- Year 10
- Edexcel
Making more of melodies
I can extend a melody to create a short section of a composition.
- Year 10
- Edexcel
Making more of melodies
I can extend a melody to create a short section of a composition.
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Lesson details
Key learning points
- Composers develop their musical ideas by exploring different ways of transforming the material.
- Sequence, retrograde and inversion are compositional devices that we can use to transform melodic ideas.
- A balance of repetition and contrast is important in making your music interesting but memorable.
- New ideas can be derived from already established ones by developing a few interesting, distinctive ideas.
Keywords
Sequence - A sequence is a short melodic idea that is repeated in steps either rising or falling.
Retrograde - When a musical idea is reversed this is called retrograde.
Inversion - An inversion of a musical idea is when it is flipped upside down. Intervals that went up now go down and vice versa.
Common misconception
Sequence, retrograde and inversion are they only way to develop ideas and they have to be used perfectly.
Sequences, retrograde and inversion provide a concrete way for pupils to show development in their melodic ideas, but providing there is some similarity or recognisable quality in repeated ideas, any subtle changes within melodic ideas can work.
To help you plan your year 10 music lesson on: Making more of melodies, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 10 music lesson on: Making more of melodies, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 music lessons from the Free Composition: Extending ideas unit, dive into the full secondary music curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
A keyboard (or other suitable instrument) or DAW/notation software
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
5 Questions
Q1.Which terms refer to pitch?
Q2.The word that describes the distance between two notes is the
Q3.Match these words to describe the movement of the notes in a melody.
movement by leaps
movement by steps
movement by semitones
movement using the notes of the chord