Introduction to Composing booklet

This booklet is an entire scheme of work on Composing, based on the keyboards. It contains all written and practical activities for around 8 lessons. The project is designed to introduce students to basic composition of a melody from different starting points, along with how to harmonise a melody with chords, encouraging students to make creative choices about their work.

The sequence of lessons in this booklet are designed as follows:
Flexible starter pages at the beginning of the booklet
Lesson 1: Introduction to composing. Students are given 5 notes on the keyboard to create a melody from. They are encouraged to think of something to create their melody about, e.g. a place, animal or mood.
Lesson 2: Composing from a starting point. Students are given the first few notes of a melody and they have to continue and finish it.
Lesson 3: Composing using a rhythm. Students are given a rhythm for an entire melody. Using a specific scale, students are to make decisions on the pitches of the entire tune.
Lesson 4&5: Harmonising a tune. Students are given the tune of twinkle twinkle little star, and some chords. They will make musical decisions on harmonising the tune as a pair, then perform it.
Lesson 6: Where Chords go. Students study how only certain notes of a tune stand out and would have chords on them, just like how we emphasise certain syllables in a sentence. Students are then given a melody and are required to choose when the chords should be played, along with which chords would correctly harmonise with the tune.
Lesson 7&8: Assessment involving students composing their own melody and harmonising with chords, as a pair. the performance of this forms the assessment.

Success criteria and assessment feedback pages at back of the booklet.
There are spaces for WWW/EBI feedback after lesson 4 and lesson 6.