Friday, November 27, 2015

Inventing Songs

Children create songs naturally, and should be encouraged to share them in class.  This is a common procedure for creating songs:

  1. Choose a topic, maybe create a word bank or poem of words generated by the students.
  2. When the poem is created, the teacher should have them chant it together so they get the rhythm and flow.  The teacher can play a tonic chord and have them sing different melodies for the first line.
  3. After some trial and error, the children can select their favorite melody and sing it together.
  4. The teacher can provide the underlying chords to support the melody that the children are singing.
  5. After recording, the children can listen to the entire song and suggest changes.  The finished song can be recorded again, and the teacher could notate it later, then share it with the class.
This procedure reflects the process that many professional song writers go through, first creating lyrics, then melody and accompaniment.

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