Photos from Junior District Festival

At the start of March break, nine Sage students participated in the Massachusetts Music Educators Association Southeastern District Music Festival.  Photos from the concert can be found here.  Look close--can you spot a Sage student?

Sage Student on Blue Man Group Invent an Instrument website!

In January and February of this year, middle schoolers were busy creating their own unique instruments.  Some students entered these instruments into Blue Man Group's Invent an Instrument competition for 5-8th graders.  Winners have not been announced, but there are clips of instrument submissions on the Blue Man Group website...including our own 6th grader, Ansh J.!

Click here to see.  His is the drum-set like instrument in the second to last clip.

To see more instruments, stay tuned.  Miss Hogan is working on a video/picture compilation to be posted soon.

Middle School Instrument Classifications

It is not always easy for a fifth-grader to hear the subtleties that can occur when you hit a triangle in the middle or on the side, or with the tip of the striker or with the middle or the back.   However, differentiating between listening subtleties is an important part of music and music class. 

When the “instruments” are taken away, and students are forced to find exactly the right sound they are looking for from “found sounds” (any old materials at hand that are “found”), it’s a lot of fun to watch.  

Over the past few months, middle schoolers have been busily at work making music through their own created instruments.  This has culminated over the past week with one final invented instrument and composition created out of materials they were provided with or brought in themselves.  The room became part music classroom, part woodshop, and we all got to hear compositions with timbres that were new and unusual.

Middle schoolers classified instruments using the Hornbostel-Sachs method, which uses method of sound production as the classifying factor. 

Here are some older performances for Chordophones and class discussions about classifying Chordophones (mostly pizza boxes with strings):

http://www.vimeo.com/19312954

Here are some older performances for Aerophones (mostly glass bottles):

http://www.vimeo.com/18301509

The invented instruments that were created in the music room over the past few weeks are combinations of chordophones, aerophones, idiophones, membranophones, and other unclassifyableophones.   Stay tuned for a video of some of those instruments, to be coming soon.

Simple Things

This posting to to share the warmup that Juniors classes play when we begin mallet work.  It's called "Sunset" and is written by Konnie Saliba (an Orff Schulwerk teacher--see posting below).

This is a clip of them from Friday.

It's beautifully simple--4 lines put together (one bass line, one melody, and two scaler countermelodies.)  They made me very happy with the beauty in this simple warmup, and I told them I would put them on the blog to make others happy, though it's hard to capture pretty xylophone sounds on my camera.

It's the nature of Sage students often make things as complicated as possible, and when simple things are beautiful, it's important to point them out.
Enjoy!

Kindergarteners Explore Musical Instruments

Last week in Kindergarten music, we had one of my favorite types of classes--an instrument exploration day.  Set up like centers or stations, students travel from one part of the room to another for free play/exploration with instruments that are set up in some logical way (by what they're made of, but how you play them, etc.)

To be sure, these classes are loud ones.  But they are less chaotic than you might think--the funnest part of these days is to watch when the students take the instruments at each station and organize an impromptu piece.  I heard Kindergarteners counting each other off, making rhythms for each other to echo, and examining and reexamining unfamiliar instruments to see the best sounds they could create.  When given the opportunity to make a racket, Kindergarteners will.  And just like every other novelty, it shortly wears off and the students begin playing in a way that mimics the work we do during class.  

This video is a minute long and includes still photos from that class.

What's an Orff???

Every Thursday afternoon afterschool, a group of 3rd graders meet in the music room to sing, dance, and play instruments.  They are the Sage Orff Ensemble.

I've been waiting for this question, but it taken a number of months until finally someone asked this afternoon, "What's an Orff?"

Orff Schulwerk is an approach to music and movement education.  It's namesake is Carl Orff, famous composer known for "Carmina Burana."  As I told the Ensemble today, the way we learn pieces by ear first, and then add notation, is an example of an influence of my Orff Schulwerk training.  Ensembles that use traditional Orff Schulwerk instruments, like the xylophones, recorders, and drums, are often called Orff ensembles.

The pieces that the ensemble plays are in an elemental style.  Elemental music is pattern-based music built on natural speech and body rhythms, familiar melodic patterns, and simple forms that can be learned, created, understood, and performed without extensive technical or theoretical musical training (Nick Wild, 2004.)

The Orff Ensemble will perform afterschool later in the Spring, and may also make an appearance at Sage International Night in February.

Still Photos of Kindergarten Music Class

Kindergarteners have had a busy first term in Sage music--they've learned some solfege, how to use their singing voice, their basic rhythmic patterns, and a bunch of circle and partner dances.

Most of the still photos in this movie compilation were taken while students were dancing.  The video is about two minutes in length.  Check back soon for another video posting of all Prime classes showing off their folk dancing steps!

Middle School Students and Sage Faculty Sing Together at Winter Assembly

This morning at Winter Assembly, Doogie, Ian M., Alex M., Sophia L., Kiely, Miryam and Monica A. were joined by Mrs. Trogolo, Senorita Ryan, Mr. Miller and Mr. Fitz-Roy in singing two pieces in four-part harmony.

I'm still new at figuring out the best ways to share audio files though the blog, but the link below will take you to a link to an mp3 download of "Auld Lang Syne."

online backup storage

And this link should take you to a download of the link of the performance of "Grant Me True Courage," the piece students sang for their District Audition a couple of weeks ago.

share files free

Students worked hard, practicing at home and giving up spare moments at recess and dismissal to be prepared. Joining faculty and students together for singing was a fun experience for all involved, and I'm really pleased with the musical results!

Please note: clicking on the links above should take you to a website, where you can click "Download this File," where the file is being stored. In my experiments, this has worked, but if you have trouble, please let me know. Also be aware that this is an external site in no way affiliated with Sage.

7th and 8th Grade Students Accepted to Music Festival

This past Saturday, nine Sage 7th and 8th graders traveled to Marshfield where they did something a little intimidating: they went all by themselves into an audition room to sing or to play their instrument and be judged by the stranger sitting in the room.

All auditioning students prepared well and worked hard to get ready, and all nine students were accepted to represent Sage at the Massachusetts Music Educators Southeastern District Music Festival in March, where they'll rehearse and perform with accepted students from other schools in this part of Massachusetts.

Congratulations to Harris, cello; Arooshe, violin; Doogie, tenor; Ian, bass; Alex M., tenor; Kiely, alto; Sophia L., soprano; Avery, violin; and Eric H., clarinet!

Middle School Instrument Unit is Nearing Time for Culminating Projects

Since the middle of October, music-making activities for middle schoolers have been framed through the lens of different instruments, how they are made, and how we can create and classify "instruments" from every day things.

We've used the Hornbostel-Sachs method of classifying our glass bottle flutes, pizza box guitars, and plastic Boomwhackers. This method classifies instruments by the method of sound production. For each type of instrument we've looked at, we've composed, arranged, or performed a piece of music.

Students have had some inspiration along the way.
This is a clip of a man we've dubbed as "bottle guy":



Miss Hogan's favorite clip of inspiration is of the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra:


Later to come:
Some clips of our instrument making endeavors, including the upcoming final projects, where students will create an instrument that does not already exist out of every day materials. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the kettle drums made from gumballs, and the PVC trombones, and everything else Sage students dream up!
Stay tuned.

September Body Percussion Unit in Middle School Music

To start off the year, middle schoolers spent lots of time experimenting with different types of body percussion.  After discovering possibilities like the "nose stomp" and the "golf clap, " trios of students created body percussion pieces and then taught their compositions to their classmates.  

This link will take you to the video compilation which was playing at Back to School Night.  It is about 17 minutes long and shares moments of our body percussion unit.  Clips were taken from 6B, 7A, 8A, and 8B.  Enjoy!