Hawaiʻi Aloha (aka, “The Middle School Band Melody Name Song”) was created by Jon Magnussen as a middle school music teaching tool, with the collaboration of Christopher Smith, director of bands at Kapolei Middle School. The piece achieves two goals: 1) to create a vehicle for young musicians to learn (and continue) the Hawaiʻi tradition of singing “Hawaiʻi Aloha” at the closing of any worldwide gathering of Hawaiʻi people, standing and holding hands; and 2) to introduce the centuries-old tradition of creating melodies derived from names, by associating letters of the alphabet with pitches in a scale. At the beginning of the project, students are invited to create their own melody names and play them at designated moments in the “Hawaiʻi Aloha” song. Creative decisions include which octave to place a note and the rhythmic profile of the melody. Throughout the process, students realize creative choices and improve their understanding of musical building blocks, especially pitch notation, key, meter.