1. Music Phrases: A musical phrase is similar to a sentence in grammar. Using the piano keyboard: Now use the piano keyboard in SFSkids:  Just use your “mouse” to play, Twinkle, Twinkle Litt

1. Music Phrases: A musical phrase is similar to a sentence in grammar. Using the piano keyboard: Now use the piano keyboard in SFSkids:  Just use your “mouse” to play, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star:  This part is phrase (lower case letters are quicker, shorter notes, and upper case letters are longer notes.) Phrase (A):  g, g, d, d, e, e, D  c, c, b, b, a, a, G    that’s phrase, A. 

Continue with phrase B by playing the following d, d, c, c, b, b, A  d, d, c, c, b, b, A, now play the (A) phrase again. The overall phrase form is ABA

Now play Old MacDonald’s Phrase A:  C, C, C, G, A, A , GE, E, D, D, C: now repeat phrase A.

Phrase B:lower case letters are faster notes:  g, g, C,C,C, g ,g, C,C,C  c, c, C ,c, c, C, c, c, c, c, C,C : then back to Phrase A. This is a typical children’s or pop song phrase form of either phrase’s AABAor A B A.While the lyrics will be your friend simply because it doesn’t require any true music listening skills, you will improve your listening skills as this short course progresses. This may help you identify the music and not just the lyrics.

2. Harmony:Use the Harmonizer: click the blue square. Watch how the melody, by changing the harmony, can sound “happy”, sad when using minor scale harmony, creepy with certain types of chords. Play harmony viewer 1, 2, 3

3. Harmony: Click SFS and click square box Harmonizer. It plays same melody but either different scale or different chords for emotional content.

4. Then click harmony viewer and play No. 1, 2, 3

5. Now go to top of page again and find “Instrumentation” and try various combinations of the three given instruments. Some combinations sound good while others sound a bit odd or out of balance. Imagine a composer dealing with endless instrumental combinations for orchestra. Every beat and every measure is a carefully calculated adventure.  

6. Next experiment with Performalator. 

7. Compozerizeris fun to fool with

8. Next, go to top again and find Instruments of the orchestra.It gives you a few, but not nearly all, instruments as a way to hear timbre or instrumental color.

Lastly you will work on “Radio”found at top of page. There are several “stations” 1 through 6 with various beginnings of music pieces. Below is a list the pieces for your ears from “Radio”. These are extremely short excerpts of listed works.

Click the square button:

Radio station 1:Tchaikovsky, Scherzo features pizzicato or plucked strings and then find Bartok’s piece from Concerto for orchestra. This features two bassoons.

Radio station 2: Prokofiev, Dance of the Knights,: Copland, Fanfare for the Common Man, Richard Strauss, Sunrise from “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and finally one of my favorite soft and “pretty classical works, Stravinsky, Rite of Spring.

Station 3:Copland, Simple Gifts from his ballet.  Simple gifts is a religious American, Shaker, song that Copland uses and writes variations to the piece. 

Skip station 4 none

Station 5: Zoltan Kodaly (Hungarian composer) Music Box , plus,  Rimsky-Korsakov’s, Sindbad from his work, based on the story” Scheherazade”.

This is like stepping into a wading pool trying to learn to swim, but it’s a good start.