Melody Writing with Horton

My Year 7 classes are quite clever!

I have been playing a series of musical games with them incorporating vocal rhythm patterns, playing and composing pentatonic melodies and singing using the Kodaly method with the Solfa Hand Signs.  We have even been singing music from around the world in rounds such as the attached Hebrew and Aboriginal songs.

One day my year 7 classes asked for something a ‘little harder’ because I was telling them how good they were 🙂 So I gave them a line from “Horton Hears A Who” as my three year old son loves this show and I have it memorised.  My instructions went as follows…

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant”

1. Copy me saying it
2. Help me write out the rhythms next to the syllables on the board (deciding on the best ones)
3. Using the Pentatonic Scale (C D E G A) write a melody to go with it using these simple rules:
a) Start and End on C
b) Repeat groups of notes
c) Use patterns going up or down (called Sequences)
d) Don’t jump around but use steps (keep the notes close together)
e) Play them on your keyboard and refine how they sound (make them sing-able)

Once I had collected them we all voted on the ‘best sounding one’ based on  the rules above and the music we had been singing so far.  Because I played the melodies on the piano the voting was not ‘friend biased’ and the melody that won actually broke some of my rules – it used the note ‘F’ meaning the student did not really use the pentatonic scale.

But the classroom voted it as sounding the best!  Here is the result!

A Horton Melody PDF

A Horton Melody MIDI

If you want to see a great example of the pentatonic scale in action and how easy it is to use in the classroom watch this video by Bobby McFerrin on the Pentatonic Scale.