Introduction to Music
Primary 4 · Creative Arts
Introduction to Music
Lesson 3 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
Listen to a small bird singing in a tree. Now listen to a cow saying mooo in the field. Both are sounds, but they are very different. The bird's sound is high and the cow's sound is low.
Pitch tells us how high or low a sound is.
Pitch is not the same as loudness. A whistle can be high and soft. A big drum can be low and loud.
Instruments show us a pattern:
The umuduri is a Rwandan musical bow. It has one string, held by a bent wooden stick, and a gourd that makes the sound bigger. A loop of cord pulls the string towards the stick and divides it into a shorter part and a longer part. The player hits the string with a thin stick. The shorter part gives a higher note and the longer part gives a lower note, so one string makes two different notes!
When notes of different pitches come one after another, they make a melody. The melody is the tune you hum. A melody is like a sentence made of notes instead of words.
Here is the start of an old song that is free for everyone to sing, Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Each dot is one note. The higher the dot, the higher the note:
A melody can go up, go down or stay on the same note. In this tune, "Twin-kle" stays the same, then "twin-kle" jumps up, "lit-tle" steps up a little more and "star" comes back down.
Tip
Show the melody with your hand. As you sing, move your hand up when the notes go up and down when they go down. Your hand draws the shape of the melody in the air.
Try each one first, then tap Show answer to check.
Which sound has a higher pitch: a big drum or a small drum?
Answer: A small drum.
Keza plucks a long string and a short string. Which one sounds lower?
Answer: The long string.
Is a very loud sound always a high sound?
Answer: No. Loudness and pitch are different. Thunder is loud but low.
What do we call the tune of a song?
Answer: The melody.
Sing the first line of Twinkle, twinkle. On which word do you jump up?
Answer: On the second "twin-kle".
What you learned today
Sources and credits
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (words by Jane Taylor, 1806; traditional French tune) is in the public domain. The melody diagram, examples and practice questions were written by Ganzaa.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Quick check
Which of these makes a low sound?
