MUSIC
THEORY
FOUNDATIONS
MUSIC
THEORY
FOUNDATIONS
THEORY
FOUNDATIONS
Halloween Music Theory
October is has arrived and here at music theory foundations this is our favourite month of the year! The leaves start falling, there's a fresh chill in the air and we start to see the most beautiful array of colours everywhere we go! But most importantly we can now start thinking about all things spooky with Halloween just around the corner.
Here at Music Theory Foundations we are passionate about making music theory accessible to all learners. Music theory should be fun and feel relevant! So what better way to make it fun than link our learning to the spookiest month of the year?
Here are some of our favourite ideas to get spooky in your music theory lessons!
1. One of the best ways to introduce some spookiness into your lessons is to listen to some somber and scary music. Whilst listening, make note of what musical features are used to make these pieces scary. This can involve thinking about the pulse, dynamics, articulations and the key! Talk about instruments of orchestra and how they are used to play this Halloween music. Some great pieces to use are:
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In the Hall of the Mountain King
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Monster Mash
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Night on Bald Mountain
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This is Halloween
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Thriller
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Danse Macabre – for this one there is a very cool animated cartoon of this piece to demonstrate it's spooky qualities. Tritone tuning on the violin – the piece tells the story of death calling the dead from their graves to dance at Halloween.
2. Use spooky Halloween worksheets – there are many amazing sheets you can find on the internet but we here at music theory foundations we have some great ones that explore intervals, note reading and scales.
Click on the image to download Pumpkin Intervals - Level 2
Practise your intervals with the 'Pumpkin Intervals' worksheets. They come in 4 levels that increase in difficulty, moving from intervals within the octave all the way up to compound intervals (Grade 5 level).
3. Clap and copy rhythms from these famous songs. See if you can write out these pieces and rhythms on manuscript.
4. Using ideas from the piece you can compose some spooky Halloween pieces. Discuss with your student how they might write a spooky piece of music. What key might they use? What note lengths? Do you know any descriptive words you could apply to the music?
5. Why not try using Halloween poems or songs and put a rhythm to the words?
6. Matching games – cutting out pictures of pumpkins (or anything else!) and writing different rhythms on them. Match them up!
Author: Jade Bultitude
Jade is an experienced musician and teacher as well as being the founder of Music Theory Foundations.
She has been helping people learn music theory for more than 10 years from pre school children all the way to degree level studies.
Get Your Free Revision Guide for Grade 5 Music Theory!
Lay your foundations for Grade 5 Music Theory with this summary of each topic.
Get Your Free Revision Guide for Grade 5 Music Theory!
Lay your foundations for Grade 5 Music Theory with this summary of each topic.
MUSIC
THEORY
FOUNDATIONS
