Term 2, Weeks 4 and 5: Rounds and Danny Kaye - The Little Fiddle Story

 (Intermediate Music Options Groups: Here's the link to the site where you can make up your own tunes.)

This term, we have been learning to sing rounds.

We have done:

Row, Row, Row your Boat
This is probably one of the best known rounds. The earliest-known version of  these lyrics in print was in 1852, although the tune was quite different. The  version we know was first recorded in print in 1881. It has even been sung by Captain Kirk, Dr McCoy and Mr Spock on Star Trek.

Here's a world record attempt of the largest amount of people to sing Row, Row, Row your Boat 
(Cut to three minutes to get to the round.)

Here's another version of  Row, Row, Row your Boat with Justin Timberlake.

From Wikipedia

Mrs O'Leary's Cow   We learnt about the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871.  Here's a photo of Mrs O'Leary's house.   Here's a panorama of the devastation caused by the Great Fire of Chicago.

The cow may not have been responsible for the Chicago Fire.

London's Burning: Here's a video about the Great Fire of London  made by young school children.

Link from this site 

Three Blind Mice:

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Here's a video about the history of the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice

Here's a rock version of Three Blind Mice.

Baa Baa Black Sheep
This link takes you to a short video clip about the story behind Baa Baa Black Sheep. 

 

Link to web page This music includes the guitar or ukulele chords to play with Baa Baa Back Sheep.

Here's the story of The Little Fiddle told by Danny Kaye. Can you recognise any of the music that is played?

2014, Week 5: Flight of the Bumble Bee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Here is a Russian orchestra playing the Flight of the Bumblebee.
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Here's a longer version of the Flight of the Bumble bee. It's from an outdoor concert.

Look and listen for: flutes and violins.

How does the composer make this music sound like a bee? 

Here's a very short extract from the Flight of the Bumblebee from the Muppets.  

This is one of my favourite fun versions of the Flight of the Bumblebee done in 1981 by Danny Kaye.  

Here's someone having a bit of fun with the Flight of the Bumblebee. It's a lot harder than it looks. Try it at home!

Here's the world's fastest violinist, David Garrett, playing Flight of the Bumblebee in record time.

Here's a graphic visualisation  of what it looks like to play this on the piano.


Here's another version of  graphic notation of the score.

And here's a great adaptation of the Flight of the Bumblebee  from 1948 called Bumble Boogie

Here's a worksheet you can print or just read it and find out a bit more about the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.


Here are some real bees. 

Here's some more information about bumblebees by David Attenborough 

Vocabulary:
ascending - going up
descending - going down
chromatic scale - playing all the keys in order -including black as well as white keys

Here's some real bees from the Huia 1 garden.