Final Project!

I was not very excited about my original final project topic. Dr. Barber let me change it to something that I would really enjoy. It is actually pretty obvious why I love it when you hear the topic: Trombone Bone-anza!

Here is the link to the WIX page for my final project: http://alexevansjames.wixsite.com/trombone-boneanza

I am VERY excited to be able to work on ‘Trombone Bone-anza.’ It is close to my heart and I think everyone should know more about the trombone. Because of that passion, I think I will be able to teach it well. The three lessons would cover: 1. The Evolution of the Trombone; 2. Jazz Trombone; and 3. Art Music Trombone. This unit will be made available for grades 6-8 in a General Music classroom.
Here are two behavioral objectives that go along with this unit:

1. The student will compare different styles and eras of trombone playing and classify them correctly.

2. The student will discover the evolutionary process of the trombone since it’s creation as the sackbut.

PowerPoint: the-evolution-of-the-trombone

Handling All That Data!

Excel documents are a great way to organize information that band directors, choir directors, and music educators are often surrounded with! Here is an example:

 

Also, here is a screenshot of my idea for my final project blog post:

Mussorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition!

Jordan, Alex S, Jac, and I decided to help with the program notes and bios for Pictures! (Patrick too at the last minute, so he does not get to be in the nice picture)

Bio for Hartmann:

Viktor A. Hartmann (May 5, 1834-August 4, 1873) was a Russian architect and painter. He studied at the St. Petersburg’s Academy of Fine Arts and later became a book illustrator and an architect in his early life. He was at the forefront of the Russian Revival, friend of and inspiration to many contemporaries in the field of architecture, art, and music. In 1862, Hartmann worked on the monument to the thousandth anniversary of Russia in Novgorod. Hartmann unfortunately died at an early age due to a brain aneurysm. He was good friends with the composer Modest Mussorgsky. A year after his death, there was an exhibition of over four hundred of Hartmann’s works at St. Petersburg’s Academy of Fine Arts; this was the inspiration for Mussorgsky’s suite “Pictures at an Exhibition,” which Hartmann is best known for.

Audio description for Promenades:

The Promenade occurs often throughout the suite and it occurs before even the very first movement. In the Promenade, Mussorgsky depicts himself “roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now briskly in order to come close to a picture that had attracted his attention, and at times sadly, thinking of his departed friend.” The melody comes from a simple, rhythmically strong Russian folk song. Each Promenade takes on a different feel, reinforcing the different mood as the listener goes through the Exhibition.

Resources:

http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/gallery/pictures/hartmann.htm
http://www.famousbirthdays.com/people/viktor-hartmann.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pictures-at-an-Exhibition#ref1175481
Viktor Hartmann: Born May 5, 1834
Here is the link for our the blog of our project: https://atumussorgsky.wordpress.com

Inaugural Arkansas State Marching Contest

WOW!! It was such a pleasure to be able to attend and observe the Inaugural Arkansas State Marching Contest!

It was housed in two different locations to take place from 10am – 6pm on Tuesday, November 1st. The bands in classes AA and AAA performed at the North Little Rock High School Stadium and the bands in classes AAAA and AAAAA performed at War Memorial Stadium. It was organized so that the smaller classes would perform first at each location and each class had a sub-organization of performing from the smallest band to the largest band.

 

Of course, it is a State Marching Contest so you would expect it to be much more difficult to receive high ratings when compared to Region Marching Contest, but this blew me out of the water. Of the 27 bands in classes AAAA and AAAAA, only 9 got a first division. WOW!

The results for the day were as follows:

AA
1st Prescott (High Visual and Music)
2nd Piggott
3rd Gurdon

AAA
1st Arkadelphia (High Visual and Music)
2nd Dardanelle
3rd Pocahontas

AAAA
1st Paragould (High Visual and Music)
2nd Batesville
3rd Alma

AAAAA
1st Bentonville (High Visual and Music)
2nd Lake Hamilton
3rd Bryant

I can’t wait to attend next year while I am interning with the Cabot Band and I’m excited to eventually start taking my own band here when I am a band director!!

Recorder Composition

It’s been so long since I’ve played the recorder! It is so easy to overflow on these things and get all kids of nasty, out of tune high notes that you don’t want! BUT, it’s possible to make great music with recorders that offer a different style than with the percussion instruments.

My recorder composition is entitled “Poco a poco” because the recorder part gets a little more difficult rhythmically at each phrase (and the piano part gets very difficult towards the end as well).

Here is the link to the piece because I can not yet play that piano accompaniment. (Maybe change that to where I can play it in the future if my classroom doesn’t have the appropriate technological equipment)

Copyright Test

Wow. I read the article and then took the test. I still did very poorly, haha. I feel like it would be easier as a teacher to look up the specific copyright law that applied to me or I could research into whatever material I wanted to use and see what their limits were on using the material.

Learning Based on Books – Goodnight Moon!

I chose ‘Goodnight Moon’ by Margaret Wise Brown for my lesson over a children’s book.

SINGING – Sing “Hey Diddle Diddle” nursery rhyme.

LISTENING – “Moon Dance” by Van Morrison or Michael Bublé

Van Morrison – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lFxGBB4UGU

Michael Bublé – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABxlQkIOfmA

INSTRUMENTS – Each student will get to use hand drums. We’ll start off by echoing the teacher to establish a pattern. Then each of the students will take turns improvising their own drum beat.

Here is a video of a ton of drums being used for a moon dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1dVpdc4Rw

CREATE – Explain to the students that the moon has a big affect on the our oceans and their currents and that some scientists believe that the moon affects humans in the same way making us act silly during the full moon. Students will create a Full Moon Mask from construction paper and other silly materials to express the silliest version of themselves!!!

RHYTHM – Compare the rhythmic stanzas on each page of ‘Goodnight Moon’ using Boom Whackers to emulate rhythmic phrases. A bonus would be to only use the notes in a major chord so as to ease the listening on the teachers ears. 🙂

MOVEMENT – Moon Dance!!! Students will dance a Moon Dance together while wearing their Moon Dance Masks! All students will be encouraged to act as silly as possible!!!

CROSS-CURRICULAR INFLUENCES: English, Math, History, Science.

Chrome Music Lab Experiments and Video Chatting

https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Experiments

There are some very FUN and educational apps on this website!

 

The student will visualize the difference between minor and major chords using Arpeggios.

The student will compose an original melody using the the Melody Maker.

 

So this picture is of poor-quality, and I am terribly sorry! However, Alex and I used FaceTime as our form of video-chatting. There was some slight lag in our video, but it is much better when you connect to a good wifi connection. It is very possible to give lessons via FaceTime. A jam session would be difficult due to potential lag of people trying to play on both sides in synchronization. If for some reason the a teacher could not make it to school that day, or perhaps for an extended period of time, that teacher could FaceTime, Skype, etc. into class and give the lesson for that day. There would probably need to be a substitute teacher in order facilitate a lesson like this.

Photos!

It was a very fun day in Music Ed Tech today. We learned how to be ARTISTS while taking photos on our phones (and how to not be too artistic…). We went outside and took a few photos. The weather was absolutely fantastic, though Jordan said it was too windy. It was very nice evening before the weekend of SWE rehearsals and the SWE concert on Sunday.

Listening Can Be Interactive

For this week’s project in Elementary Methods, I chose to have my students listen to ‘A Song For Japan’ by Steven Verhelst. This piece really demonstrates the POWER of music, and I would want to teach my kids about that. The piece was written for the tsunami that happened in 2011 and how the community came together in solidarity for Japan, specifically the music community. Trombonists from all over the world submitted videos out of their support for tragic disaster and this video compilation signifies and represents that music breaks down all barriers. People from all over the world showed respect for the disaster through music in this composition.

I would begin by teaching the students what the piece was written for and slightly explain the big dynamic difference and how that is affected partially by how many trombonists are playing at the same time throughout the piece. After that, I would have the students color with the provided coloring page or to draw on the other side of the page. They could even switch back and forth between the two if they wanted to. They should just color or draw whatever comes to mind while listening to the music and reflecting on what it is about. There would be reflection and questions at the end and kids could present what they drew or colored and they could talk about it if they wanted to.