In the previous lesson we composed a fanfare rhythm. In this lesson we’re going to add pitch to the rhythm so that the fanfare can start to take shape. If you want to skip back to lesson 5 in Section 1 (Fanfare Features 2: Melody) please feel free to do so.

In this lesson we’ll cover:

  1. Triad recap
  2. Question & answer
  3. Pitch direction

1. Triad recap

When listening to the pitches of a fanfare melody, it will almost certainly include the notes of a triad – these are the only notes we’re going to use. We already touched on this in the first section of the course, but to save you going back here’s a quick recap:

What is a triad?

A triad is a type of chord consisting of 3 notes (1, 3 and 5 of the scale). These three notes are a third apart when stacked together:

C major scale

Just 3 notes!

In this lesson we’re just going to use the 3 notes of the C major triad – C E G.

2. Question & answer

To compose the fanfare melody we’re going to use ‘question & answer’ phrases, or to be more technical, ‘antecedent & consequent‘. This is exactly as it says – a musical question followed by an answer!

Creating your phrase

  • Make sure you have your 1-bar rhythm from last lesson in front of you.
  • You can repeat this rhythm to create a 2-bars phrase.
  • You’re going to add pitch to this rhythm – make sure you try it out at the keyboard or other instrument.

First let’s look at an example:

2-bar question & answer example

Here are two bars which have been combined to create a phrase (the 1 bar rhythm has been repeated).

Question:

Answer:

3. Pitch direction

What happens to the pitch of your voice when you ask a question? It naturally rises at the end – try it and see!

When you’re adding pitch to your ‘question’ bar you may want it to ascend and follow that with the ‘answer’ bar pitch moving back down.

Add pitch to your rhythm

  1. Question bar: using ideas from this lesson, add pitch to your rhythm created previously. Use the notes of the C major triad (C, E, G) as a starting point. The pitch might ascend.
  2. Answer bar: now compose an answer for your question. The pitch might descend.

You should now have a 2-bar phrase (question + answer).

How did you get on? Hopefully you now have a 2-bar melody which we can develop into a longer fanfare over the next couple of lessons…

Let’s Go!

Click the MARK COMPLETE button below and move on to the next lesson.