Created in the 70’s by Jos Wuytack as a pedagogical resource to teach children and young people to listen to classical music, representing through graphics, shapes, colors or drawings the elements that intervene in a musical work.
These can be rhythms, phrases, pulses, measures, changes, among others, the The objective is to identify each one of them. in the work without the need to know how to read a score, however it cannot be considered as a substitute for it, but rather as a complement.
If you want learn how to make them, then we are going to show you a couple of very useful ideas in which you can be inspired to create your own from scratch.
How to Make a Musicogram?
PowerPoint is a ICT resource useful for this type of presentations, as of its 2007 version we can work with them, for this reason I am going to show you how to make a musicogram in this tool; only you must follow the following instructions;
Step 1.- Create a new Power Point document
Open the program by double clicking on its icon within the Windows menu
Step 2.- Title and subtitle text boxes
then it will open the graphical interface of the program and it will show you a sheet with two text boxes; one for titles and one for subtitles
Step 3.- Give the musicogram a title
Select the text box for titles and add the one of the melody that you prefer, in this case we will use the example of a rondo called “the song of the bird”
Step 4.- Adjust the font and its size
Click on the title text to place the font and font size you prefer, for example Arial Black – score 36
Step 5.- Locate the title at the top of the screen
Drag the title text box up, so that it is located at the top of the sheet
Step 6.- Delete the remaining text box and start drawing the musicogram
Click on the remaining text box and delete it by pressing delete. to start draw the musicogram, in the toolbar select “Insert” and then click on “shapes”
Step 7.- Insert a rectangle or other shape
Next, a series of different options will appear that you can choose, as an example a simple rectangle
Step 8.- Copy and paste the shape seven times
Create the 2x5cm rectangle roughly, then copy and paste it 7 times in a straight line using ctrl+c (copy) and ctrl+v (paste)
Step 9.- Use the musical form ABACADA
The musical form of this rondo is ABACADA and each rectangle will represent a letter and is basically made up of a chorus that is repeated and different verses
Step 10.- Represent the letter A with the color yellow
The letter A will represent the chorus and you are going to represent its rectangle in yellow, so you must select the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th rectangle and fill it with this color
Step 11.- Use the “shape fill” tool to add color
To do so, select each rectangle and click on “format” then “shape fill” and click on the color, changing them to yellow
Step 12.- The violet color represents the letter B
B will be the first stanza, use violet in the second rectangle that represents “B”, to change the color repeat the procedure applied to the yellow rectangles
Step 13.- The color to identify the letter C will be green
do the same with him 4th rectangle that will represent “C” and it will be green, change the color the same way you did with the previous rectangles
Step 14.- The letter D will be represented with the color red
D is our last stanza and the 6th rectangle is who represents it, to differentiate it, use the red color applying the same method as with the previous rectangles
Step 15.- Bring the shapes (rectangles) to the center
colors ready, select the 7 rectangles and drag them to the center of the sheet, under the title
Step 16.- Use the “Audio from file” option to insert the music
Is time to add the music, to do this click on the “Insert” option on the toolbar and select “Audio” and then “Audio from file”
Step 17.- Select and accept the file to insert
Select the file in this case an mp3 named the song of the bird and click on “Accept”
Step 18.- Save the musicogram on your computer and that’s it!
By last save the presentation in “save as” and depending on your version you can do it in video format or as slides, in this way the musicogram will be ready.
How to Make a Children’s Musicogram?
In the previous section I taught you how to make them, in this section I am going to show you another idea to teach children, create it in PowerPoint or in the presentation program of your choice. As an example we will use “The Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saens.
for this musicogram you will need 7 different shapes that will represent 7 changes as the melody sounds, you can choose the forms you want for it, it is also played with 4 instruments, piano, flute, violin and glass harmonica.
Step 1.- A form must represent the violin and the piano marking their rhythm
In the program that you decide to make the musicogram, the first sheet will be composed of the violin and piano sound, the first element we find is the pulse, represent it with a shape and draw the rhythm it carries
Step 2.- The rhythm follows the shape of a wave
For example this melody makes a wave of five pulses and on the sixth it stops repeating the sequence 3 times
Step 3.- Change the rhythm by drawing another short wave
In the next slide, the rhythm changes, so you must represent it differently, being a short wave that goes down and then goes up, 2 pulses down and 3 up, it repeats 3 times and at the end it stops
Step 4.- Select another melody to represent only the piano melody
The melody changes again for what you will have just the sound of the piano, in different tones that are repeated, select another form different from the first to represent this stage
Step 5.- Repeat the process of the first steps
Then the sound of the violin and piano reappears as at the beginning so you can include again the 2 previous sheets, taking into account that in the first sheet it will no longer be 3 repetitions, but 2, the second sheet is the same
Step 6.- Re-enact the piano sound with a different rhythm
Change back to the piano sound in different tones, however this is not the same as the first, because the melody is different so you must change the shape distribution in the sheet
Step 7.- Change the order of the start wave
Then the pulses vary, they are repeated 5 times, but the sixth does not stop at the same place but above, changing the order of the beginning wave
Step 8.- Include another way to represent the sound of the harmonica
It includes different repetitions of the piano and harmonica glass, so you will need to include a shape to represent the sound of the harmonica
Step 9.- Go back to the piano sounds and include the sounds of other instruments
Change to piano sounds, which you will represent with the shape you assigned at the beginning and includes other sounds identify them with the rest of the forms
Step 10.- Add the music and the shapes you made will follow its rhythm
Can include the music after the sheets are ready, during the process or play it independently, in this way the musicogram for children will be ready.
We have reached the end of this article and I hope that this information is very useful to create your own musicogram, remember that if you want to continue enjoying this type of content you just have to keep visiting our website, and stay tuned for future publications.