More Maestro the Dog Stories Level: Key Stage 1 - Creative music

Sad and Happy Music (pitch, rhythm & links with literacy)

This is an activity for groups, pairs or individuals, again using a piano, keyboards or iPads.

Sad Music

First the children make up some 'sad feelings' words using this a template:

• Feeling ... feeling ...
• Feeling ... feeling ...

The words chosen by Jack and Nathan rhymed too!

• Feeling sorry, feeling sad
• Feeling lonely, feeling bad

I asked them to choose notes from this set: A, C, D, E and to play slowly to create sad music. It's a good idea to tell the children that they don't have to use all the notes and that the notes don't need to go up and down in order.

Jack and Nathan experimented with different ways of playing and this was the version they liked best, played on the school piano. Jack played C, D and E and Nathan played the A, which we thought sounded good as the last note.

Happy Music (also uses pentatonic)

For Happy Music, I helped the children to make up a happy rhyme about Maestro the Dog. We thought of some rhyming words first. The notes to choose from this time are any of these: C, D, E, G, A which is a pentatonic (five note) scale.

The notes can be played in any order and the children don't need to use all of them. I asked them to use some repeated notes (hear them at the end) and to play quickly to make the music sound happy. This Happy Music was made up by Ava and Sophia.

• Happy happy, happy day
• Maestro Dog is here to stay

Tip

The examples here are by six years olds who have done this sort of work before. When you first start children off making up tunes to words, it's a good idea to restrict how many notes they can play by giving them just two chime bars (eg A and C) - limiting the choice generally produces better work at first.