I teach junior school kids. I try to get them through he Trinity Gr1 syllabus in their first year even though they won't be doing the exam.

I think it's a very nice syllabus, but one of the last questions is "Ostinato". That's it! Without any explanation of what is needed and that for 10 marks! I can't think what you could posibly expect a small child to do with that! Explaining for 10 marks seems unlikely and it's too difficult for them to expect them to write a melody against an ostinato!

Now I could probably have a look at the workbook (which I think is extremely expensive! But that's a topic for another day!). Our local music shop is a bit painful to go to and I avoid it as long as I can!

Can anyone help me with this?

I've just had a look at the G1 sample paper and it seems they are given a two bars of a one-bar ostinato and have to write two more repeats of it. So that's copy out the two bars that are written in to the space...

New-style sample papers: http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/site/?id=1256
New-style and old-style actual 2007 papers: http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/site/?id=1283

From the workbook -"an ostinato is a pattern of notes that repeats over and over again in a piece. The pattern can be short or long......" There are then two examples of questions: 1. Look at the following ostanati and bracket each repeat of the pattern. 2. here are some ostinati. Write two more repeats of each pattern.

not as difficult as you were imagining!

Thanks! It's that simple? Now I can tell my HOD adn sound all clever!