Monday 11 July 2011

Notable

Here's another layout in my series of what the kids can do that I can't. And we're up to orange in Colour! Or is it Color? by Nic Howard at Big Picture Classes.


Since she was very young music was a language that Sophie-Lee could understand. She can compose music in the same way that her dad can take photos and her mum can scrapbook. Music seems to run in her blood.
Sophie-Lee doodles on the keyboard and random pleasing music is the result.
Not only that but Sophie-Lee has perfect pitch - something that has come in handy on more than one occasion.

One day, not long ago, Sophie-Lee asked, "What's this tune?" and sung it to me. 
You know... DunnaLA dunnaLA dunnaLAla.  DunnaLA dunnaLA dunnaLAla. (Can you can hear the tune in your head?)

How on earth do you work out what a song is that you have in your head (and half the time can't even sing it out loud in any recognisable way?!)

Well I started with Google. 
I searched the most popular classical music that people know and came across a site that had samples of the top 100 classical music pieces. To help out it has keywords like: powerful; rousing; scary; wedding; horses; lively; and more.
I decided the tune that we were looking for was lively so I listened through all the lively tunes. 
Nope.
Then I listened through all the rousing tunes.
Nothing.
Then the light tunes...
You get the picture.
I ended up listening to all 100 samples just in case my idea of a suitable keyword was different to the creators of the list.
That took quite some time.

Then Sophie-Lee comes out of her room and announces "Found it!
Mozart Symphony 40 in G min"
(If you want to listen to it you can find it here - it's the first movement)

How did she find it?
She played it on the piano, worked out it was in G minor and looked up G minor works.
Ta da. (Gotta love Google)

I said, "What if you played it in the wrong key?"
Soph said "I don't do that!" 

True story! And an example of how perfect pitch can come in handy.

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