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Composing a melody

Part of MusicCreating MusicYear 3Year 4

What is a melody?

A cartoon of Tchiakovsky pointing to a musical page

One of the best ways to express ourselves musically is by using .

Melodies can make us feel different things. A good melody is memorable and makes us want to sing along!

Jamaican reggae legend Bob Marley, wrote some of the most catchy and well known melodies.

Watch: Lightning Jelly explore melody with Bob Marley

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How can we make melodies?

A cartoon of Bob Marley with a bird

Melodies are composed using two things:

We have lots of notes to choose from. We can use an instrument or our voice.

First, let's play a game to remind us of the difference between high and low pitched sounds.

Join in with this pitch game and see if you are pitch perfect!

A cartoon of Bob Marley with a bird

Watch: What is pitch?

A cartoon of Bob Marley with the text "Remember"

To create our own melody we now need to put a rhythm with the different pitched sounds (notes).

Remember, a rhythm is a pattern of short and long sounds.

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Let's compose a melody

Lottie and Hasan playing instruments

First, we need a rhythm.

  1. Try creating a by marching on the spot or clapping your hands.
  2. Now sing a sentence over the top. You can sing anything but if you're stuck, you could trying using your favourite foods as a starting point. For example: "Chicken and chips and mushy peas!"
  3. Now change the pitch of each word as you sing. You can go up then down, or down then up. Try something that is fun and easy to remember.

Congratulations, you have composed a melody!

Try this with a friend - one of you can keep the pulse while the other is singing the rhythm.

Lottie and Hasan playing instruments
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Performing your melody

Now you've got your rhythm try singing or playing it with one sound. Then add another sound and another and another.

Experiment to hear what sounds good and to see if anything jumps out that sounds good to you.

A cartoon of children in a band playing different musical instruments on a stage

Now you've got some ideas, you just have to develop the parts you like.

You can try repeating sounds or adding and taking sounds away. You can take one section of your melody and move all the sounds up and down a pitch.

Try putting your melodies in an order one after the other. This can turn your individual melodies into a tune or a whole piece of music - exciting!

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Watch: How do melodies make us feel different emotions?

You can always start composing by thinking of what emotion you want your audience to feel. Melodies have the power to make us feel different emotions.

There's no right or wrong way to compose a melody. Give it a go and see what you come up with!

Let's explore some examples.

You might take a melody you've made and stretch it out so the sounds are longer and slower. Add different pitches and you might have a sad tune.

Listen to this example:

You can speed up your melodies too. Play or sing them in a short and spiky kind of way. This might make it sound more exciting or happy.

Have a listen to this example:

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Activities

Quiz

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Play fun and educational primary games in science, maths, English, history, geography, art, computing and modern languages.

Bitesize Primary games
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