Composing Music through Musical Building Blocks @ The Miquon School
In the past couple of week the 5th and 6th graders have been working on composing their own music by layering ostinato phrases on the Orff instruments. Here Diane & Jeri’s group perform a sample of such music.
Each child had to choose two notes out of a pentatonic scale (five notes) and apply them to one rhythm pattern out of a palette of 20 available. The instruments were arranged in groups of three so to be able to divide the class in smaller groups and guarantee a low, mid, and high register in each group. With the possible combinations practically limitless, the outcome was a unique composition for each small group. We then stringed together each group’s music and see if we came up with a satisfying longer piece comprised of an A, B, and C sections.
