Back in the fall of 2014, the 4th grade students learned all about making harmony in music. We learned three distinct ways of creating harmony, including an ostinato, a round, and chords. We are digging a little deeper into chords for this unit, however. The students are learning that a song with only one chord, like "Are You Sleeping" is pretty unusual! In fact, most of the songs we listen to have at least two or three chords, if not many more. Certain chords sound good at certain times, and we are beginning to learn some of the "rules" about adding chords to a song. For example, there is usually one chord, called the "home, tonic, or I chord", that begins and ends a song. However, at some point, the home chord will have to change based on the melody. The most common chord used along with a home chord is what is called an "away, dominant, or V chord". These two chords work so well together, giving a sense of tension and release when moving from the away to home chord. The home should always feel comfortable! Below are some pics of the student figuring out how to find and play the two chords, which happen to be an F and C chord for our song "A Ram Sam Sam". By next week, we will record the entire song, and you will be able to hear the difference between the home and away chords!
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