Follow along with this video to learn how to play “Here Comes The Sun”. It works best as a play-along to the other video of the song that I posted down below. We’ll also explore what syncopation is, and how to play “on and off the beat”.
School is almost over for the year, so what better way to start the summer than with this song! It’s one of my favourite songs by The Beatles, and I’ve put the words in the video so that you can follow along and learn to sing it too 🙂
Music can share so many different emotions with us. Some songs can make us feel happy and excited, while other songs can make us feel sad or relaxed. The best part about this, though, is that one song could have a totally different emotion for different people! A song that makes you feel happy might not give the same feeling to somebody else, and that’s one of the reasons that music is so special!
I’d love to hear what kind of music gives you an emotional connection. See if you can find a different answer for each of these emotions. Your answers could be a song title, a personal experience (like “listening to my brother play piano”, or “hearing my mom singing”), or something else!
The music that makes me feel excited is…
The music that makes me feel sad is…
The music that makes me feel calm is…
The music that makes me feel ___________ (pick a different emotion!) is….
I’d love to hear your answers, so please send them to derek.maroney@burnabyschools.ca
Intermediates,
Here’s a chance for you to talk about one of your favourite songs! I’d love to hear what music inspires you, so this can be any song of your choice.
All of the details for the assignment are on the document. I’m looking forward to hearing your responses!
Sometimes it seems like making music can be hard, especially if you don’t have an instrument at home! Sure, you can always sing a song, but what can you do if you want to play music on something?
This is where we get to be creative with our “instruments”. There are so many different ways that we can create different sounds using just the objects in our house. How many different sounds can you get out of just using a cereal box? Maybe it can be like a drum, if you hit the box with spoons. Maybe it can be a shaker, if you shake the cereal bag. Maybe it can be a megaphone and make your voice louder, if you sing into the hollow box with both ends.
My challenge for you is to see if you can find things around your house that you can make music with in each of these ways:
- Something you can shake
- Something you can scrape
- 3 different things that you can use as drums
- One object that you can get 3 different sounds out of
- Something that has both a high pitched sound and a low sound
- Something that makes your voice sound different when you sing into it
- Something that makes a sound that you might hear on a beach
- Something from nature that can make a sound
Please share some of your findings with me, I’d love to see/hear what you create! You can either share them as a comment on this post, or by email to derek.maroney@burnabyschools.ca
Happy hunting!
For inspiration, here’s a video of one of my favourite musicians, Jacob Collier, creating a song using only found sounds. So cool!
Hello intermediates!
Today’s assignment is to rewrite the words of a famous children’s song to describe your experience at home for the past month.
Some song options could be…
-Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
-Row, Row, Row Your Boat
-Happy Birthday
-or any other simple song that you know!
Once you’ve picked a song, now it’s time to change the original words to your new ones. You can write about anything that you’d like, including how you’ve been feeling, what you’ve been doing with your family, or a video game you’ve been playing. Make sure that the words still line up with the melody of the song, and if possible, try to keep the rhyme pattern the same as the original song.
There is an example on the assignment sheet. Once you’ve written your new song on the assignment sheet, please email it to me at derek.maroney@burnabyschools.ca by Friday May 8th.(Or even better, send a recording of you singing your new song, if you’d like!)
I can’t wait to hear what you create!
Quarantine Song Writing Challenge assignment sheet
The Burnaby music teachers put together a video of all of us singing or playing along to the Music Monday song from last year. See if you can spot me and Mr. Yanko in the video!
The Piano Guys are an amazing youtube channel with so many great arrangements, so today seems like a great day to share their Star Wars medley!
And yes, I don’t know why they’re called The Piano Guys either, since most of their videos are about cellos, but they’re still incredible 🙂
Check out this great video that the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra just released for Star Wars Day!
May The 4th be with you!
Happy Star Wars Day everyone, let’s learn how to play the theme on recorder!
(recommended for experienced recorder players, or beginners who want a challenge)