Study Guides

Unit Summary

Pupils discover the power and versatility of the pentatonic scale. Pupils learn that pentatonic music is found around the world and sing pentatonic songs from every continent. A three-line simplified stave is used for notation. Pupils play and compose pentatonic melodies on tuned percussion.

Lesson Summary

You will learn to sing, play, read and notate a major pentatonic melody that uses dotted rhythms (Ta-mi).

Key Notes

• Hand signs can help us hear, feel and understand the melodic shape of a song.
• Music can be notated to be shared and remembered for another day
• Stick notation is one way that music can be notated. There are many more ways still.
• We can decode the major pentatonic folk songs we learn and write these using stick notation.
• Stick notation can help us to read rhythms and melodies quickly and easily.

Vocabulary To Learn

• pitch: how high or low a note is
• major pentatonic scale: the five tones, do, re, mi, so and la arranged in an ascending or descending order
• phrase: a musical thought, like a sentence in a story
• rhythm: the pattern of sounds and silences that we play and sing
• stick notation: a way of writing music down

Common Mistakes To Avoid

• Ta-di and Ta-mi are the same because they both have two notes in one beat.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

More Lessons In This Unit

• Composing a major pentatonic melody Study Guide
• Improvising a major pentatonic melody Study Guide
• Playing a dotted rhythm major pentatonic melody Study Guide
• Singing and identifying the major pentatonic scale Study Guide
• Singing major pentatonic folk songs Study Guide