Making a Melody
Lesson One
Grade Level: Fifth Grade
Class: General music
State and National Standards this lesson addresses:
MU:Cr1.1.E.5a Compose and improvise melodic and rhythmic ideas or motives
that reflect characteristic(s) of music or text(s) studied in rehearsal.
9.1.5.A Know and use the elements and principles of each art form to create
works in the arts and humanities. (Composition, rhythm)
9.1.5.B Recognize, know, use and demonstrate a variety of appropriate arts
elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the
arts.(read and notate music, compose and arrange)
9.1.5.C Know and use fundamental vocabulary within each of the arts forms.
Essential Questions:
How do musicians make creative decisions?
Objective or Learning Outcomes:
Students will be able to compose a four bar melody on Chrome Songmaker.
Prior Knowledge:
Melody, lines and spaces, quarter note, eighth note and equivalent rests
Materials needed: Computer, headphones, pencil, worksheet
Organization: Individual
Teaching Procedures
Daily Routine:
Crazy eights:
Attendance:
Introduction:
- What are some of your favorite songs? (answer)
- How do you think musicians write the music to songs? (answer)
- One way to start writing a song is to create a melody. Does anyone know what a
melody is?
- Melody is the tune or the part of the song that always gets stuck in your head. It is
made up of rhythm and pitches.
- Today, we are going to compose our own melodies. What do you think the word
compose means?
- Compose just means to write or create music.
Procedure:
- (Open Songmaker to demonstrate)
- We are going to use Chrome Music Lab to write our melodies. There are just
three rules to follow when you make your melody.
- The first rule is that you are going to start and end on two red boxes. So you
should have two red here and two red here.
- The second rule is that you are only going to pick notes above the middle blue
line. Does everyone see the blue line here? (yes/no - reshow)
- The last rule is that there should only be one color in each column. Can someone
raise your hand and tell me if a column goes side to side or up and down?
(Columns go up and down).
- So does my composition follow all three rules? How about now? What rule am I
breaking? (Demonstrate correct and incorrect options)
- After you are done with your melody we are going to transfer it to the google
classroom assignment.
- The first thing you are going to do is click save in the bottom right hand corner on
Songmaker.
- You will see a window pop up. Click the copy link.
- You will then post the link in the box that says “post link here” on your google
classroom assignment.
- At the top of the same page, you will see all of the colors which each corresponds
to a letter.
- You are going to fill in each blank by dragging the color to each block
(Demonstrate with melody)
- In order to make it easier for you, you can use split screen to see both at the same
time. (Split screen by dragging one tab to the left and one tab to the right).
- Can someone please raise their hand and remind me of the three rules we need to
follow to create our melody? (red to start and end, above the middle line, only
one color per column)
- Remember, you should only be on Songmaker or your google classroom. There is
no reason to be on any other website at this time.
- When I say go, you are going to open your laptops and go to Google classroom.
Find this week’s assignment under music class and open it. Here is the link to
Songmaker.
- This assignment also has all the directions that we just went over so it can help
you if you get stuck.
- You have ten minutes to create your melody. (Project timer on screen).
- By now you should have your melody completed. I am going to come around to
glance at your screen and hand out the worksheet to begin transferring your
melody to notes.
- You will have another ten minutes to transfer your melody. If you need any help
you can look at the directions on Google Classroom or raise your hand. (Project
timer on screen)
- Once you are finished, make sure you submit your assignment in google
classroom. It should have the link and your melody on the screen. If you finish
early, you can start brainstorming a title for your melody.
Assessment: Students will demonstrate their composition by transferring the melody
from Songmaker onto paper.
Closure and Summarizing strategy:
- Time is up for today. You should have your melody transferred to this week’s
assignment as well as the link posted. Please quietly put your computers away.
- Can someone tell me what we composed today? (A melody)
- What is a melody? (rhythms and pitches, a tune)
- Right, a melody is made of rhythms and pitches. Today we only wrote down our
pitches, or the letter names. Next week we are going to add the rhythms to our
compositions.
Reflections:
I taught this lesson to one fully virtual class, two virtual snow day classes, and
two in person classes. I found that the presentation from zoom to in person shifted my
preparation and lesson breakdown. For the virtual students, I explained all directions
during the first half of class and then let them free to work. For the in person students, I
taught the first part of the lesson (create a melody) and then gave them time to complete
it. Then, I taught the second half of the lesson (transfer melody to the slide) and let them
work on it. This presentation worked well for the in person students. I think the lesson
went better for the in person students because they were able to ask for further
clarification.
Things I learned:
- Tell students to copy link when they are on the screen of their finished melody
- Tell students to hit space after pasting the link.
- Include spaces when transferring
- Explain why they can’t go below the blue line
- Explain why multiple notes in a column doesn’t work
- Project a timer/make students aware of the time they have
Things I would do differently
- If possible, give more time for creative exploration of Chrome Songmaker before
even introducing the idea of creating our own melody. Let them experiment more
they want to be creative.
- Use Classkick to create manipulative for the slide. This would be more effective
and have a cleaner look.
Adding Rhythms
Lesson Two
Grade Level: Fifth Grade
Class: General music
State and National Standards this lesson addresses:
MU:Cr1.1.E.5a Compose and improvise melodic and rhythmic ideas or motives
that reflect characteristic(s) of music or text(s) studied in rehearsal.
9.1.5.A Know and use the elements and principles of each art form to create
works in the arts and humanities. (Composition, rhythm)
9.1.5.B Recognize, know, use and demonstrate a variety of appropriate arts
elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the
arts.(read and notate music, compose and arrange)
9.1.5.C Know and use fundamental vocabulary within each of the arts forms.
Essential Questions:
How do rhythms exist in a melody?
Objective or Learning Outcomes:
Students will correctly identify rhythmic patterns from their melody composition.
Prior Knowledge:
Quarter notes, eighth notes, and equivalent rests
Materials needed: Pencil, worksheet, computer,
Organization: Individual
Teaching Procedures
Daily Routine:
Crazy eights:
Attendance:
Introduction:
- Can someone raise your hand and tell me what we did last class? (we created a
melody)
- Right, we composed a melody.
- What is a melody? (rhythms and pitches, a tune)
- We only wrote down the pitches of our melody last class, so today we are going to
add the rhythms and transfer it to our worksheet.
Procedure:
- First, you are going to copy your work from last class on to your worksheet. This
is what your worksheet should look like with your pitches all filled in.
- Can someone raise their hand and tell me what this is called? (point to all
notes/rests to review).
- Does anyone know how many beats a quarter note gets? (go through all)
- We are going to use this key to write in the rhythms above the pitches.
- So if I have one letter and one blank I am going to write an eighth note and an
eighth rest.
- If I have one blank and one letter I am going to write an eighth rest and an eighth
note.
- If I have two blanks I am going to write a quarter rest.
- Lastly, if I have two letters you can choose to do either a quarter note or two
eighth notes. It is important to know that you can only choose a quarter note if
you have two of the same letters next to each other.
- Remember, you can look at the Google class if you need some more help or you
can raise your hand so I can come around to help.
- You will have the remainder of class to complete this assignment. When you
finish you can bring your worksheet to me to review.
Assessment:
Students will have completed the first page of their worksheet correctly.
Closure and Summarizing strategy:
- Please quietly pass your worksheet to the front of the class.
- Can someone raise their hand and tell me what rhythms we used today? (eighth
note, eighth rest, quarter note, quarter rest)
- What beat value do each of them get?
- Next class, we are going to be transferring our pitches and rhythms to standard
music notation on a staff.
Reflections:
I taught this class to one core group and three in person classes. I briefly went
over this assignment at the end of the first lesson in one class where they had a day off
and missed the second lesson.
Things I learned
- Don’t explain in as much detail to the whole class, but rather go around to answer
questions as they come up.
- Essentially, give less information up front because it will be more confusing for
the students.
- Be clearer on the placement of rhythms above notes.
- Check one measure before they move on to the rest of the measures.
Things I would do differently
- Make the pairs on the worksheet more clearly defined
- Make a rectangle “rhythm box” above each pair or make the pair divided by
dotted line as opposed to different line thickness.
- Change the rhythm key to have the rhythm above the “example” as opposed to an
equal sign.
- Color code the rhythm key so it is clear when a pair has two of the same color or
two different colors.
- Make a pair of the same color equal a quarter note only and a pair of different
colors equal eighth notes.
Transferring to Notation
Lesson Three
Grade Level: Fifth Grade
Class: General music
State and National Standards this lesson addresses:
MU:Cr2.1.E.5b Preserve draft compositions and improvisations through
standard notation and audio recording.
9.1.5.A Know and use the elements and principles of each art form to create
works in the arts and humanities. (Composition, rhythm)
9.1.5.B Recognize, know, use and demonstrate a variety of appropriate arts
elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the
arts.(read and notate music, compose and arrange)
9.1.5.C Know and use fundamental vocabulary within each of the arts forms.
Essential Questions:
When is creative work ready to share?
Objective or Learning Outcomes:
Students will be able to correctly transfer pitches and rhythms to standard
notation.
Prior Knowledge:
Quarter notes, eighth notes, half notes, dotted half notes, whole notes, and
equivalent rests.
Materials needed: Pencil, worksheet
Organization: Individual
Teaching Procedures
Daily Routine:
Crazy eights:
Attendance:
Introduction:
- Good morning class, today we are going to be transferring our notes and rhythms
into standard music notation.
Procedure:
- Can anyone raise your hand and tell me what this is called? (staff)
- What about this? (treble clef)
- These are parts of standard music notation.
- In order to transfer our melody to standard notation we need to look at and
combine two things. We need to know the pitch, or note name, and the rhythm,
or duration of the note.
- We can look at our worksheet (Google slide for CORE kids) to identify these two
things.
- We have three rules to help us remember how to transfer to standard notation.
The rules are:
- Find the note place, is it a line or space?
- Next is the stem, is it alone, flagged, or them?
- If it’s a rest, it knows best - put it in the middle of the staff!
- On my melody, I started with the letter/note C. This should be the same for
everyone since we all started and ended on two red notes.
- On the top of my worksheet I can see a staff with all the notes written on it. As
you can see we have line notes and space notes.
- C is right here so we are going to our blank staff and draw a C. Make sure the
ledger line goes right through the middle of the circle.
- Now that we have our note head, or circle, we need to know what rhythm this
note gets.
- So we look back at our worksheet (slides) and see that I had two eighth notes
(ta-ti) above it so I can draw my next note C right here. Then I draw a straight
line up on both and connect them in the middle to make two eighth notes.
- If you have a rest like I do here you draw it right in the middle of the staff. Do
your best to draw the quarter rest.
- Make sure that only one line goes into each measure. If you look on your
worksheet the first line is labeled “measure 1” and this space on the staff is
measure one. When you see the line in the middle you know that is the end of
measure one so this next space is measure 2. Measure 3 is the beginning of the
next line and measure 4 is the last space.
- We are going to have the rest of this class to work on transferring your melody.
Once you transfer the first line or measure 1 you can come check it with me
before continuing.
Assessment:
Students will correctly transfer rhythm and pitches to standard notation.
Closure and Summarizing strategy:
- That’s all the time we have today. Please quietly pass your worksheets up to the
front of the class.
- Next week we are going to share our melodies in class.
Reflection:
Things I learned:
- Pass out the papers first. Have students do the first beat with me as I am
explaining it. This helped students have a better grasp on what they have to do.
- Clearly explain on which paper and where they are looking to find the next piece
of information.
Things I would do differently:
- Add rests to the “note key” so students know where they go on the staff
- Draw rhythms on staff paper
- Potentially color code each measure to help students understand that each line is
equal to one measure
Share Your Melody
Grade Level: Fifth Grade
Class: General music
State and National Standards this lesson addresses:
MU:Re9.1.E.5a Identify and describe the effect of interest, experience, analysis,
and context on the evaluation of music.
9.1.5.B Recognize, know, use and demonstrate a variety of appropriate arts
elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the
arts.(read and notate music, compose and arrange)
9.1.5.C Know and use fundamental vocabulary within each of the arts forms.
Essential Questions:
How do we judge the quality of musical work(s) and performance(s)?
Objective or Learning Outcomes:
Students will be able to add a rhythm pattern to their melodies and share with
the class.
Prior Knowledge:
Quarter notes, eighth notes, half notes, dotted half notes, whole notes, and
equivalent rests.
Materials needed: Worksheet, Chromebook, lined
Organization: Whole group
Teaching Procedures
Daily Routine:
Crazy eights
Attendance
Introduction:
- In the last three weeks we created a melody and transferred that melody to
standard music notation.
- Today we are going to share our melodies with the class.
Procedure:
- You will have two different choices to share your melody.
- The first choice is we can listen to your melody from your Songmaker link and the
class can add an accompanying rhythm.
- Your second choice is to add a rhythm in your Songmaker link.
- We are going to learn two different rhythm patterns to add to clap if you choose
for the class accompaniment.
- This is pattern one. (Demonstrate and teach pattern one)
- This is pattern two. (Demonstrate and teach pattern two)
- Now that you have learned the two patterns you will have five minutes to either
practice rhythm pattern one or two with your own melody OR add a rhythm to
your Songmaker.
- If you choose to add a rhythm to your songmaker you will need to resubmit your
link to this week's assignment.
- At this time, you have five minutes to decide your rhythm pattern. (Give five
minute time allowance)
- Remember to resubmit your link if you have added your rhythm pattern. Raise
your hand if you want to share your melody. (Go around the room allowing
students to share)
Assessment:
Students will share their melody and additional rhythm pattern to their peers.
Closure and Summarizing strategy:
- At this time, I am going to pass out a piece of paper. In at least 3 sentences, tell
me what you learned during this whole lesson. That could be from the beginning
melody Songmaker lesson all the way through today’s lesson.
- You have the last five minutes to answer the question. If you’re done early, flip
over your paper and draw me a picture.
- Times up, pass your papers in quietly.
- Next week we are going to be learning about chords.
Melody Composition Worksheet
Name:____________________________ Class:___________________
Red = C Orange = D Yellow = E
Light Green = F Dark Green = G Blue/purple = A
Pink = B
Rhythm:
Measure
1 C C
Rhythm:
Measure
2
Rhythm:
Measure
3
Rhythm:
Measure
4 C C
Rhythm Key
Melody Composition
Name:____________________________ Class:___________________
Title: ___________________________________________