Recorder Ensemble - "Ode to Joy" - 1st line (practice speed)

Recorder Ensemble Cats -- here's the first line of Ode to Joy for you to practice along with.

Ms. Hong's Class - "Come Let Us Gather"

Hi there Ms. Hong's class -- here's a video to help us with our little side project. I hope you will find it useful.

Ensembles Perform at Culture Day!

We had a enough of a break in this weather for Culture Day to come off beautifully. Congratulations to Frances Okwu and all the teachers, parents and kids that made the day such a fun event. The ensembles contributed three songs to the performance, excerpts of which can be seen in the video above. Thanks to Aiden's mom for providing us with some nice video from her I phone. Good job everyone!

Third Grade Week 8 - Drones, Parallels and Arranging Music

This week in Third Grade Music we looked at ways to take a simple piece, like "Tune of the Buffens," which the ensemble will be performing at Culture Day, and extended by using different variations. In this case focused primarily of accompanying the melody with a drone and playing in parallel thirds (easier to see on the xylophone). In the process the kids learned that the goal in developing variations on a musical theme always has two part -- a practical side, which in this case was extended a short piece of music to make it more suitable for dancing, and an aesthetic one, which focuses on making the music more interesting and beautiful.

Recorder Lesson - "Andean Tune"

Hi ensemble players -- I apologize for getting this up a bit later than I'd hoped. Fortunately most of you have been playing it well in practice. As you know "Andean Tune" is one of two songs we will be playing Recorder ensemble will be playing on Saturday at Culture Day, so study up and practice, practice, practice!

5th Grade Week 5 & 6 -- Beginning Our Compositions

For the last couple of weeks in 5th grade music we have been working on original compositions. The goal here is for every student to write a composition for 3 voices and a percussion line. Last week we began with a short melody and this week we focused on adding a bass part called a bourdun and a variation in the melody. They say that music holds our attention because it almost always gives us what we expect, but every once in a while surprises us. I have to say I am almost continually surprised by these kids. Examples of their work will be forthcoming shortly!

3rd Grade Week 7 - Skin and Bones

This week in anticipation of Halloween the kids learned the scary old standard, "Skin and Bones," not only singing it, but playing it on recorder. Like an earlier call and response song we did, "Little Johnny Brown", it turns out that "Skin and Bones" makes use of the minor pentatonic, which is also at the heart of most blues music. Learning a song for Halloween also gave us an excuse to talk about holiday music general, a timely topic since several of the classes wish to learn a winter holiday song. Can it be almost November already?

Happy Halloween everyone!