Modulo Classroom

A Keelie Makolay - An introduction

Welcome to Orchestras for All’s learning resources for A Keelie Makolay. These resources will help you to learn an instrument or vocal part to play or sing as part of a group performance. You can use these resources in many different ways, but we suggest you work through these resources starting with individual practice, then working in pairs, small groups and hopefully, after a few sessions practising in this way, you might be able to form a whole class band.

The learning resources include videos to show how to play the instrument parts. We have broken them down into steps to help you learn the parts and include the notation parts so you know how it looks in sheet music. This type of music is learnt by ear – so use listening, singing and copying to help you learn, as well as looking at the music.

Before you watch any videos, take a moment to get set up and ready to play. Create the most comfortable set up you can with your instrument and take a moment to check it’s working ok by playing a few notes that you know.  

The first thing we suggest is learning to sing the bassline and then the song itself which will help you play it.  We also suggest you just watch a video first before trying to join in or play the part.  

Quietly humming along to the music in the video will help you learn it, so will quietly tapping the rhythm on a table.  There is a lot of repetition in this piece so try playing without the music. See if you can play it bits of it from memory as this will help your performance in the end. You might be surprised how much of it is in your memory if you give this a try! 

At Orchestras for All we are big fans of social learning - sharing your learning journey with other students - so we suggest ways you can do this to help you make progress and enjoy your music-making.  

Ok – so. 

To get started, get set up with your instrument and choose the corresponding page to start playing!