With our wild Spring weather, and a sense that some of us may be counting the sleeps to the Term 3 Holidays, we were ready for a heart-warming community event. Thank you to our whole community for a wonderful celebration of our special Fathers and Carers at last Friday’s Assembly. Across all the Neighbourhood tributes of love, humour and sincere thanks there was the theme that without each other, we can’t grow to be the best we can be, no matter how old we are 🙂 It was a great joy to see so many family and friends attend, and just as our Yr 56s reflected about attending a live concert, ‘when you’re at the show, you really feel the vibe’. Please read on for more news about Music…
Our thanks to Niamh and Liana for setting the scene for our Assembly so beautifully with their performance of Londonderry Air. It’s a traditional tune, so perfectly crafted to reflect its original lyrics, that it invites reflective space in our busy minds. Beginning with a simple melodic line that ascends and descends through the low and warm tones of the violin, the verse progresses to chorus as the pitch of the melody rises. Taking our feelings with it, we anticipate the high point of the melody and have a sense of release when finally we hear it. In the midst of business, the timber of the harp (not an everyday treat), with violin, paired with a melody of resonance and the hushed, receptive focus of our community, we experienced one of the many gifts of music, made all the more poignant as the gift was expressed by one of our students. The ‘gifts’ in this Assembly were many.
It’s not usual that Afro American Soul/Rock is paired with harp, but in accompanying the student’s singing of ‘Lean On Me’, we had plenty of bass harp groove to fuel our energy, and our thanks are again expressed to Liana and extended to Emily and the Red-capped Robins for adding an elegant harmony to lift the verses higher. Our thanks and congratulations too, to the combined Yr 34 Neighbourhoods for their performance of their Puccini aria ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’. It has been inspiring to extend the students’ connections to Italian language learning through this aria, and to see the students engaged with a dramatic interpretation of an aria libretto; another example of brilliant music/text crafting to inspire dramatic expression. A mini side step into fashions of the 14th Century followed during their Performing Arts session as the costuming for opera’s setting reminded students of the clothes worn in the movie Shrek.
We were also delighted to join the Year 2s as they repeated their Father’s and Carer’s Day song’s anthem-like final chorus. The whole school sang along ‘Fathers, Special Carers, all our parents, we love you’ before the Yr2s concluded with a phrase which ended with a heart-melting note in two part harmony… sigh!
On a completely different planet for the relationships between text and music, some Year 56 students have expressed interest to write a rap and we have made a start at understanding the place of Rap and Hip Hop in the culture of Afro American music making, and how this art form has provided a platform for social and political commentary for cultures across the world. The power of music to bring awareness to injustices and truth telling invites an area of reflection for students that intersects with how we consume and understand music. Take, for example, our whole school’s participation in the song ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ which tells the story of the Wave Hill Walk Off of 1966 when the Gurindji went on strike for better working conditions and Land Rights, which was presented for Reconciliation Week last year. Through music, we can foster critical thinking around social issues that promote empathy and understanding. But as a community, we also need to support an awareness in our students that not all music, even if it achieves 100 million streams in just over a week and tops the American Billboards in record time, is appropriate for them.
To help the students gain an entry point into the crafting of a rap lyric, and what literary devices are required, the 56s had a go at rapping old time favourite rhyming picture story books by Dr Seuss, Linley Dodd, and Pamela Allen. Those who selected Banjo Patterson (1864 – 1941) found the poetic sentence structure of his era challenging even though the text’s rhythm and rhyme were strong, whilst other 56s lost their reference to where the first beat in the rap sound track was. Waltzing Matilda, surely, would be an easy rap; after all it’s already a song, but it ‘sounds soooo wronG’ to rap the lyrics without the melody! My cap was doffed to Isaiah who chose to rap all the publishing and copy write details of his his chosen book; text which was arhythmic and non rhyming. Isaiah’s timing and wit were brilliant, and the 56’s agree, that rapping simple text it’s not as easy as it sounds, especially when delight in illustrations throws your focus off the beat!
All the best to everyone as we wend towards the end of Term, and thank you for all your achievements in the past two weeks. Take care, Deb.