Sometimes all around

A song about melodic shape

You can download the sheet music at no cost, totally free.

One of the important things about music is the melodic shape. If the sounds gets higher, lower or «turns around». We identify it instinctively, but we can train our ear to listen for the specific changes.

A professional musician can sing or play the notes of a melody after listening to it, but the process begins with identifying if the sounds change, if they get higher, lower, etc.

This song is a fun pretext to learn these musical directions. You can use it at the end of a lesson where children experience different directions.

A melody can go up, down, up and down, down and up, stay in the same sound, move by steps or by leaps. The first experience should be to discern ascending from descending:

1. Students in front of the teacher. The teacher sings an ascending glissando and the children move their hands from touching their toes to above their head.
2. The teacher does different glissandi first up and down and the children react to them.
3. Incorporate Ascending – descending first, and then inverse.
4. REMEMBER TO GIVE THEM CORRECTIONS: IT SHOWS YOU CARE
5. Improvise music for Locomotions and then when you stop play (or sing) a glissando. Observe their reaction.
6. After doing this several times (in different shapes) Sit them down and ask them:
7. «Where is this going?»
   1. Do an ascending glissando
   2. Now descending
   3. After they answer write an upwards and downwards arrow on the board
   4. Point at either and they have to sing the glissando (before writing it on the board, you could make the movement yourself and they make the sound)
8. Now you can use the song to skip or dance and create a sequence of movemnts which will help your students identify and explain an ascending or descending melody or a turn!