This Music video introduces teachers to strategies for helping pupils compose contrasting melodies using the pentatonic scale. It explores how children create music to represent different parts of the dragon dance story, encouraging them to make thoughtful musical choices that reflect contrasting moods, actions and emotions.

The video supports teachers in guiding pupils through the composition process by focusing on experimentation, collaboration and refinement. It explains how children begin with a simple melody for the sleeping dragon before improving it through changes to rhythm, note length and spacing. Teachers are also introduced to ways of extending pupils’ compositions by adding chords, drones or percussion, while encouraging children to listen carefully to one another and develop ideas together.

The content also explores how questioning can encourage pupils to make their own compositional decisions rather than following fixed answers. By comparing contrasting musical sections, sharing ideas and refining performances, teachers gain practical strategies for helping children compose expressive music that prepares them for the final dragon dance soundtrack.

This video is part of Kapow Primary’s Music videos, which support teachers in developing confidence and subject knowledge when helping children explore musical concepts, perform with accuracy and creativity and deepen their understanding of how music can be written, shared and performed.

See more of our Key Stage 2 scheme of work.

• Music, Year 4, Sounds of China: Scales and structure.
• Music, Year 4, Sounds of China: Scales and structure, Lesson 3: Composing pentatonic melodies.