Musical Ideas

Use Musical Ideas

You can illustrate the melody line of a song or a phrase of a song in several ways to help the children become comfortable with the melody and rhythm.

·         Show the melody picture to the children and hum the melody or sing the song while tracing with your hand.

·         Have them listen to find  what word is song at the highest point or the lowest point

·         Identify same melodies

·         Have them move their bodies up and down with the melody

·         You can use the rhythmic pattern of a phrase and illustrate the long and short beats with dashes or with traditional notes. Invite the children to clap or tap the rhythm pattern several times and then identify where they hear that rhythm in the song.

Music Language

Use the "music language". Children love to sing songs using "decrescendo“ and "crescendo". volume.(but never louder than lovely) at the end. Also use piano, mezzo forte, forte, staccato, legato, etc., to have them sing certain ways. The senior boys will sing forever if they can sing crescendo or staccato.

·         Crescendo A gradual increase, especially in the volume or intensity of sound in a passage.

·         Decrescendo  A gradual decrease in force or loudness.

Musical Terms

·         Pitch is the highness or lowness of notes on a scale

·         Volume is how loud or soft sound is

·         Tempo is the speed of the noted in music.

·         Rhythm is the pattern of sounds and silence in music.

·         Notes are the pitch, or location on the scale, and the duration, noted by shape of a note on a scale.

Musical Notations

·         pp, standing for "pianissimo", and meaning "very soft",

·         p or piano, meaning "soft".

·         mp, standing for mezzo-piano, meaning "moderately soft".

·         mƒ, standing for mezzo-forte, meaning "moderately strong".

·         ƒ or forte, meaning "strong".

·         ƒƒ, standing for "fortissimo", and meaning "very strong",

·         Legato -The term legato (pronounced "leh-gaw-toe") means connected, or joined, notes. That means there is no perceivable silence between two notes played one after another. To remember legato means connected, think your leg is connected to your body.

·         Staccato The term staccato (pronounced "stuh-caw-toe") means detached, or separated, notes. Staccato notes have space, or silence, between them. There are different degrees of staccato notes. Staccato notes can range from short to very short (staccatissimo). To remember what staccato means, associate it with to stop.

Notes of any rhythm can be played legato or staccato. Legato and staccato simply refer to whether or not a note's length runs into the next note being played. It has nothing to do with the start of a note. It's about the duration of the note.