More Maestro the Dog Stories Level: Early Grades - Creative music

Maestro Dog Can Hear Me Play (rhythm, pitch)

In supervised pairs or individually, using a keyboard or piano, the children can do what Hannah did - play on one black key, one note per word, as they say:

• Maestro Dog can hear me play
• My tune has one note today

First the children play this with their right hand, then they play it with their left hand.

Next they play on two black keys, in any order. First they play on high pitched notes, then they play it on low pitched notes. Remember that children need help with identifying high and low pitch, as opposed to high and low dynamics (volume). It's not obvious on the piano because all of the keyboard looks the same!

• Maestro Dog can hear me play
• My tune has two notes today

Copy clap

The teacher or adult helper says and claps each of these phrases four times: Maestro Dog then Cheeky Monkey, and the children copy:

Making Up a Dog and Monkey Tune (rhythm, pitch)

When the children can clap the rhythms, they can experiment with playing them. It's better to use two chime bars, bigger chime bar D and slightly smaller chime bar F. for this activity instead of keyboards, otherwise children tend to play all the keyboard notes, one by one, and the result isn't singable. I suggest D and F because the notes make an easy pair for children to sing in tune.

The children make up a tune by choosing in which order they play notes D and F as they imitate the rhythm of the words, Mae-stro Dog and Chee-ky Mon-key. They can choose whether to say or sing the words as they play. Recording each child's attempt on your phone is quick and easy, children love to listen to themselves play, and it gives you evidence for your records if you need it.

Here's Robert's tune and, below it, Stephanie's tune, played on a big xylophone, which are much easier for small children to play than little xylophones. The bars near D and F had been removed so that the children could more easily hit the right ones! I had to teach the children first to bounce the beater right off the bar, otherwise the sound is dull.

All Maestro the Music Dog materials ©Music-Playtime: Arts Enterprise Limited