Sometimes it’s fun for students to do a completely different musical activity to make lessons even more interesting.
Here is a simple composing activity I created that gives students their own mini composition at the end.
My students really enjoy this activity. It helps them to develop their creativity and confidence and further consolidate their knowledge of the notes they have learned.
Make a mini composition (for beginner to grade 1 students)
- Pick a range of 5 notes, tell your student what the notes are (e.g. CDEFG).
- Using call and response, ask the student to play 3 notes (e.g. CDE).
- Ask the student to play a further 3 different note combinations (e.g. FFE, GCD, EDC).
- Now take it in turns with the student to ask each other for 3 note combinations and play them. Take 2 turns each (e.g. teacher ask the student to play CDE, student ask the teacher to play FGE etc).
- Finally tell the student that they are going to think up four, 3 note combinations to make a mini composition.
- Ask the student to say their note combinations 3 notes at a time. Write them down (e.g. EFD, GFE, GFE, DCE or straight onto manuscript). Each 3 note combination will have the rhythm-crotchet, crotchet, minim. The composition will be in the time signature 4/4.
- Ask the student to name their composition.
- Later write out the student’s composition on manuscript and scan/photograph it and send it to their parent. The student can then have fun playing some music they themselves have written that week.
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