Composing with Fourth and Fifth Grade

I'll admit that I get nervous about allowing students to compose.  It's so much easier for me to give them what they need to know and to lead them where I need them to go.  Letting them create their own compositions was a little scary at first.  Yesterday students truly amazed me with what they were able to create.

To begin, we have been reviewing the C major scale and G major scale as well as intervals through singing and playing.  The last lesson students drew oversized keyboards showing the intervals from middle C to each note all the way up to treble C.  They worked in small groups to measure with rulers, crayons and butcher paper.  It was a great visual and they seemed to get quite a bit out of just seeing it and doing it.

We then used our iPads as well as a melody page to help students think through what sounds correct.  For example, I would play three measures, but leave off the last note and ask students to sing the next note.  They would find the tonic (home note) in most cases.  I would then play a phrase and end it on a different note to see their reactions.  The song didn't sound finished; it needed something more.  We talked about how music starts and ends.  How that impacts our ears and our emotions about it.

Students then broke into groups where each person wrote four measures.  They put together their creations to form a 16 measure song.  They chose the order, how it was played, if two parts played at the same time and whether they wanted to repeat certain parts.  Students wrote out the letters of their notes first under their measures.  Then added the notation above it.

Some students wanted to write with only quarter notes; others created more complicated rhythms.

The final result was incredibly cool as students truly thought like musicians and composers.  They were opinionated and able to express why they felt the way that they do about their song.  It was neat to hear them use the iPads to compose - at first quite a bit of sound and experimentation; then forming phrases that made sense; and finally a piece of music.