"Music is the universal language of mankind." — H.W. Longfellow

Fun Stuff

Here are some fun music-related things for you to browse through.  Enjoy!

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This video combines the talent of the Harlem Globetrotters, a basketball team that works together to perform shows using teamwork skills of coordination and ball-handling to perform tricks, and Stomp, a percussion group that uses everyday objects to create rhythmic performances. It’s neat to hear the different rhythms they can produce using just the basketballs, and to watch how skillfully and creatively they handle the basketballs in order to do this.

This video was shot in one take (meaning they did the entire video without stopping and starting again), and they only had to try it seven times to get it right. That must have taken a lot of practice and teamwork!

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This is a group from France called “Les Objets Volants” whose performances include juggling, theatre, movement and music.  Here, they are using instruments called “boomwhackers”, which are hollow plastic tubes that vary in length.  They each produce a musical tone when they are hit against something — the floor, your leg, a table, even another boomwhacker.  The longer the length of the boomwhacker, the lower the pitch is.

In this performance, the group is striking the boomwhackers by passing them into each others’ hands while performing a piece originally written by J.S. Bach for piano.  Watch the coordination, concentration and teamwork shown by the group as they pass the boomwhackers around to play the piece — not only are they very organized and focused, but they also manage to throw a few tricks and fancy moves into it as well!

If you would like to find out more about this group, you can visit their website HERE.

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Here is a clip of 3 sisters, aged 14, 12 and 9 from Monterrey, Mexico, who have formed a heavy metal band which includes an electric guitar, a bass guitar, and a drum set. They are very talented, and must practice a lot together in order to play some of the songs they’ve performed! Here is a clip of them playing a song by a group named Metallica called “Enter Sandman”.
If you’d like to find out more about this group, you can visit their website HERE.
If you would like to see other songs they’ve performed, (with your parent/guardian’s permission) click HERE.

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I usually try to share different types of music-related things on this page, but this second clip by the percussion ensemble previously mentioned (below this post) is too good not to share!  These students are aged 7-14, and they perform some pretty complicated pieces on their percussion instruments. Read further below for more information about the group.  This clip is of another heavy metal rock song by Ozzy Osbourne called “Crazy Train”.  Watch till the very end — there are a few students who perform some pretty complicated and amazing solos!

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Here are a group of students aged 7-14 from Kentucky who are part of a percussion ensemble. These students are performing a few songs by a famous rock group from the 1970’s named Led Zeppelin (many of your parents will know who they are!) using different percussion instruments such as xylophones, vibraphones, marimbas, and a drum kit.

There are many different parts being played together to form one song — students in band, watch how they pay attention to each other and their conductor behind the camera…you can see the different parts being played by looking at their mallets. A few of our classes have been working on playing the xylophone in music class — take a look at their playing positions — how they hold their mallets, play their instruments, and how both hands are being used — and watch how hard they’re concentrating on hitting the correct notes. With hard work and practice, anything is possible!

If you would like to find more information about this group, you can visit their website at http://www.louisvilleleopardpercussionists.com/

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This is a group from Denmark called “Bottle Boys”, who play popular songs together on bottles.   Have you ever tried to make a sound by blowing across the top of a bottle?  The note that you make by blowing across the top of the bottle can be changed by adding or taking away liquid from the inside of the bottle – the less liquid there is (the more hollow the bottle is), the lower the sound.  The more liquid there is (the more shallow the bottle is), the higher the sound.

This group is particularly interesting because they play bottles together in order to make a melody and chords to go with it.  Each person is holding bottles for the notes they are playing (I assume each person’s notes aren’t all the same) and can only play one or two notes at a time.  They have to be able to work together to play all the notes at the right time – something I imagine is particularly hard to do when playing quick, complicated melodies like these guys are.  Those of you who have played the handchimes in music class will understand how difficult this is — it’s the same idea.

This video is of the group performing some popular video game themes.  They have also performed many other popular songs together – if you would like to check these out, please make sure you have an adult’s permission to search for them first!

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This is a clip of an incredibly talented and well-known musician named Bobby McFerrin (whom many parents will know of “Don’t Worry Be Happy” fame), doing a demonstration using the pentatonic scale – a scale with 5 notes instead of the more commonly known 7 — at the World Science Festival.

I think this is a neat clip because none of this is rehearsed with the audience, and they’re simply following along with very little instruction from him.  It is a great example of how everyone is capable of participating in music — you don’t necessarily need to know anything about music to follow along here.  Have you ever heard the national anthem being sung at a hockey game? It always amazes me how everyone in the crowd is able to sing the song in tune and together (for the most part!) without ever rehearsing or practising it.

See if you can sing along with the audience in the clip!

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This is a clip of the Ohio State Marching Band doing a halftime show at one of their football games. Marching bands are quite common in American high schools and colleges (our own Burnaby North Secondary also has their own marching band).  In addition to playing instruments, band members must also memorize all of their music, practice marching together and practice moving around in formations to make the “pictures” that the audience sees.  Each one of those ‘dots’ that you see making the picture is one of over 200 people standing on the field! These groups usually get only one or two weeks to rehearse together on the field, in addition to practising their music on their own.  It takes a lot of work to learn and memorize all of that music, and to remember when to march and where to go on a large field when you can’t see the picture you are a part of!

This particular marching band has done some amazing work with their formations. Typically, marching bands make standard formations of shapes or pictures that do not move.  This band has developed formations that show moving pictures.  This is especially hard to do when you have 200 people creating a picture of a running man or a flying bird, for instance. They are all very successful at working together!

The clip below is their “Hollywood Movie” theme — this group has also done a “video game” theme which you can watch HERE and a “Disney” theme show which you can find HERE.

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