Time for a Break

Dear Stevenson Family,

I imagine if you are anything like me, you are exhausted.  It's been a trying few weeks and spring break is now here.  I hope to take a break from school work and I hope you take this time to connect with your families.  Make memories and love well.  Sing, dance, play.  Above all, love and take care of yourself!

More to come after the break but until then, I'm signing out.

💗 Ms. Rempel

Here's a little song to dance your way into the break!

Outdoor Music 2019

We've just finished 3 weeks of outdoor music and it's always a fun time at all the activities.  Check it out!  If you have other ideas you do for outdoor music stations, please send them my way.

Singing with the Phil

Just a little taste of the day singing with the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir on December 16.  Thank-you to Maestro Yuri Klaz, Adrienne Weibe, Cheryl McNabb, Brenda Marinelli and the Phil choir for inviting us.  It was a most memorable experience.

Acting Video

Check out our acting from our winter concert 2018.  Way to go everyone.  Green screening is fun!

Lighting it Up

Congratulations to all students for your amazing work this year with our holiday shows.  We hope our families enjoyed the performances and may everyone have a safe and happy holiday.  See you in January!

Busy Start

All our classes have been super busy in music as we prepared for our Sharing Assembly of our school theme song, "Reach for the Stars."

Ask your child to sing it for you and show you the actions.

KINDERS:
We've been working on music room routines.  All students can now find and remember their spot.  We like singing and dancing.  We have been exploring a number of instruments and learning how to hold and play them to make beautiful music.

GRADE 1/2:
Grade 1 and 2 classes have been practicing their singing and listening skills as well.  We can identify the families of percussion instruments: woods, skins, metals and shakers

GRADE 3/4/5:
We have been practicing, reading, writing and playing rhythms and patterns as we bucket drum.

Grade 1/2 Choir Sings!

Congratulations Grade 1/2 choir on a great job singing last night at our Music Celebration 2018 at Sturgeon Creek United Church.  They did a great job and we are very proud of your work!

Here is our evaluation of our singing.  Stars and wishes!

Assembly Video

Here is our Gr. 1/2 choir and our 2 Grade 3/4/5 choirs singing at our Remembrance Day Assembly. Great job everyone!

Term 1 Learning K-2

Here's a video of some of the things we do in K-2 music in Term 1.

Where We ALL Belong

Welcome back to the 2017-2018 music room season!

This summer I got to play music with my 5 beautifully talented nieces at my family farm's 100th year anniversary.  It was a special moment and so grateful for our time together with family and friends, growing, learning, and connecting.  How did you get your music on this summer?

We are well into the month of September and everyone is super excited to be back and getting in our groove.  This summer I found a really great song written by Canadian children's musician, Raffi.  We are adopting it as our theme song for the year and a great reminder that in the circle of life, we all belong!  Celebrating our uniqueness, strengths, and passions.

Voca People

I just saw this video and it is a great example of the flexibility and creativity of using the voice and the joy of singing together.  Our voices are instruments and when we train them properly, you can do amazing things like we see with the Voca People group.  Some of my students question why we 'have to be in choir,' which is a mandatory class at our school.  This is a perfect example of why... because our voices are incredible instruments and my job is to teach my students how to use them.  Anyone can learn this.  This type of training takes years and the first couple of steps for beginner singers is to learn to match pitch, body posture, and breathe correctly.  We get to develop our listening skills while singing in an ensemble and together we practice, practice, practice.  It's not easy to discipline ourselves and our voices, but together we will be stronger.  Sing together!

Work in Progress

We are now preparing for our Music Monday concert on Monday, May 1st at 8:50 a.m. on the back playground pad.  Here's a little sneak peak of what we have been working on...

Stand in the Light

Our students have started listening today to our upcoming Music Monday 2017 song.  We will be performing it as a school on Monday, May 1st at our Music Monday assembly and our Celebration of the Arts evening on Wednesday, May 17.

This powerful song has a very important message to us.  Take a listen.  Grade 4/5 students are invited to come audition for the open verse 1, verse 2, and bridge solos on Monday, April 3 at lunch.

Stand in the Light background track

Stand in the Light by Jordan Smith

Muted Trumpet

As we were listening to the opening of White in the Moon the Long Road Lies by the amazing Sri Lankan/Canadian composer, Dinuk Wijeratne, we were wondering what instrument was playing during the introduction.

We discovered it was a mute or plunger or stopper that is placed in the bell of a trumpet that created that buzzy, hazy sound.

We have been learning about East Indian music and the tabla drums in White in the Moon the Long Road Lies.  Several students have a connection with these drums in their culture and we are going to attempt to learn a 14 beat rhythmic cycle called Deepchandi and see if we can incorporate some of the drumming techniques (which are VERY difficult!).

Sing It Together

Coming soon - May 1, 2017!

Music Monday celebrates Canada 150 with a new anthem, commissioned by the Coalition for Music Education. The new anthem 'Sing It Together' is co-written by Juno-award winning songwriters Marc Jordan and Ian Thomas.   Check it out on the Music Monday website.

Focusing on the power of voices, Sing It Together asks us to sing for joy, for truth, for healing and for freedom. The recording and video feature Inuit throat singing, Métis fiddling, indigenous drumming, and children’s choirs in celebration of Canadian musical heritages. Creating Sing It Together was a journey of discovery and the songwriters encourage music makers to continue this discovery where music lives in their schools and communities.

The 2017 hash tags are #MMC2C2C in English and #LEMCAC in French.

My Own Way to Rock

The Grade 4/5 classes have been talking about Canadian and Winnipeg musician, Burton Cummings and the rockin' roll band, The Guess Who.  Check out this link to Burton's biography.

We have been learning about the 12-bar blues.  This pattern is found in many styles of music, including jazz, gospel, pop, boogie woogie, and of course, rock. Check out the structure and have your child explain what it means.  Burton's song "My Own Way to Rock" is set in the major key of C.

Here is the boomwhacker version that I made up for us to play along to :)

Arrangements of Songs

Today the Grade 4/5 classes watched this video of Alexander Misko playing an original arrangement of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean.'  Super cool!

Some of the words we were using to describe what we saw and heard were:

percussion, rhythm, melody, strike, strum, vibration, fret, tap, drumming, thump, pluck, ringing, high, dab, hold, beat

Build a Burrito

This week, the Grade 2/3 classes were learning some Spanish and having some fun making a musical burrito on the instruments.  Lesson suggestions from Artie Almeida in Mallet Madness Strikes Again.

Here's a little video to practice counting from 1-10 in Spanish (Uno, Dos, Tres):

We also had spent some time in December learning songs from South America, including several Spanish songs.  Here's a fun one with some choreography called My Amigos from Plank Road Publishing.  What kind of flavour is the music?  Can you identify the Latin American instruments in the song?

Songs that Tickle Your Funny Bone

The other day I was driving to work and heard this song, La Danza by Gioachino Rossini on CBC Classic radio.

La Danza by Rossini

Presumably in Latin, I had no idea what the man was singing, but it made me laugh.  It sounded silly and playful.  The melody was memorable and brought me back to Bugs Bunny's operatic cartoons, like Figaro.  Love it when songs jump out at you.  Upon a little research, La Danza is a patter song which uses a fast tongue-twister of words to create a humorous effect.  Patter songs are commonly used in comic opera and operetta.  A few years back my students studied a patter song from the opera The Pirates of Penzance.  It was Gillbert and Sullivan's Major-General Stanley's song, I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General. Check it out and have a good laugh.

Art Music Project

The Grade 4/5 classes have been using their listening skills to reflect on a song that we will hear at the Winnipeg Symphony concert in April.  The song is called "Contented House" by Canadian composer, Jean Coulthard.  After we listened to the piece several times, we discussed how art can reflect music and music can reflect art.  We didn't have a lot of time to explore, but many of the students were able to depict the music through an art picture.  Here is what they came up with.