Final Project | Make Something With It

A small musical idea can connect everything you have learned.

1 · Choose a Home

Choose C major, G major, A minor or E minor. Write the tonic and the scale notes.

Say the notes aloud and play them on one string before you begin building the piece.

Write down: your key, tonic and scale notes.

2 · Choose a Progression

Pick three or four chords from the key’s basic family. Give each chord four beats. End the final repeat on the tonic.

If you choose a major V in a minor key, identify the changed note.

Copy this table into your notebook and fill in your chords and Roman numerals. If you choose three chords, you can repeat one to fill the fourth bar.

3 · Find Some Landing Notes

Write the triad notes of each chord. Choose one note to land on while each chord sounds.

You can use other scale notes between these targets, but begin by hearing the chord tones.

Write down: each chord’s notes and your chosen landing note.

4 · Make a Melody You Can Remember

Begin with a two-bar idea using three or four notes. Hum it, then find it on the guitar.

Repeat it with one change: a different ending note, rhythm or length of silence.

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Listen, Revise, Repeat

The theory helps you understand the decisions. Your ears help you make them.

5 · Change One Thing

Keep the melody and change one chord, or keep the chords and change the melody’s rhythm.

Compare the versions at the same tempo. Write what changed in the sound, not just what changed on paper.

Write down: your change and what you heard.

6 · Move It to Another Key

Label your progression with Roman numerals. Choose a second key and find the corresponding chords.

Move the melody by the same interval. If a shape is difficult, ask your teacher for a smaller voicing.

Write down: your new key and chords.

7 · Explain One Useful Discovery

Find a major or minor third, identify a triad, or explain why one note sounds settled over one chord and tense over another.

You do not need to explain every sound in the piece.

Write down: one thing you understand better now.

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Check your project

This project has many possible answers. Listen to your recording and use these questions to review your work:

• Can you hear which note and chord feel like home?
• Can you build or identify the triads in your progression?
• Can you keep a steady pulse?
• Can you repeat your melody recognisably?
• Can you make an intentional variation and hear its effect?
• Can you move the chords and melody to another key?
• Can you explain one musical relationship you discovered?

Choose what to practise next from what you can hear and do, as well as what you can name.

Teacher Check

Can the student establish a tonic, build or identify the chords, keep a pulse, repeat a phrase and make an intentional variation?

Choose the next lesson from what they can hear and do, as well as what they can name.