Happy New Year

Hello visitors!

Happy new school year 2012-2013!  I'll keep posting highlights and over the next week or two and try to re-establish working links to the recordings found in the posts. Turns out the cloud storage I use simply  deletes users files without warning or apology.  I'll be moving to a different host.

So please check back and all should be working again.

Grade 4/5 Melodies

Grade 4/5 Composition Contest Winners.

Musicians in the in the grade 4/5 class used their ukuleles to compose, notate and perform a melody. The melodies were then performed for their peers and the class  voted on the top three. The results are posted below , just right click on the links...a player will open. Enjoy and download if you wish!  Comments are welcome.

FIRST PLACE (Nick, Cody, Cameron)


SECOND PLACE   (Sadie)

Third Place (Jayden and Leslie)

Grade 6 Plays 'Hear the Blackbird'

On the menu today, a (presumed) Hungarian folk-tune I once found in a collection from Zoltan Kodaly.   The book is long lost but the tune is a favorite of ours. The ingredients:
1.Theme is sung with ukulele chords
2.Pianos play ostinato ( 'In the For-est in the Mead-ow') while Ukuleles pick the melody.
3.Ukes pick the ostinato and the pianos play the melody.

Enjoy it HERE

Stay tuned for the grade 5-6 version of the same tune...which one will you like better?

OK, here it is...a different arrangement. Pree...sehnt..iingg...GRADE56:
Hear the blackbird sing

Drum Workshops with Keith Mullins

Renowned percussionist and singer songwriter East coast music nominee Keith Mullins gave drumming workshops to all students in the school over two days February 2nd and 3rd. Engaging, informative, fun and dynamic, Keith had led each class ( one at a time!) in a 30 minute introduction to hand drumming followed by a whole school assembly featuring the the performance of the students themselves.


 Keith has a direct and personable manner with the students and the school was buzzing with high spirits and positive energy following a most productive and musical set of sessions. I highly recommend Keith to any other schools. Thanks Keith!!!!!      
Below are sound excerpts and some images of musical work in progress.




                     LISTEN Keith with grade 4

LISTEN TO Keith with grade 3 

Karate

Congratulations to these fine Grade 3 musicians who passed their yellow belt in recorder proficiency. Students had to sight read the notes G, A, B, C and D in the context of Beethovens 'Ode to Joy' and perform the entire selection without error...wow!

You can listen to the entire class perform the piece HERE

 We recorded Ode To Joy using our brand new Stienberg XLR microphone to USB preamp ( Judging by the speed up at 0:15...still needs some tweaking.  Enjoy!