Quite little children will take pleasure in completing a musical phrase of which the first few bars have been given them. The procedure will be as follows:
1. The teacher writes two bars in C major, [2/4] time, on the blackboard.
2. The class sings it through twice, first using the Sol-fa names for the notes, then singing to lah.
3. Volunteers are then asked for to complete the phrase by adding another two bars. The more musical children in the class will at once respond, and their efforts will stir the ambition of the others. It will soon be a question of taking the children in turn, a few at each lesson—so eager will they be to 'express themselves' in melody.
It is important not to be too critical of these early efforts. The great thing is to get the children un-self-conscious—variety of melodic outline and of rhythm will follow quickly enough.
The next step will be for two children in the class to extemporize the whole phrase between them, one taking the first two bars and the other the last two. The key and time should be varied as much as possible—keys a fourth or fifth apart should be used in succession, or the children will assume that any melody can be sung by them in any key, which is obviously not the case. A melody sung in C major, which uses middle C and high F, cannot be sung in the key of G major with the child voice.
The class will now find it quite easy to extemporize the whole of a four-bar phrase. Suggestions can be made by the teacher, such as:
'Begin on the third beat of the bar.'
'Introduce two triplets in the course of the phrase,' and so on.
When this becomes easy to them they will be ready to begin eight-bar melodies. At first the teacher will give the first four bars, and different members of the class will finish the tune. Modulations should now be introduced. The same procedure as before should be followed, until any child in the class can give the whole of a tune, in any given key and time, and with a given modulation.