Students in Fourth Grade music classes just finished composing and notating original songs for the recorder in G pentatonic. This week they began their unit on Instruments of the Orchestra. Students will learn about the method of sound production for each instrument and will design and create their own woodwind, string, brass, or percussion instrument.

First Grade Music--budding composers

Primary goals with first grade during October include:
1. Keeping a steady beat
2. Pitch-matching (sol-mi-la)
3. Listening walks and "found sounds"
4. Sounds their voices can make
5. Moving safely through shared space
6. Feeling one sound, two sounds or no sound on a beat (preparing reading quarter notes, quarter rests, and paired eighth notes)

The students will work together composing, arranging and performing an original piece inspired by the changing colors of the leaves.

We're also going on a listening walk through the school, noticing the ambient sounds all around us as we go through our day. Inspired by Paul Showers' book "The Listening Walk" (1991. New York, NY: Harper Collins), the students will collaborate to write about our own walk around the school and describe the different sounds they hear. During music class we will record their ideas of sounds using their own voices, classroom instruments or body percussion and create a sound track.

5th Grade's Got the Blues

Fifth graders have begun the final phase of our blues unit, composing and arranging their own blues lyrics using the 12-bar blues chord progression. Students have learned to identify the chord roots using the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of a major scale and label them using roman numerals (I, IV, and V) as well as the standard musical labels of "tonic," "subdominant," and "dominant." These three primary chords (we likened them to the primary colors of red, yellow and blue) are the basic chords upon which most popular music, rock songs, and folk songs are built around. Students have listened to legendary blues musicians including Bessie Smith, Huddie Ledbetter and Robert Johnson. Who are your favorite blues musicians?

First Graders arrangements of Autumn Leaves

First graders completed their unit study of quarter and paired eighth note rhythms with original arrangements in this rondo form composition entitled "Autumn Leaves." please click on the link below to hear each homeroom's unique version of the piece. Using the fall leaf colors of red, orange, gold, yellow and brown leaves, students worked in small groups to compose original rhythms to perform on unpitched percussion instruments. Our final performance of their leaf compositions was filled out with the students singing the song "Autumn Leaves" in between each group's 8-measure compositions.