Building a Major Scale

Summary

Mix and match activities to create a fun lesson in which students will learn to build a major scale using the tone and half tone pattern. Integrate solfeg.io in teaching to recognize scales in songs.

🎲 What's included in the activities:

• Recognizing a scale and its characteristics.
• Understanding what a tone and a half tone is;
• Building the major scale from C, D & G;
• Finding parts of major scales in a song;
• Finding accidentals in a song;
• Reflecting
• Ideas for homework & further lessons (Beyond the lesson)

💻 Materials:

• Solfeg.io web app best used with Chrome browser
• Projector or computer and access to Wi-Fi
• Piano or keyboard

Scales

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand what a scale is;
• Recognize a scale and its characteristics.

🎲 Activity:

• Determine your student's knowledge base by asking the group:

What is a musical scale?

How does it sound?

Where do you hear scales?

• Then play a scale on your instrument of choice. Ask students if they can identify how many notes they can hear, if it sounds happy or sad and how the notes are moving (in a stepwise motion).

Build the C major scale

🕐 Time: 7 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand what a tone and a half tone is;
• Learn the tone-half tone pattern of a major scale;
• Build the major scale from C;
• Play the C major scale on the piano/keyboard.

🎲 Activity:

• Explain to students that in order to build a major scale, we need to follow the pattern tone-tone-half tone-tone-tone-tone-half tone. Write this pattern on your whiteboard.
• Under the first tone, write C and have students find middle C on the piano. Explain to students that a tone means we are counting our middle C, and then moving two keys up, black and white keys included. This should bring them to D.
• Repeat this process to bring students from D to E. Then for the half tone, explain that we are starting on E but we are only going to move one black or white key up to get our next note since it’s the half tone.
• Repeat this process to build your entire scale. Then have students play the C major scale!

C the scale in songs

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Find parts of the C major scale in a song;
• Understand the function of scales in music.

🎶 Recommended Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Open one of the suggested songs.
• Listen to a part of the song and follow the notation.
• Compare the melody of the song to the C major scale students wrote down in the previous exercise.
• Ask students to find parts of the C major scale (motives where notes are moving in a stepwise motion upwards or downwards).
• Sing the found motives (or play on the keyboard).

Build the D major scale

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Build the D major scale using the tone-half tone pattern.

🎲 Activity:

• Now that students have had the chance to work with the teacher on the C major scale, put students in pairs and using whiteboards and markers, have them work on building a major scale starting on D.
• Remind them to look at the tone and half tone pattern on the board to help them. Walk around the room and make sure students are successful in their scale. Have them share and record the scale on the board.

Find the D major scale

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Find parts of the D major scale in a song;
• Understand the function of scales in music.

🎶 Recommended Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Open one of the suggested songs.
• Listen to a part of the song and follow the notation.
• Compare the melody of the song to the D major scale students wrote down in the previous exercise.
• Ask students to find parts of the D major scale (motives where notes are moving in a stepwise motion upwards or downwards).
• Sing the found motives (or play on the keyboard).

Explore further

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Experiment with accidentals in a scale;
• Find accidentals in a song;
• Reflect on the role of accidentals in a song.

🎶 Recommended Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Practice playing/singing the D major scale students wrote down in the previous exercise.
• Experiment by making one or two notes in a scale sharp/flat/neutral and see how it changes the scale.
• Open the suggested song and play the chorus.
• Ask the class to spot the accidentals in the vocal part of the chorus.
• Play the D major scale with the accidentals that students spotted in the song.
• Reflect on the created scale. How does it sound? What is the difference between the original D major scale?

The G major scale

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Build the G major scale;
• Practice playing and singing a part of a song.

🎶 Recommended Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Before students look at a chosen song, have them create the G major scale on their whiteboards. Then play a part of the song and have students identify where they can see the G major scale in the melody.
• This will help students as they are practicing the chorus! Play the chorus and point out the student's improvement!

Reflection

🕐 Time: 5 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Consolidate the knowledge on the structure of the major scale.

🎲 Activity:

• Select students to answer the following questions:

Did your playing improve because you knew the scale?

Could you try this on your own starting on another note?

How do we incorporate sharps and flats into major scales?

Quiz

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Test students' knowledge on the major scale;
• Recap the topics, as needed for each individual student.

🎲 Activity:

• Give the quiz “Building the D Major Scale” and/or “Building the G Major Scale” to students as an individual activity at the end of the lesson or as homework.