February Performances in Northeast Wisconsin

Whenever any Lannoye student goes to any performance (band, choir, etc.) outside of the school day, if s/he brings back a program with a sentence written on it stating one thing s/he liked about the concert and why, s/he will receive a DRUM (Demonstrating Respect and Understanding in Music) card.

Jazz Fest with Kenny Werner, jazz pianist
February 1, 4 pm
Weidner Center
Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 day-of
(Every year, UW-Green Bay hosts a jazz festival for high school jazz bands to compete with each other and work with professional jazz musicians. The top two high school bands will perform at the afternoon concert alongside the UWGB Jazz I Ensemble and Kenny Werner.)

Green Bay Symphony Orchestra
February 8, 7:30 pm
Weidner Center
Tickets: $15 - $45
(The program is entitled "Great Music from Around the World" and includes music from Rossini's Barber of Seville (Bugs Bunny version below), Chinese music with a traditional Chinese instrument, Bernstein's On the Town, and da Falla's Three-Cornered Hat.)

Wicked
February 12 - March 2
Fox Cities Performing Arts Center
Tickets: Start at $49.
(This is a musical about the story of The Wizard of Oz, through the eyes of the Wicked Witch of the West. The song below is "Defying Gravity," sung by the stars of the original Broadway production, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth.)

Civic Symphony of Green Bay
February 15, 7:30 pm
Meyer Theatre
Tickets: Family $40, Adult $17, Senior $12, Student $7
(Program includes "Nessun Dorma," as sung by the late Luciano Pavarotti below, also featured in the Matrix-inspired Kia commercial during the Super Bowl, posted below Pavarotti)

Chris Botti
February 15, 7:30 pm
Weidner Center
Tickets: $39.50 - $72.50
(Jazz trumpetist and composer Chris Botti, who won a Grammy in 2013, will be performing in Green Bay.)

Pulaski High School presents: Anything Goes
February 15, 7 pm
February 16, 2 pm
PHS Ripley Performing Arts Center
Tickets: $7

Allouez Village Band
February 17, 7 pm
Meyer Theatre
Tickets: Free
(Program includes John Williams' "Symphonic Marches" (as shown below by the US Army Field Band), highlights from the musical Guys and Dolls, and more.)

Pulaski High School presents: Anything Goes
February 22, 7 pm
February 23, 2 pm
PHS Ripley Performing Arts Center
Tickets: $7

Pulaski High School: Music for Moderns Concert
February 25, 7 pm
PHS Ripley Performing Arts Center

Music Notes: End of January 2014

Music Notes

January 2014

Hello from the Lannoye music room!

If you check out the Lannoye music blog, you will see a new post with videos from the winter concert! You can relive the concert at lannoyemusic.blogspot.com. Don’t forget to sign up for email updates in the upper right corner, underneath the Lannoye Dragon.

Despite all of the snow days and cold days, we’ve been keeping busy in the music room. Here’s a grade-by-grade breakdown of what the students have been learning:

The kindergarteners continue to practice physically showing the steady beat to songs that we sing by ourselves (like our a cappella welcome song), songs that we sing along to, and instrumental music that we listen to. We do lots of movement to different kinds of music. We’ve continued our pitch matching experiences by singing echo songs, and have moved on to playing student-led pitch-matching games like “Charlie Over the Ocean.”

The 1^st graders have continued working on ta, ti-ti, and rest (quarter note, two 8^th notes, and quarter rest) through clapping, speaking, playing instruments, reading, and writing. They’ve begun learning about composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in addition to creating their own rhythmic compositions.

The 2^nd graders have been reviewing half notes and half rests, and they just added whole notes and whole rests to their rhythmic vocabulary. We’ve played rhythmic games like “Poison,” and singing games that correspond with songs like “Wee Willie Winkie.” Most recently, they’ve begun creating their own rhythmic compositions.

The 3^rd graders have moved on to leading their own body percussion rounds, and they’ve been practicing singing rounds as well. We added a dance to a Hebrew round called “Toombaї.” The students also learned a new rhythm (ti-tiri, along with a sneak preview of tiri-ti, which is a 4^th grade rhythm) and have applied it in different songs and rhythmic sightreading exercises. Most recently, we started moving on to pentatonic scales by doing a short activity exploring different Greek and Latin numeral prefixes, then applying that language (penta- + -tonic) to music.

The 4^th and 5^th graders started their month by reviewing rhythms, rounds, and note names on the treble clef staff. I may have tricked them all into doing a bit of music math with the rhythms we’ve reviewed, especially the dotted ones… In other rhythmic news, the 4^th graders learned how to count rhythms using numbers instead of counting syllables. They’ve practiced this skill using rhythms as small as 8^th notes. The 5^th graders reviewed this skill, added 16^th notes to their number-counting repertoire, and learned a new rhythm (dotted 8^th/16^th note combination). After we reviewed counting and note names, we were ready to move on to recorders! It’s been a bit of a bummer with cold days taking away instruction time, but many of the students have been excited for home practice time.

Happy 2014, and may the polar vortex be over soon!

Ms. Corinne Galligan
(920) 822-0433
cmgalligan@pulaskischools.org
lannoyemusic.blogspot.com 

National Kazoo Day

So, you know how there are some really strange holidays out there? For example, yesterday was Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day. Well, today is National Kazoo Day. Enjoy it with these examples of kazoo prowess.

Here's a kazoo cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman."

And here's a kazoo cover of "One Day More" from the musical Les Miserables.

2013 Winter Concert

I want to congratulation all of the Lannoye students on a wonderful pair of winter concert performances! I heard nothing but praise from members of the audience. They were happy to hear the 3rd graders singing in Russian and the 4th graders singing in Hebrew, to hear so many students playing instruments, and to hear students singing in rounds (3rd and 4th grade) and descants (5th grade - "Christmas through the Eyes of a Child"). Again, thank you to all of the people who made this possible!

If you couldn't make it to the concert (or if you want to relive it), here are the videos of each song!

Kindergarten: 

"Snow is Falling Today"

"My Red Sled"

1st Grade

"If I Could Fly like a Snowflake"

"For You"

2nd Grade

"Snowman Choir"

"Merry Christmas Bells"

Kindergarten, 1st Grade, and 2nd Grade

Accompanied by 5th grade on recorders

"The World Says Merry Christmas"

3rd Grade

Here We Come A-Caroling

Yolochka

4th Grade

"Do You Hear?"

"Shalom Chaverim"

5th Grade

"Music Alone Shall Live"

"Christmas through the Eyes of a Child"

3rd Grade, 4th Grade, and 5th Grade

"My Favorite Things"

Whole School, K-5

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas"

Practice Makes Better

Some inspiration to get started...

"Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation." (Ann Voskamp, author)

"Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice reduces the imperfection." (Toba Beta, author)

"Forget perfect on the first try. In the face of frustration, your best tool is a few deep breaths, and remembering that you can do anything once you've practiced two hundred times." (Miriam Peskowitz, author)

"Talent is only a starting point." (Irving Berlin, composer)

"What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve." (Johann Sebastian Bach, composer)

"Champions keep playing until they get it right." (Billie Jean King, tennis player)

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." (Aristotle, philosopher)

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started." (Mark Twain, author)

And some inspiration to keep going...

"I can accept failure - everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying." (Michael Jordan, basketball player)

"It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure." (Bill Gates, inventor, programmer, investor)

"Don't be afraid to fail. Don't waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It's okay to fail. If you're not failing, you're not growing." (H. Stanley Judd, author)

"A failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying." (B. F. Skinner, psychologist)

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." (Thomas Edison, inventor)

"For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour." (Mary Kay Ash, entrepreneur)

"Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle." (Napoleon Hill, author)

"All growth depends on activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work." (Calvin Coolidge, 30th U.S. president)

Now pick up that recorder/basketball/pencil/math problem/book/controller/snowboard/etc. and get to work! It might be difficult...but it will be worth it. Be gentle to yourself, observe things without judging, and realize that perfection won't happen right away. If you start practicing now, though, you'll get better faster than if you choose not to practice! :)

http://www.tonedeafstore.com/collections/posters/products/fail-chart 

DRUM card opportunity: Using proper spelling and grammar (and proper punctuation and capitalization!), tell me how practice, failure, and success are all related. If you'd like, you can also share your reaction to the "Practice Makes Better" post.

Nontraditional Music Videos

Fun fact: MTV (Music Television) launched on August 1, 1981, airing "Video Killed the Radio Star." However, music videos had been around for quite a few years before MTV began.

Some music videos are pretty straightforward, with singing, instruments, maybe some dancing, and perhaps it takes place at some exotic location with great weather. This requires planning, multiple recording takes, and lots of people. Other music videos are different. Here are some neat, "nontraditional" music videos.

The Artist: OK Go
The Song: "Here it Goes Again"
The Nontraditional Aspect: This video includes dancing...on treadmills. (Please do not try this at home. Or the gym. Or anywhere else.) It took the band 17 tries to get the dance right!

The Artist: OK Go
The Song: "This Too Shall Pass"
The Nontraditional Aspect: This video utilizes what is called a Rube Goldberg machine, which takes some simple task and accomplishes it using some comical, complicated contraption. An example of this would be the game Mouse Trap. This video does the same thing. How many steps does it take to get to the end result?

The Artist: OK Go
The Song: "Needing/Getting"
The Nontraditional Aspect: This video was an advertisement for the Chevy Sonic. It uses different additions to the car to make sounds on different found instruments set up on a driving course in a desert. For two months, the band worked with an acoustical engineer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, planning the instruments, the course, and everything in between. They used lots of math, science, and good old experimentation! The lead singer also went to stunt driving school during the preparations for shooting the video. One of the band members wrote a computer program to figure out how fast the car had to go throughout the song. Here's the final product:

The Artist: Daft Punk
The Song: Harder Better Faster Stronger
The Nontraditional Aspect: The lyrics in this song are very repetitive, so you'll find out how one fan decided to mix it up a bit.

The Artist: Oren Lavie
The Song: Her Morning Elegance
The Nontraditional Aspect: This video shows a variety of actions and places, all one on background object. This shows how awesome video editing can be!

The Artist: Coldplay
The Song: Strawberry Swing
The Nontraditional Aspect: All of the animation on this looks like chalk, but it's hand-drawn and then combined with technology.

The Artist: Jesse & Joy
The Song: Chocolate
The Nontraditional Aspect: This is another video with a variety of animation. It's also in Spanish.

The Artist: a-ha
The Song: Take on Me
The Nontraditional Aspect: This video took home six awards from the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards. Imagine your comic book or graphic novel coming to life.

The Artist: The White Stripes
The Song: Fell in Love with a Girl
The Nontraditional Aspect: Do you like LEGOs? This video was shot frame by frame, rebuilding the LEGOs for each shot. It won three MTV Video Music Awards in 2002.