Year 7 - Music
Creating and improvising contrasting ostinati
Minimalist composition
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit develops understanding of minimalism, including the context of the style and the main musical features used in creating minimalist compositions. Pupils compose and improvise in a minimalist style, including rhythmic and melodic patterns.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to create and develop contrasting ostinati, including through the use of retrograding.
Key Notes
- When creating melodic ideas, improvising using a scale is a useful technique to try out different ideas.
- We can create variety by changing the pitch of our ostinati, though still using the notes of the Dm pentatonic scale.
- Retrograding is reversing the order of notes. This is another technique that we can use to develop our melodic ideas.
Vocabulary To Learn
- Improvise: If you improvise you make something up on the spot.
- Pitch: Pitch is how high or low the sound is.
- Retrograde: If you retrograde a melody it reverses the order of the notes.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Using the same rhythm in different ostinati creates effective contrast.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
When creating melodic ideas, improvising using a scale is a useful technique to try out different ideas. We can create variety by changing the pitch of our ostinati, though still using the notes of the Dm pentatonic scale.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'Improvise'
If you improvise you make something up on the spot.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: Using the same rhythm in different ostinati creates effective contrast. Correction: Using different rhythms in your ostinati is important for creating contrast. If they use the same rhythm, they will inevitably sound very similar. Try coming up with some interesting rhythm by clapping, then play them using notes on the keyboard.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 7 Music guide library.