Music Notes: End of March 2014

Music Notes

March 2014

Greetings from the Lannoye music room!

March is MusicIn Our Schools Month (MIOSM)! This year’s theme, “Music makes me _____,” is at the bottom of the page – how would you fill in the blank? In honor of MIOSM, I did a survey of all of the Lannoye adults to get a sense of the music “history” in the building. I created a “just-for-fun” quiz for students and families to take. Test your knowledge (or guess!) and see how much you know about us here at school. The quiz begins on the next page, and the answers (and wisdom/advice from survey participants) follow!

It’s neat that we’re celebrating Grandparents Day during MIOSM – as an entire school, we get to share our appreciation and love through music! That being said, the students have continued their preparations for the program opener and closer and are excited to perform it for our guests on Friday!

We also celebrated Read Across America Week during the month of March. The school-wide Stop, Drop, and Read activity fell during 5^th grade music, so both 5^th grade classes got to select from a variety of music-related articles to read. All of the articles are now up on the music blog with related videos. Check it out!

Brief rundown of the rest of our classes:

The kindergarteners have continued on in their Rhythm Band studies, which begin to build the connection between music reading and instrument playing. They are getting very comfortable taking turns echo-singing, both in small groups and as individuals. Also, they’ve been practicing showing loud/soft and fast/slow by playing (and singing) “Lucy Locket,” a hide-the-object game.

The 1^st graders have been learning how to play new and review instruments, including the claves, guiro, woodblock, maracas, and tambourine. They also just added “la” to the solfege that they know (in addition to “so” and “mi”).

The 2^nd graders have been practicing their composition skills with the rhythms that they know (quarter note, two eighth notes, quarter rest, half note, half rest, whole note, and whole rest).

The 3^rd graders have continued their rhythm studies with “ti-ta-ti,” and will next apply their single eighth note knowledge to single eighth notes and eighth rests. They've become quite confident in their partner songs and rounds, too!

The 4^th and 5^th graders have continued their recorder studies. They’ve also begun exploring evaluation and constructive criticism. After reflecting on what they use to determine whether a performance is good or needs improvement, both grades used four musical criteria to evaluate me playing the opening excerpt of a flute concerto in two very different ways. After that, the 4^th graders created their own recorder performance rubrics, and the 5^th graders played for each other in small groups to practice giving and receiving constructive criticism. 

Enjoy your spring break!

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

Excerpt from “Why Study Music?” by Donald Hodges (2005)

♫      Feelings: Central to any discussion of music as a knowledge system must be the idea of feelings. From one end of the continuum dealing with vague, unspecified moods to the other end dealing with crystallized emotions such as grief or joy, music is intrinsically connected with feelings.

♫      Aesthetic experiences: All human beings have a need for beauty and to activate their innate responsiveness to the organized expressive sounds that we call music.

♫      The ineffable: Precisely because music is a nonverbal form of expression, it is a powerful means to express or to know that which is difficult or impossible to put into words.  Two of the most common human experiences that are frequently known through music are love and spiritual awareness.

♫      Thoughts: Musical thought is just as viable as linguistic, mathematical, or visual thought. It can be a potent means of expressing ideas and of knowing truth.

♫      Structure: Closely allied to the idea of thinking is structure. The human mind seeks patterns, structure, order, and logic. Music provides a unique way of structuring sounds across time, as well as providing a means of structuring thoughts, feelings, and human experiences.

♫      Time and space: Time and space are the ‘stuff’ of the universe. All human knowledge systems provide ways of dealing with time and space. As indicated in ‘Structure’ above, music is a means of organizing sounds across time. Although music occurs in ‘real’ time, it deals more with ‘felt’ time. Music, especially in connection with dance (bodily-kinesthetic knowledge system), is a primary means of experiencing space in time.

♫      Self knowledge: Music’s role in intrinsic, and especially peak (transcendent, life-changing), learning experiences provides for powerful insights into our private, inner worlds.

♫      Self identity: Many gain their sense of self through a variety of musical activities and experiences.

♫      Group identity: Group identity through music is both inclusive and exclusive in that (a) music helps cement the bonding of those members of a group who share common ideas, beliefs, and behaviors, and (b) music helps isolate and separate one group from another.

♫      Healing and wholeness: From more specific applications of music in therapy and medicine to more general interactions, music has profound effects on human beings. Music provides a vehicle for the integration of body, mind, and spirit.

For more information, go to http://musiced.nafme.org/events/music-in-our-schools-month/