My Friend Maisy — creating a musical identity in five notes
Lead Composer — theme/title music; composer of We Can Do Anything
I was commissioned by BBC Studios Kids & Family to compose the theme/title music for My Friend Maisy, the animated series based on Lucy Cousins’ books. I later developed that musical world into the full song We Can Do Anything.
The starting point was a small one: five notes, and the sort of instruments you might find in a school playground or a toy box.
Finding the sound
I knew the Maisy books from reading them to my children. Their bright colours and playful, accessible world suggested a musical equivalent: the major pentatonic scale. It’s a five-note palette found in playground chimes and children’s musical instruments.
That gave me a way into the character of the music. I wanted a tune that felt at home in Maisy’s world, and that children could have a go at playing themselves — on bells, Boomwhackers or playground chimes with those five notes.
A small palette, a short theme
An opening theme has very little time to introduce a world. For Maisy, the challenge was to make that identity recognisable in around fifteen seconds.
I explored the idea using colour-coded push bells. Keeping the melody within five notes gave it a clear set of boundaries; the work was in finding a shape and rhythm that made those notes feel like Maisy. The finished theme grew through back-and-forth with the producers and production team. A short piece of music can contain quite a lot of decisions.
Theme/title music composed by Steve Pretty. Watch the official opening titles on YouTube.
From the theme to a full song
Developing that little theme into We Can Do Anything was an interesting challenge, and great fun. An idea made for a brief introduction now had a whole song to explore, while keeping the playful character that made it Maisy in the first place.
The same thought ran through it: a musical world rooted in the playground and the toy box, with a melody children could pick out for themselves.
Music composed by Steve Pretty. Watch the official full-song release on YouTube.
Back to the playground
When I discovered pentatonic chimes in my children’s school playground, I tried the theme on them. It brought the idea full circle: music inspired by children’s instruments could be played on them too.
In Five Notes, Maisy Mouse and a Sacred Flute, an episode of Steve Pretty On the Origin of the Pieces, I demonstrate the theme and explore how changing just two notes changes its character. It’s a practical example of how I think about a score: choosing a musical palette in response to the world on screen.
Hear the musical decisions behind the theme →
Credits
Steve Pretty: Lead Composer of the theme/title music; composer of We Can Do Anything.
Tom Haines: other music for the series.
Both videos are embedded from the official My Friend Maisy releases, on its BBC Studios channel.