For Kindergarten and Grade 1 students, nature and nature's music continue to be a source of inspiration.  Inspired by the book, Rain, Kindergarten and Grade 1 students looked at how they could translate the onomatopoeia found in the book into musical sound and pitches.  

Interdisciplinary studies often open up new possibilities for learning.  Grade 2 students are currently learning songs about the Prairies.  Grade 3 students learn about Ukrainian (and also Russian) folksongs.  They listened to music by Igor Stravinsky and tried to see folksongs and folklores inspired him to write some of the greatest ballet music of our times.  Using The Elders are Watching by David Bouchard as a starting point, Grade 4 explored a number of songs which address the relationship between people and nature.  

Grade 5 students continue their study in the jazz idiom.  They are consolidating their skills in ensemble playing and improvisation skills based on the blues scale which is foundational to jazz music.

As we are wrapping up the year, Grade 5 students are getting ready to celebrate their learning on June 4.  Save the date!  They will be performing the jazz pieces they have learned in class.

Kindergarten students explored the concept of "musical form".  After listening to Vivaldi's Spring from the Four Seasons, they were asked to represent their understanding using a variety of approaches.  Inspired by the science topic of five senses, Grade 1 students explored the concept of "texture".  They brainstormed a list of words to describe the texture of different objects and then used these words to describe a number of musical excerpts.  As part of their "Acadian experience", Grade 2 students continued to refine their skills on playing spoons.  They also learned a number of French folksongs.

Grade 3 and 4 students have taken their first step in learning how to sightread 4-beat melodic fragments on the recorder.  They are applying what they have learned in rhythmic reading as well as treble clef reading in order to tackle this task.  Grade 5 students are getting their first exposure to 12-bar blues.  Some of them are taking on the challenge to improvise short 12-bar phrases using the blues scales.

While Kindergarten students continue to learn songs connected to Spring, Grade 1 students are consolidating their knowledge of solfège.  They have extended their solfège vocabulary to sol, mi and la.  Being inspired by the social studies curriculum, Grade 2 students are learning songs from the Atlantic provinces.  They are also experiencing, for the first time, how to play spoons. 

Grade 3 and 4 students have started learning how to read notes on the 5-line staff and refining their recorder skills.  Grade 5 students' interdisciplinary project is well on its way.  They have listened to two contrasting musical excerpts, identifying key elements in arts and music:  colour, lines, texture, etc.  They will be creating an original work of art to represent what they hear in the music.

Rhythms and Sounds of Nature II

K, Grade 1 and 2 students continue to explore the rhythms and sounds of nature through music.  Using Spring as the inspiration, students experimented with creating soundscapes on barred instruments. 

Grade 3 and 4 students started their first lessons on the recorder.  Apart from learning about how to produce a quality tone on the instrument, students learned their first "BAG" songs, i.e. songs based on the notes "B", "A" and "G".  They also learned about the "recorder consort".

Grade 5 students took a short break from the study of "improvisation" and started a new interdisciplinary project which allows them to examine elements in arts and elements in music.  We looked at some of the basic elements in arts ---- lines, colours, texture, etc. ---- and draw comparison between the art concepts and that of music.

Rhythms and Sounds of Nature

“The rhythms of nature – the sounds of wind and water, the sounds of birds and insects – must inevitably find their analogues in music.”

~ George Crumb, American composer

This is what Kindergarten, Grade 1 and 2 students have been doing:  helping the rhythms of nature find their analogues in music.  Using "Spring" as an inspiration, Kindergarten and Grade 1 students have created different soundscapes to go with poems and stories.  They also looked at how composers like Vivaldi capture the rhythms and sounds of nature.  

While Grade 5 students continued to refine their improvisation skills in the style of jazz, Grade 3 and 4 students are getting ready to learn how to play the recorder.  Just a gentle reminder:  we will begin our recorder unit next week.  Please bring your instrument!

What is Musical Improvisation?

As students enter their second week of musical improvisation, they realize that improvisation in music is more than just "making something up on the spot."  This week, they learned that in order for a piece to sound "good" or "right", there are certain "norms", "rules" or "performance practices" that one has to follow... 

Grade 5 students discovered that in order to make their improvisation sound like jazz music, there are certain rhythmic "feel" that they have to create.  They learned that there is something called "blues scale."  They learned that a melody has a contour.  Grade 3 and 4 students came to realization that music has a pulse and phrases have certain structures and that our prior experience shapes what we expect as the "right length" in a musical phrase.  But they also understand that within this parameter, we still have lots of room to be creative and original.

Students will soon be applying what they have learned now to improvisation on the recorder.