Composing ideas
- 1. CLASSROOM COMPOSING SUGGESTIONS: SPRING 2011 1. Pentatonic melody-writing (C - D - E - G - A) • Students compose short phrases and answering phrases using 5 chime bars. They can also be restricted to the black notes on piano / keyboard / xylophone / glockenspiel / boomwhackers • Compose over a pentatonic rock riff. 2. Layered ostinato piece comprising 2 bars in 4-time. • Compose separate rhythm patterns to each of the following and build up the texture: metal instrument, wooden instrument, snare or mid-range drum, shaker, bongos, low drum, cabasa. Use a metronome mark (e.g. crotchet = 100). In a performance, call this section A. Section B could have everyone playing one rhythm pattern in unison. 3. The Dorian mode (scale of D with F natural and C natural) • Students use chime bars, tuned percussion, keyboard or piano and are restricted to the ‘white notes’ based around the notes D - E - F - G - A - B - C’- D’ • They are instructed to compose 8 bars as follows: two bars ending on A, the next two bars ending on D, the following two bars ending on E and the final two bars ending on D. This reinforces the idea of having a cadence at the end of phrases. 4. Setting the scene • Instead of full-scale pieces, ask students to evoke the following moods or settings by choosing instruments and a short musical motif – even one or two notes: lullaby, repetitive work, time slipping away, new life, sadness, creepy place, calmness, nightmare. • Give the students a picture or a few lines of text and ask them to provide a soundtrack for it. Give them parameters e.g. the piece must have a certain duration and must include elements that you list. ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ by Mussorgsky is good listening preparation for this. 5. Ringtones • Listen to existing ringtones. Students compose their own ringtone to suit their own personality. They label them and upload them to their phones if they can. • This composing could be extended to radio jingles. Short and sweet. PDST Part 3 of Music Trilogy: Composing (Spring 2011)
- 2. 6. Symbols for sounds: working with graphic scores • Use the classroom percussion instruments in a listening exercise. The students have to invent symbols for them e.g. a scraping sound on the cabasa, a vibratone sound, a whisper, a creak, a rattling chain, a twanging ruler, a drum roll on a desk, tapping two pencils together, slapping your thighs, doing a finger pop with your mouth, sounds produced by shaking a milk carton containing uncooked rice, clicking your fingers, blowing across a bottle top, dropping coins. 7. Composing with chords • This is the idea behind Question 4 in the Leaving Cert Composing Paper. Make it real by giving the students a sequence of chords and instructing them to compose their own rhythm for the chords, to include a mixture of block and broken chords, to change the order of notes in the chord, to choose the tempo and dynamics and to add notes to the chords. • A typical phrase might be C -Dm - G - Am. • Extend this to play the blues. Give a blues bass line using the chord sequence: C - C - C - C; F - F - C - C; G - F - C - C). The students compose tunes over these chords with the following notes: C - D - E flat - E natural - F natural - F sharp - G. 8. Creating Moods and Atmospheres in Music • Suspense: tick-tock, silence, sudden loud moments, unpredictable happenings, intervals of 2nd in the high register of the piano. Vibraslap, shakers, cabasa, chain… • Spooky: diminished 7th (C - E flat - F sharp - A), low piano notes, creaking, random rattling. • Fear: the tritone (C - F sharp), chromatic passage, top and bottom notes on the piano, vocal sounds, heartbeat becoming uneven • Danger: The ‘Jaws’ theme is recognised by everyone (C - C sharp - C - C sharp); changing time signatures unexpectedly, heartbeat getting faster. • Mystical: The whole-tone scale (C - D - E - F sharp - G sharp - A sharp - B sharp) especially on tinkly instruments. Random notes with no obvious beat on glockenspiel, hand bells, chime bars, triangle, finger cymbals, metallic instruments. 9. Sound exploration • The students find chords that they like on the piano / keyboard and notate them for further use. They label them by the mood they evoke. Hang the list on the wall for general use. • Encourage them to hear major and minor intervals and to accept dissonance-resolution as an effective composing ‘strategy’. • Keep the composing sessions under control by getting one ‘leader’ in each group to ‘conduct’ or guide the entries. 10. Don’t forget to… • …incorporate an element of improvising or composing in vocal warm-ups (as demonstrated at the inservice session). • …use existing tunes as the basis for composing. Encourage students to arrange these for their own instrumental groupings. PDST Part 3 of Music Trilogy: Composing (Spring 2011)