Scales & tonality
Click here to add resource description
Official classification: Electric Guitar, Video, Pentatonic Scales
Click here to add resource description
Official classification: Electric Guitar, Pieces, Pentatonic Scales
Unlike the major scale, three different minor scales exist.
Official classification: Understanding Notation, Scales, Interactive Activities, Key Stage 4, Minor Scales, Curriculum support, Musictheory.net
30 different key signatures exist (15 for major scales and 15 for minor scales). Most theory students are expected to memorize all 30.
Official classification: Understanding Notation, Scales, Interactive Activities, Key Stage 4, Major scales, Minor Scales, Key signatures, Curriculum support, Musictheory.net
A key signature is a collection of every accidental found in a scale.
Official classification: Understanding Notation, Interactive Activities, Key Stage 4, Major scales, Minor Scales, Curriculum support, 4c Listening, and applying knowledge and understanding - processes and symbols, 4c Listening, and applying knowledge and understanding - processes and symbols, Musictheory.net
Each note of a scale has a special name, called a scale degree.
Official classification: Understanding Notation, Interactive Activities, Key Stage 4, Major scales, Minor Scales, Scale degrees, Curriculum support, 4c Listening, and applying knowledge and understanding - processes and symbols, 4c Listening, and applying knowledge and understanding - processes and symbols, Musictheory.net
Floating Balloons - Ford Mondeo advert, filmed in London. Excellent example of music creating mood with beautiful haunting Piano track in a minor key as accompaniment.
Official classification: Piano, Expressive & Descriptive Sounds, Advertisements, Video, Key Stage 3, Scales & tonality, Minor Scales, Harmony, Curriculum support, Unit 13. Music and media
Extract from the illustrated Rudiments of Wisdom encyclopaedia by Tim Hunkin. www.rudimentsofwisdom.com.
Thousands of cartoons covering almost everything there is to know!
Official classification: Trumpet, The Romantic Period, Chromatic Scales, Curriculum support, Trumpet Family, Rudiments of Wisdom
Extract from the illustrated Rudiments of Wisdom encyclopaedia by Tim Hunkin. www.rudimentsofwisdom.com.
Thousands of cartoons covering almost everything there is to know!
Official classification: India, Non-western tonalities, Curriculum support, Rudiments of Wisdom
Extract from the illustrated Rudiments of Wisdom encyclopaedia by Tim Hunkin. www.rudimentsofwisdom.com.
Thousands of cartoons covering almost everything there is to know!
Official classification: Piano, Intervals, Scales & tonality, Bach, Johann Sebastian, Curriculum support, Rudiments of Wisdom
This list sequencer app will help users to plan, compose and perform their own version of Shepherds' Music. Based on track 11 of Saydisc Listen to This! KS3 - traditional music from Rajasthan.
Pupils work in threes: drone player, hand drummer and 'pentatonic' melody using D E F# A (+ optional B). The app offers four textural combinations of these parts, which can be developed either as a performance plan, or as a backing to support performance / improvisation if not all parts are represented in the working group.
Official classification: Composing, Arranging, Melody, Sequencers, Interactive Activities, Pentatonic Scales, India, Drone, Indian, List Sequencer, Saydisc/Charanga World Music
Short video clip (1 min.) about the early 20th century Arts and Crafts designer and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The soundtrack contains atonal music for string quartet.
Clip from the Roland Collection of Film on Art (www.rolandcollection.com). Used with kind permission of Anthony Roland.
Official classification: Painting, Paintings, Video, Atonality, Curriculum support, The Roland Collection of Films on Art
Short video clip (1 min.) showing examples of modern abstract 3D art. The music soundtrack is equally abstract, focussing on sounds and textures more than melody and harmony in the accepted sense.
KS3 idea: Ask pupils to describe the existing soundtrack using music vocabulary as accurately as they can. Can they create a similar one-minute soundscape of their own? (Access to electronic sound sources will be helpful.)
Clip from the Roland Collection of Film on Art (www.rolandcollection.com). Used with kind permission of Anthony Roland.
Official classification: Painting, Paintings, Video, Atonality, Curriculum support, The Roland Collection of Films on Art
One of modernist composer Charles Ives early works, written around the turn of the century but not published until 1949. This piece takes the tune (same as the British National Anthem) through a series of fairly standard but witty variations. It is recommended for listening as example of arrangement in QCA Unit 6 Shanty Time for KS3 and for KS4 pupils, this is one of the first pieces to use bi-tonality.
Official classification: Theme & Variation, 1900-1949, Classical Pieces, Audio, Polytonality, United States, United Kingdom, Curriculum support, Ives, Charles
Moving poem with some disturbing images of slavery in the US.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPBH57BWhpE
Contains an evocative backing track using drone and minor tonality but no harmonic changes ie uses one chord all the way through. It uses simple musical techniques to achieve an intense emotional effect.
Official classification: Poetry, Video, Minor Scales, Chord progressions, Drone, Curriculum support, Slavery
Live backing sequencer to support a composition or improvisation based on Track 02 Amanecer Andino (Andean Dawn) from Saydisc Percussion Around the World. (Also Track 01 of Saydisc Listen to This! KS3.) In the original recording there's a free slow introduction followed by a faster section based on C and Am chords, but with this tool users can decide their own structure.
KS2/3 idea - students can use this tool to provide an accompaniment while one student performs live their own version of a characteristic pentatonic melody on a separate instrument. Students can also use this tool for support as they play along and learn the ostinato drum and guitar parts.
Official classification: Percussion, Composing, Improvising, Rehearsing, Ostinato, Melody, Interactive Activities, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3, Pentatonic Scales, The Andes, Curriculum support, Melody, Saydisc/Charanga World Music
The 'now and next' functions in the Live Sequencer tool allow students to create their own arrangement of the koto melody from Saydisc Listen To This KS3, track 4 Aki No Shirabe (Autumn Tune). Students also type in their own descriptions of each phrase so they can easily identify each one and demonstrate use of musical language. They can then trigger the phrases live to play in any chosen order. Perhaps this could be used to provide music for a dance or similar performance.
Official classification: Composing, Arranging, Improvising, Changes in Volume, Silence, Phrasing, Melody, Interactive Activities, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3, Pentatonic Scales, Japan, Koto, Curriculum support, Live Sequencer, Saydisc/Charanga World Music
Describing different images, Debussy uses pentatonic scales throughout this piece, imitating the sound of Javanese Gamelan, also evident in the percussive nature of some parts, apparently depicting a scene in an Asian setting.
Official classification: Piano, The Romantic Period, Classical Pieces, Audio, Pentatonic Scales, Unit 12 Dragon Scales , Curriculum support, Debussy, Claude
Charlotte Church performs this traditional hymn accompanied by a choir singing gentle harmonies. The melody is written using a pentatonic scale, for KS2 or KS3 pupils focussing on songwriting or arrangement, it may valuable to compare this recording with the Elvis Presley performance also on the site. Also worth noting is the key change about 2/3 of the way through.
Official classification: Audio, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3, Pentatonic Scales, Female, Mixed Voice Choir, Unit 12 Dragon Scales , Curriculum support, Christianity
Elvis performs this traditional hymn accompanied by a Gospel choir and band (piano, bass guitar and drums). The melody is written using a pentatonic scale, for KS2 or KS3 pupils focussing on songwriting or arrangement, it may valuable to compare this recording with the Charlotte Church performance also on the site.
Official classification: Audio, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3, Pentatonic Scales, Male, Mixed Voice Choir, Unit 12 Dragon Scales , Curriculum support, Christianity