Grade 6 Band

Grade 6 George Waters Showband

Thank-you Mr. Johnson and the Grade 6 George Waters Show Band for coming today to our music room to play for us.  It was awesome to see some of our alumni and hear their stories about learning a new instrument.  They sounded really fantastic and many of Grade 5's are excited to try-out instruments for band next year.

For more information about band, contact Ms. Rempel or Mr. Johnson @ GW band website.

Why is it important to learn a musical instrument?  Here are some scientific reasonings.

Celebrations

For term 2, our classes did a variety of music activities and practiced many instrument and team building skills.  One of our highlights was playing together on the barred instruments and creating songs and stories.

Grade 1 Abiyoyo by Peter Seeger

Grade 2/3 playing Old Mother Hubbard

Springing into...

Great way to end off our music classes for March with singing extraordinaire, Heidi Korte.  

Leaving you a great video of Heidi's vocal student, Dane Bjornson.  Happy Spring Break!

Colored Days

On Thursday, the kindergartens were identifying their emotions.  They came up with a great list of feelings we have.  We talked about what color they are sometimes attached to.  We read this fun story "My Many Colored Days" by Dr. Seuss and then we listened to music with it and each student got to act out the part of their animal character according to what the music sounded like.  

Puppets we used to express the feelings in the music

Sometimes the music is fast and sometimes slow.  Sometimes its loud and sometimes it quiet. Sometimes its high and sometimes it low.  Depending on what we hear, it can change the way we feel.   Sometimes music can help us relax and be calm.  Other music can make us feel happy or excited.  When we watch a scary movie, the music we hear can make us feel frightened.  

Listen to the pieces of music below.  As you listen, think about how the music makes you feel

 Choose a face that matches the feeling of the music.

"Nae"

Today we had vocal coach, Heidi Korte, do a workshop with our soloists for the upcoming Annie musical.  It was amazing!!! I learned lots and we are already seeing and hearing a change in these awesome kids singing!  We look forward to having her back in a few weeks.

A little about Heidi: She is a singer that started her musical journey in opera and classical music. She has a music degree from the University of Manitoba in classical voice but has since then developed a pop/rock contemporary sound. As a multi-instrumentalist she can play most instruments including harp, cello, bass, accoustic guitar, but is most comfortable on the keyboard. She also runs her own private music studio out of her house and teaches piano by ear, improvising, contemporary vocal technique, guitar, and songwriting.

Check out this great warm-up and hear the difference between Celion Dion and Ellen singing.

Singing Proud!

I write this post with some tears in my eyes because today at the annual 98th Winnipeg Music Festival, our Grade 4 and 5 choir made me so proud.  They should be proud of their work in the past week and today's performance.  It's not been without pain, sweat and tears (and ALOT of noise!), but they pulled together and REALLY showed their singing skills and represented our school well.  Congratulations to both Stevenson choirs on your silver medals!

Silver medal winners!

Silver medal winners!