Hello to everyone. Building ensemble skills has been a focus across all the Neighbourhoods, not only from a musical perspective, but also how this relates to our school value of ‘One Community’. The Year 2 Home Groups have formed mini orchestras, the Year 34s are super tight with their Samoan Sasa routines and the 56’s Uke Clubs are tightening their ensemble skills too. Our Choirs are busy preparing for the Harmony Day assembly in Week 8, the Instrumental Music students have been practising for their first assembly, and the Preps have ‘blown me away’ by learning the ‘Teddy Bears Picnic’ song in one week! Please read on…
It all started when Hannah in Yr2 asked if she could play, and show, her flute during music. What quickly followed were instrument ‘show and tell’ requests from the IM Yr2 beginners, and all I had to do was top up the instrument numbers with a few ukes and we had a an orchestra! We are soooo thrilled! All the music notation reading skills, which we had learnt through reading and singing music these past few weeks, were instantly and successfully transferred onto instruments: what a buzz! Add to this a Yr 2 special song ‘The Triple L Stars’ and we have enjoyed the best Friday afternoons ever. Thanks Yr 2! And… here are the ‘Triple L Stars’ lyrics so that Yr 2 families can sing along. The tune is borrowed from Frère Jacques. ‘I’m in Year2, I’m in Year2, so are you, so are you. We are Triple L Stars, happy learning pandas. We’re gurus, we’ll teach you!’
What has made the three mini Yr2 orchestras so successful is the students’ joy and pride in their achievement in a common goal. Everyone knew the expectation of outcome, everyone was focussed, and when we played ‘Saw Fish Strut’ with everyone playing in time and observing the crotchet rests perfectly, it was a proud moment… and then, our IM teacher Sasha arrived with three Yr2 violinists to perform for us. They played ‘Rock On A’ with a backing track. The Yrs 2s latched onto the rhythmic groove and we all played ‘Rock On A’ together! Fantastic!
Ensemble skills, team building skills, ‘One Community’. Learning the ‘Ten Step Samoan Sasa’ has really demonstrated that aiming for crisp, rhythmic accuracy puts everyone in a zone of focus, and my, the 34 Home Groups can really impress. This series of rhythmic steps was introduced to our Choir by Emily Hayes last year. The choir was pretty smooth getting around the routines, and when the parents and carers joined the choir to sing for the Bazaar, we all performed this for our community. What I’m loving about introducing the ‘Ten Step Samoan Sasa’ to the Yr 34 Neighbourhood, is having choir members teach each step to their Home Group, and how proud they are to share their skills. Each step is repeated four times, and as the steps progress, the routines become more complex. We have just progressed to Step 5, and with the addition of each new step, the period of uninterrupted focus is extended. The more the students listen to each other, the tighter the sound of the routine, and the more we notice about the subtle differences in the various slapping/clapping timbres or sound qualities. These ten rhythmic patterns are from the Samoan tradition of Sasa, or dance. There are seated and standing versions of these body percussion, rhythmic dances which are a series of choreographed gestures interpreting song texts or poems. The slapping and clapping of body parts, combined with shouts and grunts, create a soundscape as the dance is performed. The students can really sense when their routines are tight and accurate: there is a sizzle in the air! Bravo 34s!
We have had some special requests for ‘uke play-alongs’ in the 56 Uke Clubs, and it’s not all Taylor Swift! Songs by Bruno Mars and Rick Astley have added new chords to the ‘Chord Bank’ and the introduced Reggae off beat strumming, which is particularly idiomatic for the uke. Once again, the more that students listen, the strumming accuracy impresses for it’s clarity of beat. New chords can be tricky, but what was fiddly and perhaps frustrating at the start of a song has usually locked in by the end of the song. For uke enthusiasts, there are some great play-along tracks, arranged with uke tabs by ‘Ukulaliens’ on YouTube, where you’ll find umpteen songs from ‘Golden Oldies’ to current heart throbs all arranged in ‘easy to play-along’ keys. There are plusses and minuses to playing along with a soundtrack, but, persistence is definitely a big plus, especially when inspired by a popular song. In spite of mixed ‘Tay tay’ feelings across the 56 Neighbourhood, strumming along to ‘Shake it Off’ with raucous edged singing, not only nailed the G major chord, it inspired some of last years Yr 6s who were waiting to meet siblings outside, to accept a uke, handed out the performance space window, to strum along too 🙂 … good times! Thanks Yr 56… and 7!
The Junior and Senior Choirs have settled in fabulously, and Em and I owe a big thank you to our parent helpers Sophie, Naomi and Wendy for helping to welcome the students to choir, checking off the roll, providing water melon refresher snacks (we did swing a couple of hot Wednesdays), and cheering us on from the side lines. We are all learning a beautiful choral song written by Australian composer Glynn Lehmann called ‘I Am the Earth’ for the Harmony Day Assembly in two weeks. The theme for Harmony Day this year is ‘Everyone Belongs’ and to me, I love how this song resonates with the Indigenous way of thinking that we belong, and share our spirit, with all nature around us: the earth, the waters and the cosmoscape. The song is for 2 part choir, and it will be a delight to perform this with the harp, and have the whole school join in at the end. If you are able, please join us for our Harmony Day Assembly on March 22nd.
We are looking forward to out first Instrumental Assembly this week and thank our IM teachers and students for preparing pieces for us to enjoy. The IM assemblies and concerts always give us an opportunity to not only appreciate the learning that our students share with us, but also an occasion to hear music from different traditions and countries. In Friday’s assembly, we will hear French dance music by Gluck, who, two hundred and fifty years ago taught Marie Antoinette (Queen of France at the time of the French Revolution) harp, harpsichord and flute. We will anticipate St Patrick’s Day with ‘Patrick’s Reel’ and be transported to the fair greens of Ireland, swoop back before the days of Elvis Presley to the American Civil War to enjoy ‘Aura Lee’, a melody Presley ‘borrowed’ for ‘Love Me Tender’, and rouse the core of our glitter glowing hearts with songs of… you guessed it… Taylor Swift. And… to top off a great couple of weeks, the Preps completely short circuited my planning for the next three weeks by learning the whole Teddy Bears Picnic song in one week. I introduced the song to them in Wk4, and they sang it back to me in Wk5… all memorised and excited. Great job Prep Stars and thanks to Connie and Robert for riding the TB Picnic wave of enthusiasm.
Thank you to everyone for happy music making. Cheerio, Deb.