Dear Children and Parents,
We’ve had a challenging year and thankfully, we made it through!
Children, you did a great job! It has been a joy to teach you music. Thank you for your eagerness, enthusiasm – and for helping out with the smart board.
Wish you all great journeys and wonderful adventures, whether you return to LIS in the fall or move to other ports of call in your voyage through life!
best wishes to all!
Ms Chiasson, music teacher, LIS
Greetings, Dear Students and Parents!
I hope you’re all enjoying a good week. As mentioned in the previous post, we have been discovering the orchestra and its instruments.
Here are four video links featuring instruments in the orchestra: This first link features bassoon, violin, piano and percussion, in a very cheerful piece called”Color Wheel Dances”. Listen for the bell-like tones of the glockenspiel and the splashy sound of a suspended cymbal… (Be sure to start from the beginning.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg2CB4KHwbI&t=128s
Below is the famous Canadian Brass. Enjoy their rich and smooth sound.
String Quintet by Antonin Dvorak (2 violins, viola, cello and double bass) up to 4:08 (Group name OPUS ) – wonderful music and musicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMnPKzovmxQ
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste by Bela Bartok: Suggested listening 12:08-15:00 (about 3 minutes) Listen out and watch for the harp, piano, timpani and a short cello solo….(Solo means one person performing).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EsNGS9vYe8
Enjoy! Have a great week.
Kind regards,
Ms Chiasson, music teacher, LIS
“Keep on keeping on!” “Never give up! Best is yet to come!”
Dear Children and Parents,
I hope all is well with each of you.
This month all children have been learning about the instruments of the orchestra.
The following delightful and informative video of the Sidney Youth Orchestra at the Sidney Opera House, has sparked enthusiastic interest at all our primary levels. Hope you all enjoy “George Meets the Orchestra”:
Upper primary students have been learning all the families of instruments. Lower primary have zeroed in individual families of instruments at each of P2 and P3 whilst P1’s are learning to identify a few of the instruments of each family.
You all might be interested in the following link (from the Omaha School of Music and Dance) which offers up a selection of “random interesting facts about the brass family”:
Hope you enjoy this week’s blog and have a good weekend!
Best wishes and kindest regards,
Monique Chiasson, music teacher, LIS
P.S. a little riddle for you: Q.What do you call a modern-day spider?
A. a web master….
Dear Students and Parents, Continue reading From your Music Teacher…
Greetings, Dear Children and Parents!
Music is all about listening!
All classes at LIS from P1- P6 are listening to selected music of various composers from Camille Saint-Saëns to Aram Khachaturian to Modest Mussorgsky and Aaron Copland. The students are learning to follow listening maps, ( a listening map has symbols and pictures to show what’s happening in the music), a score of the melody, to identify changing meters (beat groupings), instruments of the orchestra and overall form and more.
It’s such a joy to share this wonderful and exciting music and to see your enthusiastic responses and connection to it.
P4, P5 and P6, please scroll down for videos from class:
P1, 2 and 3 students, please scroll back to earlier entries in this blog to review the music we’ve been listening to.
P3’s, the Adagio from Spartacus is below here, too.
wish you all a good weekend,
Monique Chiasson, music teacher, LIS
Below are links to Aaron Copland and Hoedown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLE-cp2LpfQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYdDYSTEuWo
“Adagio” from Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian: (suggest at least to 4:00)
Mussorgsky
Dear Children and Parents,
It’s wonderful to be back in school again. I hope you are all doing well in all aspects of life.
For videos on composers we’ve been learning about in Music classes, please scroll down the Music Blog page to the post called, “Just Going Along, Singing A Song” two posts before this one.
Thank you!
wishing everyone peace, prosperity and health,
Monique Chiasson, music teacher, LIS
“Peace unto myself, peace unto my family, peace unto my city, peace unto my nation, peace unto my world, peace unto my cosmos.”
Dear Children and Parents,
See below for a video of a surprising concert – a classical “Flash Mob” done in 2014. The video indicates the location as Place San Roc (which is in Barcelona, Spain).
(The music is the section, “Ode to Joy” 5th movement, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.)
Enjoy!
Peace, Peace, Peace – for Ukraine and all the world!
Sincerely,
Monique Chiasson, music teacher, LIS
Dear Children and Parents,
Warm greetings to you all!
Just a short note today.
For the special book week activity for music – My Music Class Music Journal, please see last week’s blog. There are 3 choices, so you choose the one you’d like to do.
P4, P5 and P6 Students, I had asked you to please have it ready to share at our next Music class – whether on Zoom or on campus – in April, after our school holiday. However, many of you are having difficulty because of not having your folder at home, so you will have some time in the next class to work on it.
A few children in P1, P2 and P3 shared their music class music journals on zoom. Some really awesome work – very good sentences, beautiful and colourful art work, and interesting facts. For those who haven’t done it yet, please complete this for our next Music class, which will be after the holiday.
Thank you to all the children for your great efforts to participate in class on zoom these past several weeks.
Best wishes to all,
Monique Chiasson, music teacher, LIS
Peace and harmony for our world.
A special very short video you might all enjoy, “Hémiones” (fast animals) from Carnival of the Animals, by Camille Saint-Saëns, (performed by a piano duo called Vieness Duo, a husband and wife team).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSHXH_-5aeA
For P1’s, a 2- minute bio video on Camille Saint-Saëns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaM5E1xyNk4
For P2’s, a 4 -minute bio video on Tchaikovsky here: (Sound by Classics for Kids, Naomi Lewin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dlhan81qB0
For P3’s, a 3 (+) minute bio video on Aram Khatchaturian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc2nrX4vzAA
Greetings to all, dear children and parents!
This week, in honor of Book Week coming next week, I’d like to invite all students to create My Music Class Music Journal.
The theme is music we have learned in music classes and there are 3 CHOICES you can select from:
MY MUSIC CLASS MUSIC JOURNAL
3 possible CHOICES
Suggested size A5 – fold A4 in half.
1. Make a little music class song journal, listing the songs we have sung in music class, along with the songwriters’ names. Create your own illustration of one of the songs, and explain something you learned from it and what musical features you find interesting and enjoyable about it. Create an attractive colourful cover with a title and the author’s (your) name and class.
Or
2. you could choose some music we have listened to, with the title and composer and draw a picture to illustrate the music, and explain something you learned about music and what musical features you find interesting and enjoyable about it. Also, include 1 or 2 sentences about the composer. Please colour your artwork.
Special note for Pui O students: We haven’t yet studied a composer this year so if you’d like to write about a composer and their music, you can choose a composer from this page and listen to some of their music and follow the rest of the instructions (in blue, above):
https://www.classicsforkids.com/composer-explorer/
or at this link:
https://www.classicsforkids.com/past-shows/
If you’re interested in women composers, you can learn more by listening to the podcast here: https://www.classicsforkids.com/
Or
3. Write
about the music activities we do in music class and as much as you can about what you have learned so far. Create a colourful musical design for your cover.
Make sure you write the title, My Music Class Music Journal, with your name and class on the cover. Colour your drawings and the cover.
Pui O students, we will discuss this in class on Monday, March 21.
Hope you enjoy this project. I look forward to seeing your work.
kind regards,
Monique Chiasson, music teacher, LIS
P.S. See the music below for lower primary.
P3 Sabre Dance, from the ballet Gayane by Aram Khatchaturian
P2 Russian Dance from The Nutcracker Ballet by Tchaikovsky
P1 The Elephant from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns
Warmest greetings to you all – children and parents!
Hope you are all doing well!
We are picking up the pace in Music classes, with a few assessments online – starting this week with singing in P4’s – and other assessments starting next week for P1, P2, P3, P5 and P6 students.
Additionally, Pui O students are performing dance moves, “side – close” dance step to show understanding of beat. The featured piece is the title of this week’s Music Blog: “Kidd Jordan’s Second Line” created and performed by the Dirty Dozen band formed by a student of Kidd Jordan, an outstanding music educator and one of the world’s great saxophonists and jazz musicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHI9pZz7poQ
Lower primary students are moving to music to show the form, or arrangement of different sections in the music. Their pieces include Sabre Dance (P3), Russian Dance (P2) and Elephant (P1), which is a minuet in three-four time.
Bravo to all the children for keeping on keeping on!
Dear Students, Please make sure to do your very, very best effort to be attentive and participate in Music class activities next week because as mentioned in your Music class this week, you will be assessed and it will count toward your final Music grade in your June report card. (Some individuals need to be more focused and more active in class.)
Thank you for being in class and taking part in our zoom Music activities.
Let’s keep the thoughts of peace, harmony and goodwill for everyone in the world.
Have a great week, everyone!
See you all next time!
Monique Chiasson, music teacher, LIS