Sharing our Talents

Students often share their music with their peers in our classroom.  Kindergartens have learned to play the sound of snow falling, and to represent high and low sounds with movement.  Grade Ones have written their first rhythms with animal names and are learning how to play them on percussion instruments.  Grade Twos have created their own body percussion chorus for the classic song, "Peas Porridge".  Grade Threes are composing melodies and playing them on the xylophone.

Our Wall of Stars:
a reminder of the wonderful music that has been shared.

Students perform by themselves or in a small group, and their peers learn how to be a supportive and curious audience.  Over and over we practice giving and receiving our musical ideas within our community.

As part of this learning process, I've invited students in Grades One, Two and Three to share a piece that they have learned outside of school.  Students have sung and danced, and played the piano and violin.  It has been exciting for students to share their talents with their classmates, and to learn about how different people make music beyond the classroom walls.   

Each performer is invited to record their piece on a paper star, and I hang these mementoes in our classroom.  It has been wonderful to see the space filled so quickly, and I look forward to adding even more performances to our wall! 

Saxophones at Royal Oak School!

This last week, students in Grade One, Two and Three were lucky to have a visit from Ms. Anderson, a Royal Oak School parent - and a saxophone player!  

She brought both a soprano saxophone and a tenor saxophone to school, and gave our students the chance to hear these instruments with their own ears.  

She played special songs for us (including a tune from Star Wars and the Lion King!), and showed us how the instrument made music.  

She also told us a little bit about how she learned to play, and why she likes to perform with her band.

Here's some of what our students had to say after the presentation:

Soprano Saxophone

Tenor Saxophone

   "You blow in it.  

              Then it makes noise!"

         "They're shiny and loud!"       

"There's lots of buttons.  

      They make the music."

               "She plays really good!"

                        

 "The little one made a high sound, and the big one made a low sound."

  "You can play any song you want on the saxophone - even famous ones."

THANK YOU MS. ANDERSON !

Practice Your Melodies at Home!

Students in Grade Two and Three have expanded their collection melodic notation to include our newest pitch, called "do".  We represent melodic pitches in many ways, including singing with both melodic syllables and the lyrics of our songs, showing the relative pitch with Curwen hand signs, reading and writing notes on a five-line staff, and playing the melodies on the xylophone.

If you would like to practice at home, I've included a few melodies to sing below.  In each example, I sing the melody first, then leave some time for you to sing it again by yourself, and then I repeat the melody so that you and I can sing it together.  The most important thing is to check and make sure that your voice sounds the same as my voice.  You could even ask your family to double check!  If you sound different, just try again and make your voice higher or lower to match the sound of my voice.  

If you have a piano at home, you can write your own melodies on a five line staff and sing with your piano.  (We have been using the pitches D #F and A above middle C.)

CLICK HERE  to practice this melody.

   

CLICK HERE to practice this melody.

CLICK HERE to practice this melody.

CLICK HERE to practice this melody.

CLICK HERE to practice this melody.

A Fantastical Instrument

"Is it real?" 

    asked a Grade 2 student.

"How is it working?" 

     asked a Grade 1 student.

         

"It's like a . . .   Well, it's sort of . . . " 

     started a Grade Three student.

At first glance, students have enjoyed the music and beautiful animation of this video about an imaginary instrument.  But when we dig a bit deeper, this little video can inspire some truly thoughtful discussions.  Click HERE to watch this video and consider joining the conversation by talking about the following questions:

Does this imaginary instrument remind you of real instruments you have studied?  

     How are they the same and how are they different?

How does this instrument make sound?  

     How does it make high and low sounds?

What emotion does this music make you feel?

     What is happening in the music that makes you feel that way?

           Is the music loud or soft, fast or slow, smooth or bouncy?

     Does your emotion change when the music changes?

Imagine this was the background music for a movie.  

    What would be happening in the movie while this music was playing?

This video never tells us what the name of this instrument is.

    What would you call it if you gave it a name?

String Instruments from Around the World

The Cello and the Violin.

Students from Grade One to Three have been exploring stringed instruments from around the world. To begin, we examined a violin, looking at all sides (and inside!) to see how it is put together, experimenting with different ways to make sound, and even smelling the bow to see if it smells like the horse's tail from which it is made! 


From this reference point, we looked at other instruments that use strings to make sound.  First we listened to a video of the cello.  We noticed that it is the same shape as a violin and that it makes a similar sound, but we heard that this bigger instrument sounds lower.  

The huge Contra Bass Bar makes a low sound . . .

... and the tiny Glockspiel
 makes a high sound.

Someone suggested that all large things make low sounds.  But is that always true?  So we tested the pitch of the xylophones, and found that the largest ones did make a lower sound, and the smallest ones did make the higher sound.  How interesting!

CLICK HERE to hear an Erhu.

Then we listened to a video of the "erhu", a hauntingly beautiful two-stringed instrument from China.  It was small, just like the violin, but the musician held it on her lap and not under her chin.  Finally, we listened to a video the Arabian instrument, the "oud".  It reminded us of a guitar, or banjo, or ukelele, but we counted twelve strings on its large, "avocado-shaped" body.  It had such a lively sound that we just couldn't help moving!

CLICK HERE to listen to the Oud.

Every culture around the world has it's own special instruments.  Each one speaks it's own unique language and tells the story of the people who play them so lovingly.  How lucky we are to have representatives from many parts of the world in Royal Oak School, and the opportunity to share our diverse musical heritage!  

Trolls in Kindergarten Music

Have you ever been crossing a bridge and smelled something terribly stinky below your feet?  Well, ask any kindergarten student, and they'll tell you there's probably a troll under there.  But don't worry.  Even through trolls have a bad reputation from fairy tales and movies, they will let you cross their bridge unharmed - that is, if you ask them nicely.  

Of course, then nicest way to ask is to sing your question.  If we sing very well, the Troll always lets a few children cross the bridge.  In celebration, students dance across the bridge with their best creative movement, exploring high and low levels, turns, skips and jumps,  Last week, we added colorful scarves to our movement, which made the crossing even more spectacular.  Today, we added the final special element to our project as students each chose a small percussion instrument, and improvised their own rhythm while dancing across the bridge.  

Unfortunately, once students get to the other side they are magically transformed into trolls themselves.  Smiling girls and boys suddenly have sharp fangs, long claws, messy hair and a strangely nasty smell.  But never fear - we always have a good supply of "Human Dust" that restores our students to their charming selves at the end of the music lesson!

Literacy Week in the Music Room

The Music Room Door.
Why is there a xylophone on that tree?

This week is Literacy Week at Royal Oak School, and students and staff are celebrating the joy of reading in many different ways.  We "Drop Everything and Read", we visit other classrooms to hear a special story, and we've even decorated our doors with a Robert Munsch story!

In the music room, students will be re-telling Robert Munsch's book "Up, Up, Down".  The story's main character, Anna, is a good girl, but her love of climbing gets her into some serious trouble.  And after she climbs the giant tree, her trouble spreads to her Mother and her Father.  Oh - oh!  

It's a great read, and we will make it even more fun by adding some special musical touches: 

   Our xylophones make the sound of Anna's climbing up (and falling down!),
      Our voices make the sound of the characters' most important words,
         Our hands make the sound of running feet,
            And our bodies bring the characters actions to life!

It has been so much fun to prepare for this week of reading, and it has been such a delight to watch the students' enthusiastic and joyful response!  And today is only the beginning of the week-long festivities!  Ask your child(ren) to share their favourite moments from the day, and you may even find that the fun trickles into your home too!