Happy Thanksgiving! We are more than half way through our World Percussion unit! I am excited to share with you the achievements of the Exploring Music 6 classes! Although we had a short week, we continued to work hard to meet our goals and took some time to reflect upon what we have learned so far. At the end of last week we began to learn the chorus of a song called "Take Time in Life" which is a song that comes from the country of Liberia located in Africa. This week, we continued to expand and add to the song. On Monday we learned the verse to "Take Time in Life". We talked about what the lyrics mean and about the form of the song. We learned that there are different parts to a song (for example a verse and a chorus), and that each song has its own musical roadmap (or form) which explains to the musician where to go next. We were able to add a few new instruments to our song such as the acousti-block and gangkogui, too! On Tuesday, we quickly reviewed all of the different parts to "Take Time In Life" and talked about how each part of the song fits together like a musical puzzle. Each student had the opportunity to play all of the musical instruments as well as sing and move during our song. We had a bit of time to rehearse and then performed in groups! We were able to watch our performance back and completed a reflection on our performance. Check out our performance to the right! I hope you have a wonderful, relaxing, and restful Thanksgiving break! I look forward to continuing our journey together next week! | Period 4 Exploring Music 6 Period 5 Exploring Music 6 |
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Happy Friday! We are very excited to share with you what we have been working on in Room 100! Our week together started with a review of the song we learned last week called "Ensemble 1". Students rehearsed the piece in small groups with one student on a part in preparation to perform for the other groups in the class. Students had to utilize non-verbal cues in order to play and communicate as an ensemble. Some students found that nodding their head was a great way to signal when to end the song while others discovered that given students a clear and concise cut off to end the piece worked well. Students performed for each other and then completed a reflection after watching a video of their performance. We discussed why it is important to watch our performance back and how it can help us grow as musicians. The next few days brought excitement and challenged us to think "outside of the box" as we took a look at all of the non-traditional items that we could potentially use as percussion instruments. We watched a video of the Blueman group performing on an instrument called a "drumbone" that is comprised of different sizes of PVC pipe. Students then had the opportunity to create their very own percussion instrument made out of materials they found at home. Students spent the next class composing 12 measure rhythms in groups. Students notated their compositions incorporating rhythmic notation using half, quarter, and eighth notes. We then performed for the class! Check out the slide show below to see us in action! To wrap up the week, we learned a song from the country of Liberia called "Take Time in Life". This piece incorporated 5 different percussion instruments, singing, and movement. We discussed the meaning of the song and the emotion behind the lyrics. Students agreed that the message behind the song was to take time to enjoy the small things in life. In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, we had a meaningful discussion about what we were thankful for and how this song takes special meaning to us during this time of year. Be sure to check our blog next WEDNESDAY as we have a short week next week! - Ms. Barkin Welcome to the Exploring Music 6 weekly blog! My name is Ms. Barkin, and I am very excited to share the musical language with the students of the Term 2 Exploring Music Class! Our first full week together was full of learning! We started off our class by talking about classroom expectations and what we would be studying during the term. Each student was given a paper copy of the class expectations and was to have turned it in with a parent signature for a quiz grade by Wednesday (11/13). Check your parent portal to make sure your student handed the class expectations in! If not, you can click HERE to view them or download, print, and sign a new copy. We started off getting to know each other by finding out what type of musicians we have in our class. To see our "get to know you activity" click HERE. Ask your student if they got all of the boxes signed! We had a lot of fun getting to know our classmates' musical backgrounds. Tuesday was a very exciting day in room 100 because we began our World Percussion unit! We talked about the continent Africa, their culture, and music and how it is used to communicate. We communicated using conga drums using musical question and answer patterns. The rest of the week, we were introduced to new instruments such as the acousti-block, shekere, and gankogui. Ask your student what each of these instruments looks like! Friday we finished up learning the music and parts to "Ensemble 1". This song incorporates all of the instruments we have worked with so far as well as high and low sounds. "Ensemble 1" features students with only a few players on a part which means the students must be confident in their playing! As we continue throughout our unit, check back to watch videos with new instruments! We are learning how to work as a team and play as an ensemble; I can't wait to see what musical highs we soar to this quarter! Check out the videos below to see our class performance of "Ensemble 1" earlier in the week!
4th Period Exploring Music 6 5th Period Exploring Music 6
"Ensemble 1" Performance "Ensemble 1" Performance
Happy first day of November! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by!
Your 6th graders were greeted with a challenge Monday morning. They had a worksheet waiting for them with a list of popular slogans. It was their job to guess which company went with each slogan. The students did a fabulous job on this! Click HERE to download the worksheet and see how many slogans you recognize! The students weren't sure how these slogans connected to Exploring Music 6 until I told them that this week they would be creating their own product, composing a jingle, and recording that jingle using the Garageband App on the Ipads! Students were very excited to get started! Monday we learned about jingles, what they are used for, and what goes into making an effective jingle. We started by watching and listening to some popular jingles, talking about who the target audience may be for those products, and what made the jingle effective (or not)! We broke into groups and brainstormed and created our very own products! Some of the products students came up with included: Tune-O-Buddy, The Claw, Weather Candy, Frostie Bites, and a product called the Soda Shooter! Tuesday we learned how to effectively write lyrics. Each class completed an example together. The 4th period class wrote a song about balloons. The 5th period class wrote lyrics to a song advertising clocks! At the end of class we broke up into groups and wrote our lyrics (completed with rhythmic musical notation) on staff paper! The rest of the week students had time to work on the Ipads utilizing different loops, smart instrument tracks, and vocals to create a catchy jingle for their product. Today (Friday) we shared our product ideas, sketches of our product, and jingles with the class. We reflected on what went well during this project and what we could have done to make our jingles that much more convincing to a potential consumer. |
Author:6th Grade Exploring Music Class of OMS! Archives
April 2015
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