? Ti.

The note for ti goes here on the line just above la.

The next note for the word bird in the melody is longer.

It's on the note do, but to show that it's a longer note or a two-beat note, leave a space in the middle of your notehead.

Look at the example you can see on the screen and copy that out into the space for do.

You've now written in the first three notes for "Ah, Poor Bird." Now let's add on the next three notes in the melody.

Those notes would be for the words.

♪ Take your flight ♪ The note durations would be the same as the first three, but which pitches would they be on? Listen to and sing the song again as much as you need to, to try and work out what those next notes would be.

Remember, here's the first three.

♪ Ah poor bird ♪ And your drawing on the next three.

♪ Take your flight ♪ Think about how they might relate to the first three.

I'll sing it one more time.

♪ Ah poor bird ♪ ♪ Take your flight ♪ Here's some hints to help you out.

Think about whether the melody is ascending, going up, or descending, going down.

Here's an extra little hint.

The next note is actually the same as the one that you've just sung.

The next note is do.

Right.

Pause the video now and finish your answers, then come back and we'll see how you did.

Here are the answers to that task.

We wrote out the melody for "Ah, Poor Bird," and the notes went.

♪ La, ti, do ♪ The next three that you were drawing on were.

♪ Do, re, mi ♪ So the note do was repeated, and then the melody was ascending.

It went up to land on the top note of the minor pentachord mi.

How did you do? Now let's have a look at reading and composing rhythms. Rhythm is the pattern of sounds and silences that we play and sing.

And we can use takadimi to help us read and write rhythms. Using different parts of the word takadimi, we can use them to represent different rhythmic patterns.

Here are some of the rhythms that fit into one beat that we've learned so far.

Let's try clapping and chanting each rhythm four times in a row.

Here's an example.

The first rhythm is ta, and it would sound like this.

Ta, ta, ta, ta (clapping).

Try doing that with me.

Ready? And here we go.

Ta, ta, ta, ta (clapping).

Great.

Let's try the next one.

Ta-di, ta-di (clapping).

Try it with me.

Ready.

And here we go.

Ta-di, ta-di, ta-di, ta-di (clapping).

The next one, we have to fit four within the space of one beat, and it sounds like, ta-ka-di-mi, ta-ka-di-mi (clapping).

Try that with me four times in a row.

Ready.

And here we go.

Ta-ka-di-mi, ta-ka-di-mi, ta-ka-di-mi, ta-ka-di-mi (clapping).

The next one is ta-ka-di.

So it's got two quick notes and then a longer one, like this.

Ta-ka-di, ta-ka-di, ta-ka-di, ta-ka-di (clapping).

Try that with me.

Ready? And off we go.

Ta-ka-di, ta-ka-di, ta-ka-di, ta-ka-di (clapping).

The next one is what's called a dotted rhythm.

Ta-mi.

The ta is long and the mi is short, and it sounds like this.

Ta, mi-ta, mi-ta, mi-ta (clapping).

So the mi is very short right at the end.

Try that four times with me.

Ready? And here we go.

Ta, mi-ta, mi-ta, mi-ta, mi(clapping).

Great.

And finally, the last rhythm is ta-di-mi.

So again, it's got that long ta at the start, and then a quick di-mi.

It'll sound like this.

Ta-di-mi, ta-di-mi, ta-di-mi, ta-di-mi (clapping).

Try it with me.

Ready.

And off we go.

Ta-di-mi, ta-di-mi, ta-di-mi, ta-di-mi (clapping).

Well done.

There's a little reminder of the rhythms that we know so far.

Now here is a rhythm that has been composed or made up using different versions of the takadimi rhythm.

Have a look at the notation.

What would that sound like if you clapped and chanted it? Pause the video now and try clapping, and chanting this rhythm.

When you've had a few gos, play the video again and you'll hear what it should sound like.

Right, hopefully, you've had a bit of a go of clapping it yourself.

Here's what that rhythm should sound like.

Ready? And off we go.

Ta, ta (clapping), ta-ka-di, ta (clapping), ta-ka-di, ta-di, ta-ka-di-mi, ta (clapping).

How did you do? Did yours sound similar? Now try this one.

Again, have a look really carefully at the rhythms, and then pause the video.

Try clapping and chanting it to see what it would sound like, then press play and I'll give you the answer.

Hopefully, you've spent a bit of time there clapping and chanting that rhythm.

Here's what it should have sounded like.

Ready? And off we go.

Ta-di-mi, ta (clapping), ta-di, ta-ka-di-mi, ta (clapping), mi-ta, ta-di-mi, ta (clapping).

How did you do? Did yours sound similar? Now we've had a bit of a reminder of how to read and chant, and clap rhythms. We're gonna compose our own rhythm.

Composing means creating a new piece of music over time.

We will compose a four-beat rhythm.

This means we're gonna choose four patterns to use.

Here's an example of a rhythm that we've composed earlier.

Try clapping and chanting it.

It sounds like this.

Ready? And off we go.

Ta-ka-di-mi, ta, ta-di, ta-di (clapping).

Try that again with me.

Here we go.

Ready? And off we go.

Ta-ka-di-mi, ta, ta-di, ta-di (clapping).

There we go.

An original rhythm.

Now compose your own.

On the screen, you can see a rhythm bank with all the different rhythms that we've been clapping today.

You can choose which ones you want to use in your composed rhythm.

You can put them in any order and you can use them more than once.

Try our few things.

Try clapping and chanting a few ideas.

Then when you think you've got one that you like the sound of, we're gonna write it down.

Write down your four rhythms using stick notation, and then try playing it out loud a few times in a row.

Pause the video here to compose and write down your rhythm.

Now you've finished your rhythmic composition.

We are going to improvise a melody to go with it.

What is improvising? Well, improvising just means making up a melody on the spot.

For this, you are going to use a pitched percussion instrument.

And you can use any of these instruments, maybe a xylophone, a glockenspiel, or chime bars.

When you've got your instrument, try and find the notes of the minor pentachord.

This time we'll be using the notes D to A, that's D, E, F, G, and A.

Find those notes on your instrument and try playing them up and down, ascending and descending.

When you've done that and are really familiar where those notes are on your instrument, we're gonna try playing our rhythm on the note, la.

So get that rhythm that you wrote down earlier and try, instead of clapping it, playing it on the note, la, on your pitched percussion instrument.

When you've played it on the note, la.

Next, try playing it on the note, ti.

When you've done that, move up the minor pentachord until you've played the rhythm on every note.

(xylophone chiming) We can experiment with different notes of the minor pentachord to create a simple melody.

Try doing that rhythm again.

But this time, instead of using just one note, try using two different notes.

Watch this example.

(xylophone chiming) Now pause the video and try playing your own rhythm across two different notes.

You can change note whenever you want.

When you've done that, try it on three notes.

What you were just doing was improvising.

Now have a look at this statement.

When you improvise in music, you make up the music as you play and sing it.

Do you think that's true or false? The answer is true.

Improvising means you make it up on the spot as you are playing it.

And when you were switching between two or three different notes on your pitched percussion instruments, you were doing it in the moment.

Not in a way that you'd planned before, you were just doing it whenever felt right, and that's what improvising is.

What's great about improvising is you can be as creative as you like and make up completely new melodies each time you play.

Now let's try improvising a full melody.

You can start on any note in the minor pentachord.

And for this task, you can use la, ti, do, re, and mi.

To make your melody a bit longer, let's play the rhythm four times.

Have a look at this example first.

(xylophone chiming) Now you've seen the example, it's your turn.

As you are improvising, you can change notes at any time.

There are no wrong answers when you are improvising.

Pause the video and spend some time improvising using your rhythm.

Now you've spent some time improvising.

How did it go? How did you find improvising? Andeep says, "My melodies worked well when I stuck to just the notes of the minor pentachord." That's a really good idea.

Sticking to just one group of notes can really help your melodies sound better.

Sofia says, "It was hard to come up with a melody that didn't sound random." Of course, when you are improvising and making things up on the spot, it can be hard to give your melody structure.

Finally, Sam said, "My melodies sounded the best when I used more steps than leaps." And that's true.

Using more steps or notes right next to each other, rather than big jumps, can often make your melodies sound more melodic and more pleasing to the ear.

So that's a good thing to do when you are improvising.

So during today's lesson, we've learned that stave notation can tell us the rhythm and pitch of a melody, which we can use to help us perform it accurately.

The rhythm of the notes is the pattern of long and short sounds, and they can be represented using takadimi.

Finally, we learned that we can add pitches to a rhythmic composition using improvisation.

Well done for your very creative improvisation in this lesson, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.