Music Technology Retrograde Lesson
(continued from Lesson 003)

  To Print this Lesson, open the 60 KB file and print the PDF (Opens in a new window).
This is an easy elementary school lesson to begin teaching computer music notation and form.

Retrograde Lesson
Retrograde = backward, i.e. beginning with the last note and ending with the first. The device is found in canons (some as early as the 14th and 15th centuries) and is central to twelve-tone music.

Listen to the Midi Version of the Retrograde Composition

We will write this piece as a group and perform the piece with all of our computers at the same time. This will add variety to the instruments selected by each student. Students will also learn to use the shortcut commands for Music Time Deluxe.

Students will use the shortcut keys learned to play 8 quarter notes and 4 half notes on the first staff. On the second staff, the students will copy the music from the first staff backwards. Students will learn to add measure numbers, delete any extra measures, and to save the music. Then the students will select instruments and perform the song together. Lessons copyright www.musictechteacher.com.

The Retrograde lesson is a lot of fun for the students. They like to choose their own songs for the music and to play the songs together. After they have learned the musical and technical concepts, they can make their songs much longer and experiment with further development of their songs.

As of 2004, we are using Sibelius software to do the lesson above and other composition projects.