Hope to See You

January brings my favorite OWS tradition: the PA's Multicultural Event.  Every year the committee outdo themselves providing fun and exciting opportunities to try out activities from specific areas of the world.  This year's extravaganza, on Saturday, January 26th, will feature the cultures of Polynesia.

Students in Kindergarten through Fourth Grade have been practicing a canoeing song, "Tongo", to perform at the Event.  Any student who's present at performance time--currently I believe that to be sometime between 6:00 and 6:45 p.m.--will be welcome to come forward and take part in the performance.  I've posted the words just to the right of this post.

And fourth- through seventh-graders who are currently participating in the "Glee" after-school activity on Mondays have been preparing a Maori song, "Pokarekare Ana".  It's a love song communally created by soldiers missing their wives and girlfriends in 1914 New Zealand.  Only the students in "Glee" will be onstage for this one.  Again, I believe it will be between 6 and 6:45.

Watch your "Quick Take"s for your opportunity to sign your family up for this splendid event.  It's moved to a larger venue this year, so I hope they won't run out of space; but I intend to sign up the first moment I'm given a chance!

Nifty Concert for Kids on Saturday

A well-known Renaissance ensemble, The Baltimore Consort, is giving a Discovery Concert on Saturday, December 15th, called "Jump at My Cousin: Early Ballads and Dance Tunes".  These were the top pop tunes of their day, and will be performed on voices, viols, flutes, recorder, krumhorn, lute, cittern, and pipes . . .plus local kid performers on harp, fiddles, and more!  Here are details and a link:

Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, 1:00 p.m.
Sand Point Community United Methodist Church
4710 NE 70th St, Seattle  98115
--free parking--
Tickets: $10, $5 Student/Child, $5 Seniors.

Link to Early Music Guild site

Sleigh Rides

December is "Sleigh Ride" month in the music room!

Kindergartners listen to Leroy Anderson's beloved piece, finding the sounds of the sleigh bells, horses' hooves, whip, and whinny.  Then they create and perform a score using the song "Jingle, Bells!" and some sleigh bells: some children perform the singers' line in the score, while others are following the line for the sleigh bells.

Fourth-graders also hear Anderson's "Sleigh Ride" numerous times, as they learn a challenging body-percussion piece to be performed along with it.  This activity is a favorite of mine and of many of the kids as well.

And third- and fourth-grade recorder players have been learning an arrangement of "Jingle, Bells!" which we will perform several times on Wednesday the 12th.  Starting at 12:30, we'll be touring the school and playing in the hallways and common areas. 

After-School Music

I offer several music opportunities in the after-school activities program.  Students may be registered for these classes through the "Current Families" section of the OWS web site.  A second trimester is beginning the week after Thanksgiving, and for it I am offering three classes:

CHOIR meets Wednesdays 3:30 to 4:30 in the music room.  We learn mostly folk songs and sing them with recorded accompaniment, with attention to breathing, vocal production, and enunciation.  The last class each trimester ends with a concert for parents, after which choristers take home their folders of lyrics and a cd of the recorded accompaniments.  Lately most of the participants have tended to be in third grade or younger, but I choose songs which are good for singing at any age, and I welcome older singers.

EXTREME RECORDERS meets Tuesdays 3:30 to 4:40.  It's for kids who want to play harder music than we do in our noontime recorder classes.  Some participants play at a very high level, and others are less advanced; I provide parts of varying difficulty so that all can be challenged and have fun playing all kinds of music.

For the very first time, this second trimester I am offering a singing group only for older students (4th - 8th grades).  This class has already filled.  If I like the way it goes, I'll offer it again in the third trimester (after February break).

What's Up in Music Class?

Kindergartners have been doing the Chicken Dance and playing the singing game "Jump, Josie".  They're singing "You're a Grand Old Flag", and also singing "Pudding on the Hill" and getting ready to play its scalewise passages on tonebar instruments.  Yesterday they began listening to "The Hut of Baba Yaga" from Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and showing its ABA form by turning around and around like the house, then sitting down to pantomime stirring a cauldron, and then turning around again.

First-graders are adding eighth notes ("ti-ti") to their rhythmic repertoire of quarter notes and rests.  Next week we'll begin our study of Johann Sebastian Bach in earnest, with his Toccata in D Minor (often heard around Hallowe'en time!) for organ.

Second-graders have been doing a lot of singing!  After hearing the story of how Francis Scott Key came to write the words, the children have learned where the melismae are (and are not!), so that they can sing our national anthem correctly.  They've been working to detect the sensations in their throats from their vocal cords, and how the feeling of going up in pitch differs from the sensation of going down.  And we've been applying those findings to help us sight-sing melodic fragments composed of G, E, and A.

Third-graders began their study of Beethoven by talking about the Age of Enlightenment.  It was strange to think that the new respect for education which began at that time meant that education was not particularly highly valued in the previous age!  They learned that the sound of mi-re-do is one that ends many songs, and they have been trying to find songs which end that way.  Next week they will begin learning "This Pretty Planet", a song which Third Grade traditionally performs in a round with Fourth Grade a day or two before Thanksgiving.

Fourth-graders read rhythms which included syncopations and sixteenth notes this week in music class.  Next week they will have an opportunity to use some of those rhythms as they improvise four-beat phrases on percussion instruments.  Then they'll learn an old English song called "The Keeper", which the kids always enjoy for its call-and-response phrases while they are practicing reading two-part music and multiple verses.

Marimba at Farmers' Market September 9th, 2012

Last night I rehearsed with my African-style marimba band, YAAMBA. We will be playing at Mercer Island Farmers' Market on Sunday, September 9th, from noon until I think about four o'clock. The music is energetic, and it's fun to watch us play, and we play even better when people DANCE. So I'd be thrilled if you'd bring your little dancers by for a spell!

A Wonderful New Year! with Recorders!

I'm so happy to see everyone again, and to meet new students! I spent most of the summer planning a wonderful new year for my kindergarten through fourth grade music classes and for all my recorder players!

If your child is in third grade or older, s/he will have a chance to order a recorder very soon. It's possible to participate in the recorder program (which happens during the school day) and play in the spring concert without buying a recorder; but I have never seen it happen. The students really need a Baroque-fingered soprano in order to practice at home, so they can hear themselves play. It's not a big commitment of practice time; once they learn the basics, practicing fifteen minutes a week will probably put them among the best players.

For more information, look to the right, below the "Blog Archive" box, and choose the "Recorder Program" page.