Rocky Mountain: Perfect for Pentatonic

In the last blog post (catch-up here), we talked about teaching more complex rhythms: ti-tika and tika-ti. And before that, I’ve written a few blog posts about more teaching more complex rhythms. I feel like it’s now time to look at solfa again – YAY SOLFA!

Whether you’re a classroom teacher, visiting music teacher or 1:1 instrumental teacher, this blog will give you tips and ideas for experiencing voice types in a Kodály inspired way.

This is an excerpt from my Solfa from Scratch Course which is available to all Doremi members (try it for 14 days for £1 here). Not only is it great for musicians who want to improve their own musicianship, but it’s great for ideas to teach Kodály musicianship to our students!

We’ll be using this song to:

Practice the rhythms ta, titi and ta rest
Practice do, mi, so and la
Discover a new note! Re

Introduce Rocky Mountain and the Actions

Listen to my song:

It has some actions. Here they are:

Once you’ve listened to the full song and had a go at the actions, try singing it phrase by phrase. Pause the above recording after each phrase so you can sing it back.

Play the recording as many times as you’d like to. Try out the actions and then them along with the recording.

And then… sing it one more time!

This is plenty as a first step to introduce it to your students. Once they’ve really memorised the song and actions, move onto the next step.

Next Step: Recap and Ostinato

In the next lesson, recap the song and add something to make it more complex and keep them focused:

Do you remember this song?

Shall we sing it together? (all sing it together)

Let’s do it with the actions. (all sing again with the actions)

Now let’s sing it again but with an ostinato:

Say and clap this rhythm:

Titi ta titi ta

Let’s keep the clapping ostinato going while we sing Rocky Mountain.

Practice this a few times with your students before going on to the next step.

Solfa Time!

Here’s the rhythm of Rocky Mountain:

Let’s sing the rhythm names:

titi titi titi titi titi titi titi ta (sh)

p.s. I’ve written (sh) to show where the rest is but you might prefer to be silent on the rests since really there are no sounds on the beat if there’s a rest.

There are some question marks on my picture above… what do you think the pitch of the last note and first notes are? (at this point our students aren’t likely to know and it gives us another opportunity to repeat the song so they can listen)

Let’s sing it again (with rhythms)

(Sings) Finished here and started here. (sing this to highlight that the first and last note are the same).

They’re both do!

What do you think the last note of the first phrase is?

Let’s sing it again (with rhythms)

Sing it again but pause at the end of the first phrase this time. If they need a hint, sing the triad from do on a “lu” sound.

It’s so!

If this is the last note of the first phrase, what the first note of the second phrase?

Is it higher or lower than so?

Higher!

What is it? (la)

At this point our student will have identified:

do so la

They’ll be in a great position to fill in the gaps, which leads me onto…

Three for one: Repeating Bars

We have some repeating bars, so I’ve colour coded them to show the repeats. Let’s work out the solfa for the yellow bars. We only have to work out the solfa for one bar and we get two for free!

Sing it in a “lu” sound so you don’t need to think about rhythm names.

Sing it again with the do at the beginning and the so at the end, see if you can work out the rest of the solfa for one of those bars.

How many dos at the beginning? (3)

Followed by…. mi!

So:

Do do do mi do do do mi

do do do mi so

Now the next phrase…

It starts on la.

Let’s point the shape of the pitch by pointing in the air.

What do you notice? (it’s going down)

Are there any repeating notes?

So what do you think it is?

La so mi do

Let’s sing all of the first phrase, the green bars and then I’ll ask you what you think the first note of the purple bar is.

(teacher sings up to the first note of the purple bar)

What do you think it is?

New Note: Re

How many different pitches are there in the purple section?

(Teacher repeats the purple section)

So we have three pitches, it starts on mi and finishes on do! So we need a new pitch!

Which titi is the new note on?

(the second titi)

We’re not going to name the new note yet, we’ll try to describe it first…

What can you tell me about the new note?

Let’s compare it to mi…

Is it higher or lower than mi?

(Lower than mi)

Let’s compare it to do…

Is it higher or lower than do?

(Higher than do)

So it’s between mi an do.. It’s a step in between mi and do.

Here is its name and the handsign:

Let’s sing the whole thing in solfa:

Do do do mi Do do do mi

Do do do mi so

La so mi do la so mi do

mi mi re re do

Fantastic!

I say Ostinato, you say Ostinato...

Let’s sing the purple section as an ostinato:

Mi mi re re do

Try this out by singing the ostinato along to the Rocky Mountain recording above.

Are there any parts of the song where you can hear the purple section again?

I heard it again at the end!

Let’s look at the section I’ve coloured in blue, can year hear re?

If your students aren’t sure, repeat the ostinato activity.

Let compare it to

mi mi re re do

Sing the blue section again.

Nope! I can’t hear re.

Let’s see if we can work it out…. Sing again. Which way are the notes going? (higher)

Any repeated notes? (no)

So it’s going higher, there are no repeated notes… it must be:

Do mi so la

The last piece of the puzzle!

Let’s look at the red section and sing it on “lu”:

Can you hear re there?

Listen to mi mi re re do again… (teacher sings)

Then the red section… (teacher sings)

Can you hear re?

It finishes on re! And there’s a sneaky one in the bar before.

Let’s trying singing the whole thing again.

Here’s the notation with the solfa:

Pentatonic Perfection

As you can see, this song is really great because it has the all of the solfa of the pentatonic scale.

What do we do next? Celebrate with your students that they now know the pentatonic scale in solfa! It IS an exciting milestone!

Your students will be able to sing the pentatonic scale with you and you’ll be able to continue to practice this over the next few weeks. You might want to add high do to complete the scale.

As well as singing more songs that use the pentatonic scale, DEFINITELY sing echoes with your students to practice the pentatonic scale:

First sing the solfa in strings of three notes, then increase to strings of four notes, then five.

You can represent the steps and skips in the pentatonic scale on a tone ladder and then it’s a small step to introducing the steps and skips on the stave.

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 pentatonic scale 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?