Adding Chords to a Melody

Adding chords to a given melody is a great type of creative work to learn keyboard among beginner piano students. In supplying an accompaniment to a given melody, the student first studies the melody thoroughly until it can be played fluently, and until the child can think the tones away from the keyboard. Then he experiments at the piano with the I and V7 chords until an acceptable accompaniment is evolved. Each child decides for himself the way he thinks the chords may best be used. Then, the student plays his arrangements to the piano teacher and comes to an agreement as to the most effective accompaniment. That may be transcribed to his composition book.

Another creative project might be to have the student complete an unfinished composition. This gives him the opportunity to make up some music. Give the student the first half of a little song, and have him finish it. First have him complete the melody. The part which is given is like a musical question, and the student completes the answer. Then he must complete the accompaniment with chords which sound well with his part of the melody. When it is all done, it will be fun to sing and play some pieces which he has helped to compose.

His attention should be called to the balance and proportion of the two phrases. He should observe the feeling of "question" in the first phrase and of "answer" in the second. Children enjoy the game of musical "question and answer" in which the child or teacher invents the question and the other invents the answer.

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How to Teach Song

In teaching a rote song, it helps to familiarize the children with the song as a whole before asking them to imitate the pattern sung for them by the teacher. While listening to the song as sung, it is best that each child has his book open and follows the music and words as he hears them. This helps in the development of his grasp of musical notation.

After the child has received a general impression of the song as a whole, the teacher sings the first phrase the the child imitates. The phrase corresponds to a line of text. If some portion of the phrase is not imitated correctly, the teacher repeats the phrase a a whole or repeats the figure in which the inaccuracy occurred, until the student responds correctly. The second phrase is learned in the same way. Then the two phrases are presented together and imitated. If the song is longer, the remaining phrases are taught in the same manner, first a phrase at a time and then combined in accordance with their structural relationship in the song.

After all the phrases have been taught and combined into sections, the teacher and the student sing the whole stanza. This process helps young students learn to hear music phrasing and notation.

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