Musicianship Roadmap - Doremi Connect

Beginner

♫ ♩ Solfa from Scratch

Learn the basics of Kodály musicianship to get your heart singing and your brain pumping.

sing in tune
sing from music notation without needing an instrument to help
co-ordinate your mind and body to explore beat and rhythm
improve your skills for teaching music
develop your inner hearing in order to succeed in a choir or ensemble
understand the building blocks of melody and harmony

♫ ♩ Tsuki - Japanese Folk Song

Learn this beautiful Japanese song and complete the lessons to develop your musicianship skills.

This course is included in the Solfa from Scratch course.

♫ ♩ Major Pentatonic

Practise your do pentatonic scales and intervals with these short exercises

♫ ♩ Hi Lo Chikalo - Clapping Game

A fun clapping game that we will use as a rhythm dictation and to discover something new about solfa!

More Rhythms

♫ ♩ Down The Road - Cup Game

Helen created this cup game as an alternative to the classroom game.

Get stuck into this course to practise your solfa and discover something new about rhythm.

Course also includes the song On the Farmer’s Apple Tree.

♫ ♩ Bom Makaleli - Kittitian Singing Game

Using this children’s singing game from St Kitts in the West Indies, Helen explores some more of our intermediate rhythms.

♫ ♩ Step Back Baby - African American

This African American singing game is perfect for older beginners to practise la so mi and for more advanced students to expand and consolidate semiquaver (tikatika) combinations.

Diatonic Tonesets

♫ ♩ Lavender's Blue - English Folk Song

A beautiful English folk song with a range suitable for all ages. Perfect for presenting or practising fa and triple metre. Also includes pentatonic interval practice.

♫ ♩ I'm Bound Away - Sea Shanty

A satisfying sea shanty for practising fa and presenting or practising a new rhythm tam-ti. Otherwise known as tai-ti, or dotted crotchet and quaver or dotted quarter note and eighth note.

New Tonalities

♫ ♩ Triads and Tonalities

Introducing the concept of major and minor triads along with some beautiful exercises and folk melodies.

Songs included in this course are Bells in the Steeple, Kardos Canon and a Tatar Folk Melody.

♫ ♩ Hullabaloo Belay - UK Folk Song

A beautiful folk song, believed to be from the UK

The course also includes the song Chickamey Craney Crow.

♫ ♩ Old House - American Folk Song

Musicianship activities based on this American folk song

Major and Minor Diatonic

♫ ♩ Sweet Nightingale - English Folk Song

Two beautiful English folk songs to practise rhythmic and melodic dictation, plus harmonisation with the primary functions tonic, dominant and subdominant.

This course also includes the song Sheep Shearing.

♫ ♩ Ravenscroft Canon - English Canon

Developing our inner hearing and co-ordination with this 17th Century English canon.

Then exploring transformations into the natural, harmonic and melodic minors.

Other songs included in this course are the folk song Ah, Poor Bird, What is a Shooting Star by They Might Be Giants and another secret pop song!

♫ ♩ Rabbit Run - Kentucky, USA

This call and response song from Kentucky, USA uses the do pentachord and contains the syncopated rhythm ti ta ti or syncopa.

This course also includes an exploration of all seven pentachords, the building blocks of the modes. As always, challenge by choice with easier and very hard options.

Introducing Harmony

♫ ♩ Harmony A - Tonic and Dominant

Get started on your adventure in harmony by discovering the tonic and dominant.

A hybrid of personal musicianship practice and teaching tips as I explain what and why we are doing each activity and demonstrate how to introduce harmony to your students.

Assuming a starting point of a knowledge of the pentatonic scale. This course also covers the introduction of fa and the do pentachord using folk, classical and pop examples.

♫ ♩ Harmony B - Subdominant

Using folk, pop and classical examples this course expands our harmony functions from tonic and dominant to include subdominant.

This course also covers the semitones found in the do pentachord and a look at simple key signatures.

If you are new to harmony through solfa, it’s worth completing Harmony A first. Although the key points are reviewed here too.

♫ ♩ Harmony C - 12 Bar Blues

Develop your skills using the tonic, dominant and subdominant with these fun 12 Bar Blues activities.

Starting with basslines and progressing into chords, this is the most fun way to approach harmony.

Covering pop theory, different variations and comping patterns and improvisation.

As usual we’ll be singing, but if you have a piano, another instrument or even a piano app then you might want to have it ready. Not essential but you might not be able to resist!

Modes

♫ ♩ Modes A: Autumn Leaves Are Falling

The first course in Anne’s series on modes. What will the Mystery Mode be?

Songs also covered are Rise Up O Flame, Benedictus, She Moved Through The Fair.

♫ ♩ Modes B: The Lily Has a Smooth Stalk

Anne recaps last session’s mixolydian mode and smoothly transitions to the next mode.

Other songs included are a Manx Lullaby and Gregorian chant.

More Advanced

♫ ♩ Musicianship Workshops

The library of recordings from Anne, Helen and Hannah’s musicianship webinars. Take a famous piece of classical, folk or pop music and run through some fun practical musicianship activities for all abilities. From very easy to very hard. Pieces include Smetana’s Vltava from Ma Vlast, Bizet’s Carmen, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca, Bartók’s Romanian Folk dances, Kabalevsky’s Clowns, Ravel’s Boléro and the Wellerman. Plus a few pop ditties too!

♫ ♩ Solfa Scales

The library of recordings from Rebecca’s solfa scales and dictation sessions. Including themed sessions based on pop tunes from ABBA, David Bowie and more. Dip in and out as you please to add some company to your practice.