Lavender’s Blue
We’re going to explore an English folk song and use it to help our students discover a new note.
Pentatonic Warm-up
Let’s just sing up and down the pentatonic scale:
Next, sing the intervals and describe them as you sing. Here they are labelled:
Note that when we go up a step, it’s a 2nd, two steps is a 3rd. So we’re counting the fence posts, not the fence panels.
We’re also jumping from a major 3rd to a perfect 5th. That’s because have a mystery note to discover later!
As a challenge, sing it the pentatonic scale descending too. Remember to change the names of the intervals – I have written them out on the right of the picture above.
To help do the intervals backwards, notice that if you add up the numbers on the left to the numbers on the right, it adds up to 9.
Keep singing through the intervals and describe the intervals as you sing.
I think do to mi is the hardest interval to sing. Once you get to mi, you then have it in your inner hearing for the do-re.
Lovely! Looking forward to singing the folk song next!
Lavender’s Blue
Here is a traditional English folk song. I don’t have an origin for it because it’s so old it’s not easy to find the date it was first discovered or heard. It’s Roud Folk Song Index 3483 and it goes like this:
Do you know that one?!
Here are the lyrics; let’s sing it together.
There’s something interesting about this song… any ideas?
It’s in triple metre!
So you can waltz to it, or if you prefer you can do triple metre body percussion:
Clap click click
Or you could pat your knees instead:
Clap pat pat
Play the recording above or sing it again while clapping or patting a triple metre pattern.
Identifying Intervals
Let’s think about intervals again and sing up the pentatonic scale:
Now look at the blue text, “Lavender’s Blue” below. What do you think the interval is?
Do – So! A perfect 5th!
What about the green text, Lavender’s Green? What’s the interval?
Do – la! Which is a major 6th
Presenting fa
Let’s sing it from the notation below. I’ve blocked out some tricky bits! Just rest in those parts.
Next sing it with the triple metre clapping/patting pattern.
Let’s sing it in solfa. We haven’t worked out the solfa for “you shall be”, so we’ll sing it on a lu for now. Rest where I’ve written “Z”
Do so so so Z Z
Do la la la Z Z
Do so so so Z Z
Lu lu lu do
What do we think is happening on the three crotchets at “you shall be”?
They’re going down.
So we have our pentatonic scale at the side of the picture.
How many pitches do we need?
Three
Which three?
Let’s sing it again and have a think…
Are all of those mystery notes different?
Yes
Are they the same as so or do?
No
So we need three notes, descending, between so and do, but not so or do… have we got them in the pentatonic scale?
No! We need a new note!!
And our new note is called fa.
Let’s sing it through again with the solfa for the mystery part, “you shall be”:
Do so so so Z Z
Do la la la Z Z
Do so so so Z Z
Fa mi re do
Solmization
Next, we’ll work out what is under the other two pink boxes:
Let’s sing the words and see how many sounds we need to fill.
So we need to fill:
Dilly dilly
We have four sounds to fill.
Let’s sing with the solfa and “lu” on the mystery notes.
Do so so so
Lu lu lu lu
Do la la la
Do so so so
Lu lu lu lu
Fa mi re do
Which way do the dilly dilly notes go?
Down, descending from so
Have we got another so?
No, so we’re going down straight away.
Fa mi re do
Does dilly dilly end on do?
Yes. And we have another do in the next bar.
What about the other dilly dilly?
It’s the same!
Hooray! Let’s sing the solfa of the whole song:
Do so so so fa mi re do
Do la la la
Do so so so fa mi re do
Fa mi re do
Tips for teaching this to your students
So if we’re using this song to discover fa, did you see that the last fa mi re was a lot nicer to find? It fits in the gap nicely, whereas the dilly dilly “fa mi re do” is harder because it’s faster and we have another “do” in the next bar. Identifying the last “fa mi re do” is a better stepping stone.
It’s a lovely song, so simple and I love a good fa! We’ve been singing the pentatonic scale for so long, when the fa comes along it sounds beautiful.
Want more advice and ideas?
If you found this blog useful. Please comment below if you did or if there is anything you would like to say to me about it. If you’d like to find out more about teaching your students the fa and much more, including over a year’s worth of lesson plans for teaching all the important musical skills with Helen’s clear microsteps, why not try out Doremi Membership for 14 days for just £1?
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