Lessons Days, cont'd.

Third Grade's Lessons Day (see below) will be Wednesday, February 29th.  So far, Mr. Goodman's Fourth Grade and Ms. Rawson's First Grade are tied for first place and the Best Audience trophy!

In other news, Fourth Grade music classes are finished for this school year, and on Tuesday, February 1st, Fifth Grade will begin having music once a week.

LESSONS DAY January 26th & 27th

On January 26th and 27th, Kindergarten, First, Second, and Fourth grades will have Lessons Day during their regularly scheduled music class.  That's when those children who take lessons on an instrument (or dance) have an opportunity to show their classmates the result of their hard work. During Lessons Day, each student's most important job--no matter whether s/he performs or not--is to be an excellent audience member. This performance is just for classmates, not parents.

If your child would like to perform, she or he needs to rehearse announcing the piece, playing it, and bowing afterwards. You could help by being an audience during rehearsal(s) at home.  The student should also bring the music for the piece to be performed, as well as the instrument to be played (except, of course, for piano).  If you'd like to store the instrument in the music studio that morning, that will be just fine.

First Grade and Mr. Saltz's and Ms. Scott's will have their opportunities during regular music class on Wednesday, January 26th. 

Second Grade, Kindergarten and Mr. Goodman's class will have theirs on Thursday the 27th.  Third Grade will have Lessons Day after their Folk Tales performance is over.

Recorders and Singers at MCE January 22

By now just about all the students at Open Window--including Vista--have heard a catchy gospel song from South Africa called "Ipharadisi" ("ee-parr-ah-dee-see").  We've been learning it because this Saturday's Multi-Cultural Event, at the Baha'i Center near Crossroads in Bellevue, will celebrate Africa.  Recorder players and choir members attending the event will want to be sure to be present at 6:30, when we'll kick off the entertainment portion of the evening by performing Ipharadisi.  Students will be joined by YAAMBA marimba, one of the Zimbabwean-style bands which have grown up in the Pacific Northwest from seeds planted by Dumisani Maraire.  Should be great fun!

Another Amahl

Amahl and the Night Visitors will also be performed at Plymouth Church in Seattle:
--7:30 pm Friday, January 7th, and
--11:00 am Sunday, January 9th

http://pcucc.squarespace.com/events-calendar/2010/12/3/amahl-and-the-night-visitors-jan-7-9.html

Opera in Fourth Grade

Every year I make sure my fourth-graders have some contact with opera. Last year the whole school saw Menotti's The Telephone. This year that won't happen, so fourth-graders have been hearing arias from Amahl and the Night Visitors (also by Menotti).

One reason I use Amahl is that each year at this time, multiple community groups perform it. One group is beginning its run tomorrow:
www.leavenworthsummertheater.org/Amahl-and-the-night-visitors

And Twelfth Night Productions does it every year.  This year's production will be January 7 and 8 at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in West Seattle:
http://www.twelfthnightproductions.org/

As I find other performances, I will post them here.

Another reason I've chosen Amahl is that it's in English and it lasts about an hour, so it's a very "accessible" opera. Your fourth-grader might enjoy seeing it, especially as s/he has been exposed to some of the music. Try asking her or him about the difference between "aria" and "recitative"!

N.B.--The "Night Visitors" are the "Three Kings" or "Wise Men" of the Christmas story. The Kings tell Amahl and his mother that they are following a star to find and give gifts to a child who will be a special kind of king. The child is not named in the opera. The generosity of Amahl and his mother results in a miraculous healing.

Singing Together

All my students, kindergarten through fourth grade (I'll see fifth after January) have been learning and practicing songs for our sing-along assembly.  The youngest begin learning "America" and "America, the Beautiful", as well as "This Land is Your Land", "The Earth is Our Mother", and "Over the River".  Older grades add "The Star-Spangled Banner", "Hymn for Nations" (to Beethoven's melody for "Ode to Joy"), "Roll On, Columbia" and "Washington, My Home", and later verses of "America" and "America, the Beautiful".  In an Open Window tradition, the students and teachers (and some staff) gather in the gym the day before Thanksgiving to sing them all together.

Music Updates

Kindergartners have been playing a reaction game, from the Wagogo people of Tanzania, in which they jump ("matu") into the center of the circle and back again in time with a call and response.  And today they practiced standing quietly and respectfully during the national anthem; they did very well!

First-graders are getting better at distinguishing beat from rhythm.  They have enjoyed bits of the toccata from J. S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor and will soon be learning names of some other famous Bachs.

Second-graders have heard the story of how "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written and are beginning to learn to sing it correctly.  They enjoyed a recording of the third of Brahms' Hungarian Dances, and they are learning to use half notes.

Third-graders are learning to distinguish major from minor tonality.  They're about to do a little improvising on the Orff instruments, and soon will learn to use the dotted half note.

Fourth-graders learned to play the "Hot Cross Buns" melody, a harmony for it, a bass line, and a "color" part on the Orff instruments.  We then orchestrated the song by having different instruments play the different lines; for example, we tried glockenspiels on the bass line, with the back row of instruments playing the color part, the remaining metallophones on the melody, and remaining xylophones on the harmony.