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Lesson 2 of 4
  • Year 7

Creating a melodic ostinato

I can create a melodic ostinato using the Dm pentatonic scale and develop the texture of my composition.

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Lesson 2 of 4
New
New
  • Year 7

Creating a melodic ostinato

I can create a melodic ostinato using the Dm pentatonic scale and develop the texture of my composition.

Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and

Copyrights help

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. The texture can be developed by creating sections of thin (few layers) and thick (many layers) texture.
  2. A pentatonic scale uses five notes. The Dm pentatonic scale uses D, F, G, A and C.
  3. We can create a melodic ostinato by improvising using a scale like the pentatonic scale.

Keywords

  • Pentatonic scale - A pentatonic scale is a set of five notes.

  • Dm pentatonic scale - The Dm (D minor) pentatonic scale includes the notes D, F, G, A and C.

  • Texture - The texture of music is how many layers of sound are playing at the same time. We can describe it as thick (lots of layers) or thin (few layers).

Common misconception

The pentatonic scale is limited to one octave on the instrument.

The pentatonic scale is just the names of the notes that we can use. You can use them as high-pitched notes or low-pitched notes on your instrument. Experiment with playing the scale up high and down low.


To help you plan your year 7 music lesson on: Creating a melodic ostinato, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Creating some 'boundaries' can encourage creativity in improvisation. Challenge pupils to create an ostinato with just one or two notes from the scale, encouraging them to think about interesting rhythms as well as pitch patterns. Reinforce that keeping the pattern simple can make it more memorable.
Teacher tip

Equipment

A DAW or other suitable compositional tool or instrument

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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