Music 

MUSIC NOTES 

What an exciting time it’s been in the Music room over the last few weeks!

In a first for Bimbadeen students, three of our Year 5 children have entered the “Music. Count Us In” songwriting competition. Chloe S, Charlotte Mac and Shelby C wrote and recorded their song, “Destiny” and submitted it. The submissions will be judged, then the winning students will fly from around the country - or work virtually - for a day in a capital city to write this year’s song.

“Music. Count Us In” is an annual singing event designed to promote the importance of Music Education and is performed by over half a million children on the same day at the same time all over Australia. It has also been picked up by schools in a number of other countries around the world. You may wish to look at the promotion video for this year which explains it much better than I can in a few words. 

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxqk29jFhyU

Children in Year 5 and Year 6 have created some excellent Raps about things they like and have capably managed the challenging demands of using an appropriate number of syllables and making sure the “accent” falls in the right place. 

All the students have added a rhythmic accompaniment using Garage Band, acoustic instruments, body percussion or beat boxing to provide a backing to their performances and the whole class has enjoyed joining in with “I like that; Oh yeah, I like that.” Not the best grammar, but very affirming for the performers. Particular kudos to the students of 6HC for listening particularly well to their peers and making sure their accompanying body percussion allowed the rapper to be heard by playing softly when necessary.

Students in Year Three have received their recorders, too. It will be a little while until they use them to make sounds, but there are many things they will learn before they actually play their new instruments. 

Once they’ve learned some fingering patterns, breathing and using their tongues to separate the notes they’ll be able to make beautiful sound with their new instruments. Some of the Year 4 recorder experts from last year will be able to model what to do and provide lots of peer support for those just beginning to play. The Year Three and Four children have also been learning about traditional notation and why a treble or bass clef is needed.

The younger children have been learning to find their singing voices and are remembering a growing repertoire of songs. Many classes are singing beautifully together already, and listening carefully to the sound they’re making. 

It’s been fun using “The Very Noisy Baby” by Alison Lester, “How to Speak Cow” by Chris “Roy” Taylor and other suitable picture story books for vocal warm-ups.

The Choir and Percussion Ensemble has been rehearsing for a number of weeks and the students who have chosen to participate in this activity are learning their parts very well as we prepare first for the Anzac Day Service next term. 

It has been very exciting to see the resilience and compassion of students learning to play the percussion instruments and helping one another to learn the patterns.

Mrs Lynne Burt

Specialist Music Teacher