In China dragons are believed to bring good luck, so at New Year and on other special occasions a Dragon Dance is performed. This involves a big paper dragon puppet supported on poles by performers who do an acrobatic dance. The music often consists of only drums and cymbals playing repeated patterns to accompany the movement of the dragon. Sometimes it will also have a melody or tune.
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Here are some links to Dragon Dance videos:
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We can make our own Dragon Dance music using the Chrome music lab song-maker:
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Step 1
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Open Song Maker
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Step 2
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In order to make our music sound Chinese, we need to use a pentatonic scale. Open the settings (bottom right) and change major scale to pentatonic scale.
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For more Pentatonic melodies, go to the Dragon Dance page!
Step 3
We can now make our own dragon dance.
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Click on one square in each column, this will add a sound. Then, go back and delete two or three notes. Now click on play to hear what it sounds like.
To make it sound even more authentic we can add some harmony. This is when two or more notes sound at the same time. To do this, wherever you can, put a second note underneath your first one leaving two blank spaces between. This gives you two notes a 4th apart, which adds to the Chinese sound. The gap between two notes is called an interval.
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Click the picture below to hear my Dragon Dance:
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Mr P's Dragon Dance
On my dragon dance I added a percussion part to give it more flavour and a thicker texture. I chose the woodblock sound but there are other percussion sounds you can choose.
The percussion part is a repeating pattern.
Try experimenting with different sounds or make your piece longer by adding some bars (increase the length) in the settings. You can also change the tempo to see what your piece sounds like faster or slower.
You can send your piece to me if you want by clicking on save, copying the link and emailing it to me here musicacademynotts@gmail.com.
Have fun,
Mr P
