Tuesday, 25 July 2017

2017 Term 3 Week 1: Interesting Instruments - The Typewriter

Welcome back to school for Term 3. 
This term we are looking at interesting instruments and interesting ways instruments are used. We are also working on vocal skills, including  enunciation, voice production, expression, choral speaking (rhymes and poems), and singing to accompany playing the ukulele. Juniors are learning about nursery rhymes and songs that tell a story. We continue to learn about beat and rhythm, notation and music symbols, and all elements of music but especially dynamics and tempo. We continue to develop movement skills and vocabulary and to learn and enjoy dancing routines and to create our own.Juniors are developing performance skills using percussion instruments and Seniors are learning and developing ukulele and glockenspiel skills, and Intermediates are learning ukulele skills. Specialist Intermediate groups are learning about 12 bar blues and will compose their own song. Throughout the term we develop and extend our vocabulary and general knowledge based on planned and incidental learning in our music classes. It is going to be a busy term. 


Dances: 

1. The Wheels on the Bus , Hot Potato I Like to Move it 

2.  Good Feeling  , Land of a Thousand Dances


3. I Gotta Feeling , Waterloo,   Don't Stop Me Now 


Tongue Twisters: 
Tongue twisters are a great way to warm up for singing and to help us to improve our enunciation (saying sounds and words clearly). 
Theory: 
Add bar lines in 4/4 timing. (Scroll down for completed version.) 

The Typewriter  composed by Leroy Anderson, and performed by "Voces para la Paz" (Voices for Peace), an orchestra in Spain. 

This short video  about type-writers is from 1950 - the same year that Leroy Anderson composed "The Typewriter". It shows you where typewriter technology was at that time, and helps explain some of the typists actions and sounds in the performance. 


Leroy Anderson (1908 - 1975) was an American composer known mostly for short, 'light' orchestral music, and for using creative instrumental effects - including using non-musical instruments in a musical way. 

                                        
This is a music map of the typewriter

Here's a very funny version of The Typewriter where the actual typewriter doesn't work properly and the musician has to do his bests to keep in time and still make a sound to fit in with the rest of the orchestra. 
Here's a comedy skit from the 1960s based on The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson,  by a comedian called Jerry Lewis. 

                                          
And a skit about a typist having difficulty moving from typewrite technology to computer technology. 

(Intermediates -STEAM group) Here's an interesting version of the blues - this is the Boston Typewriter Orchestra with a  song called the Underwood Blues.  (Underwood was a brand of typewriter.) What makes it a blues song?  What instruments are used? 


Here is a the first page of the music score of the The Typewriter. Can you follow the rhythm pattern? 
Juniors: 
Warm up and focus: Good Night Moon by Claudia Robin Gunn 

Nursery Rhymes
The nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet first appeared in print in 1805. It's origins and meanings are not known for sure.  
Curds and whey
Vocabulary
tuffet - a low seat or footstool, completely covered in cloth so legs are not visible. 
curd  - (curdle) when milk starts to form solids
whey - the liquid left over after the milk has formed curds
arachnophobia - fear of spiders 
arachnid - spider 



A tuffet 

A famous painting of Little Miss Muffet by English painter Sir John Everett Millais. 
A Bullwinkle cartoon about Little Miss Muffet 

Kermit the Frog Interviews Little Miss Muffet

                                                 

Vocabulary "The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night":
Many versions of this song have appeared since its first known version in the 1400s (15th century). This is Pete Seeger (1919 - 2014) from the 1960s. Note that some of the words and tune may be a bit different. 
chilly - cold 
therein -  another way of saying in there 
den - a fox's home 
strife - worry or trouble 
carving - cutting - a carving knife has a long blade to cut meat



The Fox (Ukulele/Guitar D)
(Highlighted words are for soloists)  

The fox went out on a chilly night
He prayed for the moon to give him light                               
 He had many a mile to go that night
Before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o
He had many a mile to go that night                                
Before he reached the town-o



Well, he ran till he came to the great big pen
The ducks and the geese were kept therein
He said, "A couple of you are gonna grease my chin
Before I leave this town, town-o, town-o"
He said, "A couple of you are gonna grease my chin
Before I leave this town-o"



He grabbed the grey goose by the neck
Threw the ducks across his back
And he didn't mind the quack, quack, quack
And the legs all danglin' down-o, down-o, down-o
He didn't mind the quack, quack, quack
And the legs all danglin' down-o



Old mother Flipper Flopper jumped out of bed
Out of the window she popped her head
Cryin', "John, John, the gray goose is gone
And the fox is on the town-o,  town-o, town-o
She cried, “John, John, the gray goose is gone and the fox is on the town-o!”



Well, the fox he ran to his cosy den
There were his little ones, eight, nine, ten
Cryin', "Daddy, daddy, better go back again
'Cause it must be a mighty fine town-o, town-o, town-o
Daddy, daddy, better go back again
'Cause it must be a mighty fine town-o"



Then the fox and his wife without any strife
Cut up the goose with a carving knife
They never had such a supper in their life                      
And the little ones chewed on the bones-o, bones-o, bones-o
They never had such a supper in their life
And the little ones chewed on the bones-o



Wednesday, 5 July 2017

2017, Term 2, Week 10 - Last week of the term

It's  that time of the term again - the last week. 


                                                   
Check out the original Jail House Rock  video - over 50 years old!
Jail House Rock - Elvis Presley - Try this dance in groups of four.
Or this version  of Jail House Rock as a line dance.
Jail House Rock - Junior Version (although still tricky enough!)




How many music symbols can you recognise?