Let’s compose a pentatonic scale

Brief laboratory of musical composition to spur creativity

by JACOPO CACCO
    School sections
    • Primary
    • Lower secondary school
    Educational subjects
    • Instrumental practice
    • Music, Rhythm and movement
    • Composition

Let’s compose a pentatonic scale

The objective of this experience was to spur the students’ composition creativity through a laboratory that exploited the potentialities of the pentatonic scale, among which in particular the possibility, given its nature of a scale lacking well-defined tonal centers, to facilitate the extemporary creation of melodies with one or more parts. The activity began by viewing a video of musician Bobby McFerrin who, with great ability, improvises a double melody built on the pentatonic scale exploiting his movements on stage and using the audience as an actual musical instrument. Subsequently, the students produced, following McFerrin’s example, a rhythmic/ melodic ostinato and a pentatonic melody to be performed in group in front of the class.

Work tools

In order to carry out the activity, simple Orff instruments were used, both rhythmic and melodic (indefinite pitch percussion instruments, metallophones, descant recorders, etc.) along with body percussion. A sufficiently large space was necessary to allow the various groups of students (each group composed of about 4-5 students) to share their experiences and work with serenity. No type of written production was required, because students normally learn the sequence of notes or rhythms to perform by ear, in a mnemonic way.

Educational purposes

The skills, goals and training objectives selected by the teacher for this experience are shown below.

Competences
    Production
    • Execution
    • Improvisation
    • Composition
GOALS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETENCES [...]
    Primary
    Listening
    • Learning to listen to oneself and to the others
    • Identify the constitutive elements of a simple piece of music
    Production
    • Exploring different expressive capacities of voice, musical objects and musical instruments
    • Producing timbre, melodic and rhythmic combinations applying basic schemes; executing them with the voice, the body and instruments (including IT tools).
    • Improvising freely and creatively gradually learning to master techniques and materials
    • Playing, alone or in group, simple vocal or instrumental pieces of music belonging to different genres and cultures, using also didactic instruments and self-made tools.
    Lower secondary school
    Production
    • Actively participating in music experiences through the execution and the interpretation of vocal and instrumental music pieces belonging to different genres and cultures.
    • Capacity to conceive and create music and multimedia messages, also though improvisation or collective elaboration processes, using also IT tools, in critical confrontation with models belonging to the musical heritage
Educational targets

The students learned how to:
- perform in an expressive way vocal and instrumental pieces of different genres and styles, both collectively and individually;
- improvise, reformulate, compose vocal and instrumental pieces, using open structures as well as simple rhythmic-melodic schemes.

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