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Help on Musical Skills
for Children to Begin Composition
Creating a song results in the need for students to examine
the music they play in order to discover how it was created.
The child sees the need to understand key signatures, tonic,
dominant, phrases, meter, the form of simple songs (for example
ABA) and more. Children also play their instruments more freely
as they learn more about music.
The suggestions are intended to help young students to acquire
some basic skills that are needed to experience greater success
in creating their own songs. If you are a music student who has
some level of advancement and a basic understanding of musical
form, key, meter etc., use the listing of musical devices in
the Musical
Analysis Check List to remind you of things you might try.
More advanced students should also consider the musical factors
listed in Criteria
for an Effective Composition.
Help is given on this page to learn basic principles of a
musical phrase for students who have not already acquired these
skills as a part of regular music lessons. Help on learning more
about meter, form and tonality can be found at Composition
Meter, Form & Tonality.
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Very Basic Skills
Needed
Very basic things a child needs to understand to make a song
are:
- the understanding of key signatures; knowing the scale
system a song is based on
- meter, the rhythmic movement of 2’s or 3’s in
a simple song
- musical phrases
These are skills that even the very youngest child should
be learning as a regular part of music lessons. A student should
know the key signature of the songs that he is playing for his
lessons and be able to play the scale his solo is based on; know
whether the song moves in 2’s (duple meter) or 3’s
(triple meter); and be able to identify where the phrases are.
The following suggestions assume that the student understands
these very basic principles.
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Play the Musical Question-Answer Game With Your Child
A musical question
is a phrase that does not make a complete unit. If you stopped
at the end of the phrase, it leaves you feeling unsatisfied.
It feels and sounds like there is more, the music wants to go
on to another phrase. The song does not feel like it could possibly
stop there. The musical answer phrase makes the question phrase
sound complete. The song might not end there, but if you stopped
there it sounds like it could end there.
Discover Musical Question-Answer Phrases
If a child is unable to create simple musical answers to a musical
question that you have created, he is probably not ready to create
a song. Make a game of working on this skill over a period of
time and try again later after the child has more musical experience.
Before a child can make his own musical questions and answers,
he needs to be able to hear and identify them in songs. Point
out the musical questions in songs the child knows. A good song
that works well for this is the folk song, Mary Ann.
Mary Ann
If you can play Mary Ann on the piano, it would be helpful
to review the song with the child. Play the entire song and play
each phrase separately. There are four phrases in Mary Ann. The
first three ask a musical question and the fourth answers the
musical question.
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1. Have the child tell you what key
the folk song is in.
It’s in C major.
2. Have the child play a C major scale.
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Point out to the student that C
is tonic, the first scale step or the “home base pitch”
and that the melody of Mary Ann uses only the first five scale
steps of the C major scale. Explain to the child that tonic scale
step, or the first scale step, is represented by a Roman Numeral
I. Do is the syllable used for the first scale step and songs
want to return home to the tonic scale step, the first scale
step, or to do to sound complete. It is critical that the student
understands key signatures and that the key identifies the scale
a song is based on tells you what pitch material is used in a
song. It identifies resting tones, leading tones etc. in a song.
3. Play the entire song of Mary Ann
again for the child and then play just the first phrase of Mary
Ann, “All day, all night, Mary Ann.” If the child can
play the piano, have him play the song.
Ask the child whether
the first phrase sounds like the song could stop there.
Is it a musical question or is it an answer?
The child may know from your previous explanation and his previous
experiences that it is a question. If not, explain again that
the song does not sound like it could end here on this first
phrase so it is a musical question. It sounds like the song has
to go on. It does not sound finished. Get the child to understand
through listening that the first phrase of Mary Ann does not
sound complete. Also get the child to understand intellectually
that it does not sound finished or complete because the song,
based on the C major scale, does not go home to the first scale
step or do. The first phrase ends on the fourth scale step.
4. Play phrases one and two.
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Does this sound like another
question like the first phrase or does it answer it?
Explain to the student that it asks the same question at another
pitch level. It is the same melodic material, one scale step
lower. It is a “sequential repetition” of the first
question.
5. Play the first three phrases.
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phrase 1 |
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phrase 2 |
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phrase 3 |
Ask the student what this phrase
sounds like. Is it a question or an answer phrase? Has he heard
this before? The child will probably tell you that it is the
same as the first phrase. Point out that the song is asking the
same musical question again.
It is not an answer because the
song does not sound finished or complete. This phrase is restating
the first question exactly as before.
6. Play all four phrases.
Does this sound answered? Could
the song stop here?
Yes, this sounds like the answer. Explain to the student that
the fourth phrase is like the second phrase, but instead of ending
on the third scale step as the second phrase does it goes to
the tonic scale step, “home base pitch” of C since
the song is in the key of C major. That’s why it sounds
complete.
Identify Question-Answer Phrases in Skip To My Lou
Another folk song that works well to demonstrate the question-answer
phrase idea is Skip to My Lou. In Skip to My Lou there are four
phrases. Each phrase of this well-known folk song begins on the
word skip. The first three musical phrases ask a musical question
three times. The last phrase, “Skip to my lou, my darling,”
is the answer.
The Child Learns
to Identify the Musical-Answer
Question-Answer Game, Child Makes Answer to
Your Made-Up Musical Question
Child Echoes Your
Question Phrase, Then Makes Answer
After the child understands simple question-answer
phrases in a folk song such as Mary Ann, play a musical question-answer
game with the child. Ask the child to create an answer to a musical
question that you have created.
Tell the child you are going
to make up a musical question and it will be shorter than the
musical question in Mary Ann. You will limit your musical question
to the first five scale steps in the C major scale.
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You are going to begin your question on the
first scale step, tonic scale step. Many children understand
that do re mi fa sol la ti and do are syllables used to represent
scale steps. The terms do, tonic, “home base pitch”
all represent the first scale step. In the the examples, based
on a C major scale, it is C.
Tell the child you are going
to make it sound like a question by moving from the first scale
step and on any other scale step that is not tonic. You are going
to use only quarter, and whole notes in your two measure pattern
to keep the first example easy.
Have the child first echo the phrase you
made; then make his own musical answer.
Tell the child that your phrase
did not stop on the first scale step in your question so that
it would sound like the question. Tell them to echo your question
and then make an answer using the same rhythm pattern you used.
IT MAY COME EASILY
If the child has already acquired a sense of melodic direction
and has tonal skills from his previous musical experiences, it
may come easily for the child and will require no further explanation
at all. You and the child can have fun making each one more interesting
both rhythmically and melodically until you can see where the
child begins to need help.
If the Child
Cannot Echo Your Simple Phrase, STOP HERE,
and Work on That
If the child is unable to echo your very short, simple pattern,
you have discovered why he probably had trouble hearing question-answer
phrases when you played the folk song, Mary Ann. This skill needs
to be acquired before he can make a song. It is also important
to the child’s general musical development. Be sure you
have limited your examples to short phrases with only intervals
of 2nds and 3rds to keep it easy in the beginning. For example;
a very simple example using only 2nds and changing direction
would be the example below using C D E D E.
Concentrate
on Direction of Simple Pattern, If Needed
Most children who can play at a beginning level can echo a simple
pattern and make a related short answer. If they can’t,
work with them on hearing simply whether the music moves up or
down. It can be learned. Sometimes having had more musical experiences
through listening to music allows the skill to appear. Sometimes
children are just listening to pleasing sounds and are not experiencing
specific elements of music. When they are encouraged to listen
to something specific, they are able to hear it.
Question-Answer
Game, Child Makes Two Musical Questions and An Answer
If he has easily echoed your musical question and then made a
satisfactory answer, get the child to play your musical question-answer
phrase again and add a second musical question followed by an
answer.
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Different Keys
When the child succeeds at making musical questions and answers
using the limited scale steps of the first five tones of C major,
try other keys such as G major.
1. Get him to answer your musical question using another scale
such as G major, D major etc.
2. Have him make his own question and then an answer in the new
key.
3. Get the child to make a question, another question and then
another answer. Keep the melodic material limited to the first
five scale steps of G major, G A B C D, until the child can make
interesting patterns.
More Varied
Rhythm Pattern
The rhythm patterns of the first examples were very short and
only quarter note patterns. Try more varied rhythm patterns and
make improvisational rhythm patterns that can be answered in
imitation or a variation that “sounds” answered. Use
the same number of beats in the rhythmic answer as used in the
question.
Full
Range of Melodic Material
When the child can securely make
interesting question answer phrases using limited scale tones,
try using the full range of the scale. Remind him to establish
the tonality of a specific key and to stay in it for these examples.
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Musical Phrase Form ABA
Phrases
are arranged in groups. One very common phrase organization is
ABA. A folk song that children know that uses this phrase arrangement
is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It uses A B B A. The letter A
represents the first musical idea. B is a different idea. Listen
to the whole song, the A section, and then the B section. All
of these files are only 1K and will download quickly.
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