Blog:  2015/2016 School Year

On this page students document through words, pictures, drawings, photographs, objects, and music the various projects and activities we are working on in music class.

Class blogs reflecting on music learning experiences:

Division 4
Division 9
Division 16
Division 18

Our Musical Marble Machine Project

We are creating a musical marble machine.  Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 students in Divisons 15,16, & 18,  inspired by the original marble machine (youtube link to video of original machine) have undertaken this inquiry.  During musical exploration time, students wanted to discover how they could create similar techniques and sounds based on this machine.  Children used found objects, instruments, wood balls, and marbles to manipulate and explore many tones, rhythms, and creative playing techniques.  From this, a few students were inspired by this project and wanted to explore this inquiry in-depth and create a
machine together.  Below is our journey as we take on this inquiry into our musical marble machine.

To See our project click here.

Our Garden Songs

Division 17 created pictures and soundscapes of various gardens in the spring.  This project is similar to Mussorgsky’s music for his “Pictures at an exhibition” suite.   As a class, we came up garden concepts that each group had to illustrate and enhance through music.  Some of these ideas include:  sun, water/rain, soil, flowers, rake/digging, and worms.  Division 17 created these projects to coincide with gardening that they are doing outside our classrooms, and also because they wanted to share with others, through music and imagery, what springtime feels and sounds like to them.

We used various percussive instruments, rhythms, and timbres to enhance our artwork.  Below is an explanation of each project with a description of when students play, and how their musical score enhances their pictures.  Their final pictures and the music for each follow these descriptions below.

Garden Works #1:  by A, I, M, M, and M.(4b, 1g)

Our Map of who plays and when they play.

Our Picture and song of “Garden Works”

Spring Gardener: by M, S, E, and E  (2b, 2g)

Our Map of who plays and when they play

Our picture and song of the “Spring Gardener”

Garden Works #3 by: D, E, A, I, & S (3b, 2g)

Our Map of who plays and when they play.

Our picture and song of “Garden Works 3”

Planting in the Garden by:  A, L, A, and D (3g, 1b)

Our map of who plays and when they play.

Our song and performance of planting in the garden.

Garden Works Flowers by: R, S, C, & S (1b, 3g)

Our Map of who plays and when they play.

Our song and performance of Garden Works Flowers

The Tempest

Division 1, 2, 3, & 4 Learning an Arrangement of the Tempest that Mr. Yanko re-worked for the xylophones.  The original music is by Robert W. Smith.

Here is a recording we made after learning the song to better improve our performance and listening skills of the piece.  This recording was far from a final product, but from this experience students took to heart the meaning of ensemble and what it really means to be part of a team when learning a piece of music.  Not only did they realize that everyone plays a key part in the ensemble, but that their part counts, no matter how big or small.

http://sd41blogs.ca/yankom/2015/10/30/recording-the-tempest/

Student Reflections on recording:

I heard the student beside me playing really loud and her part stood out in the recording also.

I heard some parts of the song that were off.

I heard lots of time that the tempo was off.

I heard a lot of high pitch noise that shouldn’t be there.  All through the song, the rest was alright, but not too in-sync.

I heard everyone was off and I heard high pitch.

I think overall sound was good and but we could work on it a bit more.

I think harmony was ok.  But there was one person you could hear the hole time.

I think that the recording had some good things and some parts we need to work on.  The recorder was together and the recorder was also very sharp.  In the glockenspiels were good but at the end there was one person banging the triangle was ringing at the end a little too much, but overall we did good.

6g, 2b