2016 Term 1: Weeks 9 and 10 - The Spanish Dance "Chocolate" from the Nutcracker

 Gardens School Newsletter for April 5 2016 
 
In this session's lessons, we will continue learning about the Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky - and we visit another country for another dance: Spain, and the dance is often known as "Chocolate".  Perfect for the week after Easter!

This is a very high definition of the entire Nutcracker ballet.  The Spanish dance starts at 53.33  
The Russian Dance starts at 1:00:03.  Also, we are starting to learn about the music involved in  Anzac Day - which falls in the holidays - so will cover a bit of that over the next two and a half weeks. 

The Spanish Dance - Chocolate - from The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky

 The Spanish Dance is one of the dances from around the world that is preformed for Clara and the Prince in Act II of the ballet The Nutcracker. 

Watch and listen  to some of these versions of the Spanish Dance from the Nutcracker. Look at the questions below, and think about the answers as you watch and listen. 

This version from Los Angeles has a principal male and female dancer with other females dancing behind them. 

This version is from the Moscow Ballet in Russia  - and includes a bull . . . 

 
This version is by the Mariinksy Ballet in Saint Petersburg - where Tchaikovsky lived. We have seen many other parts of the ballet by this company.   (It's followed by the Arabian dance, which you might like to check out, too.) 

This is another version of the Spanish dance -  by Russian dancers - at Saint Petersburg. 
This is the Marlupi Dance Academy from Jakarta in Indonesia. 

This is by a dance school in the Caribbean. 

This is a girl doing a solo of the dance with an orchestra playing behind her. Notice her costume, her dance movements - including how she uses her hands and feet.  

This version has several pairs of male and female dancers - including Clara and the Nutcracker prince who join in.  

In this version, you can see a rehearsal of the Spanish dance with several groups of dancers. 

This is a dress rehearsal of the Spanish Dance, starring Ciro Tamayo, principal dancer with the Uruguay National Ballet.  Notice that this version includes a bull!


- What instruments can you hear in this piece of music?   Here's one of them.
- What instruments are the same and what are different from the Russian  dance and the Chinese dance?
- What percussion instrument is used to signify that it is a Spanish-themed dance? (Here's another Tchaikovsky Spanish dance, but it shows you an interesting way of playing the percussion instrument.) 

- What costumes do the dancers wear? What is the same - or similar - in most of the versions of the dance? 
- Describe the different movements of the male and female dancers. 
- What similarities and differences do you notice between  the costumes and dance movements in the Chinese, Russian and Spanish dances? 

Here, you can learn some Spanish flamenco dance steps and hand movements. Each lesson is very short and you can easily follow the demonstrator. 

 
Here are dancers from the San Fransisco ballet who are visiting a children's hospital.  They talk about their characters and show some of their dances. Look for the Spanish dancers, and also a familiar dancer of the Russian dance. 


This is a bit of an unusual arrangement of the Spanish dance. What instruments are used?  

This is  visual representation of this Spanish Dance 

 

This is an orchestra playing the entire Nutcracker music - without the ballet.   You can see the instruments used in the Spanish dance at 55.40. Look hard at the back to find the percussionist playing the castanets. 

And here's what the music looks like written down. How many notes can you identify? 

Here's a Tom and Jerry cartoon of Tom (the cat) doing a Spanish dance.  It's not the original sound track, and I think it's been dubbed over- but you will still recognise it as a Spanish dance. 

 

Check out our April 2014 post to learn more about what is involved in an Anzac Day ceremony.  
And this post from April last year (2015) for more information about the Anzac Day ceremony.   

Orchestra Practice at our school

At our school, senior students who want to learn an instrument can join the orchestra and participate from their very first lesson.  Some students have ukulele or recorder lessons on  Fridays, and they can practise at lunch times when the music room is open.   These are some photos of the orchestra practising Autumn by Vivaldi.  We will be recording it soon and posting it on our music blog. 

Part of the recorder group. 

Our drummers share a set of drums

One of our keyboard players.

It's great to have mini keyboards so more students can learn to play together. Playing together in an orchestra is the ultimate of Team work!

 And when we discover a visiting teacher plays the ukulele, we enlist her help to work with a group of beginners.

The percussionists are  creating their own rhythms - in ways that Vivaldi could never have imagined.

Mrs Lee works with the guitarists. 


Check out the videos  on the panel to the right and see what last year's orchestra achieved.

2016, Term 1 Weeks 7 and 8 . . . and even more Tchaikovsky: Trepak (Russian Dance)

This week we are learning about another dance from the Nutcracker ballet. It follows straight after the Chinese dance and is is called Trepak  or the Russian Dance.  It is based on a traditional Ukranian folk dance, and although there are many variations on how ballet companies decide to perform it, it always involves some aspects of Russian dance steps which require great strength and high leaps. 

Cartoon version of Russian dancing

This is the San Fransisco ballet version of the Trepak (Russian Dance) from The Nutcracker.

A percussion play along video 

Here's Walt Disney's Fantasia version from 1942.     
How did the animators show Russian characteristics in their animations?

This is a very clever performance of the Trepak Russian Dance by the famous Russian dancer and choreographer  Alexanader Kalinin - although it is not part of the ballet in this video; it is done to show the skills of these Russian dancers.

- Why do you think the tempo (speed) of the music goes faster, and then starts slower when the dance is repeated?

Here's more of the outdoor concert by the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

- What instruments can you see and hear?
- Listen for the tambourine; how and when is it played?
- Are all the instruments playing all the time? Listen for when you can hear different instruments take the lead, and watch for when you see the musicians start and stop playing.
- How do they all manage to stop playing so suddenly at the end?
- What does the conductor do before and after the music starts playing?

This is an extended jazz version of the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker.

- What is the same?
- What  is different?
- What instruments do the jazz players use  compared to the orchestral instruments? 
Even though the music is much longer  than Tchaikovsky's original and with added extras,  you can still hear  recognisable arrangements of the original.  Can you identify what changes they make, and how they do it?  

This is another jazz version played by a solo pianist - in Tchaikovsky's home city of Saint Petersburg in Russia.

And another jazz version, played mainly on a vibraphone also from Russia.  What instrument do we use that looks a little similar to a vibraphone? What is the same and what is different? What other instruments are in this group.

Here's a "So You Think You Can Dance" video  of the Russian Dance showing some of the rehearsal scenes and the actual competition performance of two very competitive guys.

Check out these little guys and see how they do the Russian Dance!  (How much of this do you think you could do?) 

Maybe you could try a "finger dance" to the Trepak. Watch the video and try to follow the movements. It's much easier doing this with your fingers than it is with your feet!

And,  of course, the rock guitar version.

One of the most prominent instruments in the Trepak is the tambourine.  

Tambourine

Check out this demonstration of how the tambourine is played to get the specific sounds you hear in this music.   This is another version of a percussionist playing the tambourine. Can you see what they do the same and differently to get the same sound?


via GIPHY

 And here's a cat playing a tambourine for real.

A visual interpretation of the Russian Dance.

Here's some listening maps for the Trepak (Russian Dance). Try follwing them while you listen to the music. Are they all the same? 

 Here's a rhythm pattern using plastic cups, but we could easily use it to play other percussion instruments. Can you find quavers, crotchets and rest?

Trepak using cups

And, because it's Saint Patrick's Day: 

The Rattlin' Bog is a fun Irish folk song about a  a tree in a bog (swamp).  As with most folk songs, there are many versions  of the song, and the lyrics (song words) differ in each version. 

Here's one version of The Rattlin' Bog. 

(Chorus 2x) 

O ro the rattlin' bog

The bog down in the valley - o 

O ro the rattlin' bog

The bog down in the valley - o 

And in the bog there was a tree

A rare tree, a rattlin' tree

With the tree in the hole  and the hole in the bog,

and the bog down in the valley-o 

(Chorus 1 x) 

And on the tree there was a limb

A rare limb, a rattlin'  limb, 

With the limb on the tree,  and the tree in the hole, 

and the hole in the bog

and the bog down in the valley-o. 

And on the limb there was a branch ...

And on the branch there was a twig ...

And on the twig there was a nest ... 

And in the nest there was an egg ...

And in the egg there was a chick ...
And on the chick there was feather ...  

And on the feather there was a flea ... 

  

2016 Term 1 Weeks 5 and 6: More Tchaikovsky

This is a very short dance from the Nutcracker suite, called the Chinese Dance or Tea. It is one of four short pieces of music representing four different countries: Spain, China, Russia and Arabia. Tchaikovsky knew Russian music well, of course, but he had never travelled to the other countries and the music he wrote was based on his knowledge folk songs and instruments, and people's  understandings of the cultures of these countries at that time (1890s).  Remember, in those days there was only live music - no recorded music at all, so people only know what they heard, or what they could play themselves if they had the sheet music to follow.  It is interesting that Tchaikovsky wasn't terribly happy with the music he had to write  for this as it had to fit the needs  and timing of the dancing (choreography). 

Why do you think the audience clapped twice during this short dance? Do you think they should have clapped? Why did they applaud for such a short time? 

Here's another version by another ballet company. 
 
There has been some discussion about the racial stereotypes these dances portray and that maybe they could be offensive  nowadays. What do you think?  Some versions  of the ballet now use a dragon as a more appropriate  Chinese reference.

Even though the Nutcracker is one of the world's most loved and popular ballets, when it was first performed in Russia in 1892, it wasn't  particularly popular.  It wasn't until Walt Disney made the Nutcracker Suite part of his 1940 Fantasia movie that the music became well known and popular in America. The ballet was revised, with a Christmas tree, and became an annual favourite at Christmas time. 


In the Fantasia interpretation of The Chinese Dance, note how cleverly the animators show the personality of the littlest mushroom: he makes no sound, and no face or hand gestures.  The little mushroom represents the trill of the flute, and the larger mushrooms represent the pizzicato plucking of the string section.  

Watch an orchestra play the Chinese Dance - how many instruments can you identify?  Is this faster or slower than the other versions you have seen and heard on this blog?  This is the Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Here is one version of a listening map for The Chinese Dance. 
Can you work out how the sounds are represented?  

 

 This is a video of The California Philharmonic Dancers performing several of the dances from the Nutcracker ballet. . . but is this ballet?   (The Chinese Dance starts at 6:25) 


Here's a link to the simplified piano music for the Chinese Dance.

And for a bit of fun -  a cat's version of the Chinese Dance.