Drone bass

Explore music that uses a drone bass with students.
Instruments that produce a drone:

• Bagpipe music
• Organ music that uses a pedal point
• Lute music that uses the lowest course
• Hurdy-gurdy music

Listen to:

• Row, Row, Row your Boat with a tonic-dominant drone applied
• Yankee Doodle with a drone on the banjo
• Blackbird by the Beatles
• Haydn Symphony no. 104 in the opening of the finale
• Wagner Das Rheingold in the Prelude

 

Also listen to Bach’s Musette in D major.  What do you notice?
​Compose a new middle section to this opening.  Continue the drone bass idea.