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Music and Performing Arts,

Hello/Assalamu Alaikum/Yama/Hola, Nǐ Hǎo, Ciao, Kon'nichiwa everybody! What an amazing, action packed Term 3 it's been in the Music/Performing Arts Department!

Preps, 1s and 2s have been working on playing rhythms at different times using triangles, claves, tambourines, two-tone-blocks, djembes, congos and bongos. They have looked at exercises where they learn to play different parts of a song together and separately. Click the link for an example piece they've looked at in class.

Furthermore, Preps have organising sound, by sifting through what is loud and what is soft, what is fast and slow through listening activities. *For those playing at home, the baby falls into both the loud and soft category, so everyone is a winner/loser

They also looked at Old MacDonald Had a Farm on glockenspiel and keyboards, with varying levels of success. Term 4, we have a stronger focus on the notes, timing, fingers and new reportoire.

Grade 1s and 2s looked further into rhythms, exploring Tchaikovsky's and Mozart, where they delved into fast changing rhythms to play along with, alternating between percussion instruments over a couple of rounds.

1s and 2s, also looked at doing the actions to When I'm Gone, aka the Cup Song. (Sorry parents and guardians, you may have heard it a few times now). We used this video to begin with, and after 1000x tries and with slowing it down, then speeding it up, most got there with great success.

We then jumped onto the glockenspiels, xylophones and keyboards and played through the root notes of the chords to play along with the song. This added the semibreve (uncoloured in circle), which you hold for 4 beats and the minim (the hockey/golf club looking symbol, not coloured in), worth 2 beats. We differeniated it for those more advanced, adding the major or minor 3rd above the root note (so C become C+E, D became D+F etc) and 1st, 3rd and 5th for others so D became D minor = D+F+A) + inversions.

We did lots of acting inbetween, helping with brain breaks and building our confidence in front of the class.

Grade 3-6s began working on compositions using BandLab Education, where they started looking at recording, editing and producing. We looked at targeted goals for the first half of the term, to create better, less random compositions. We started with making 8 different drum patterns, using the sequencer and adding them into the timeline. The first we looked at was the basic drum pattern straight 8s.

Students looked at editing notes in time to the beat. This lesson, I added notes that were close to the beat, but not quite. Students worked on moving them closer to the whole number (the beat) or half way for quavers. They moved the notes individually to lengthen, shorten and move to different pitches. This way so when they made their own compositions, they could tidy them up to sound tighter, with less obvious human error.

They explored creating remixes, choosing between Adele's Rolling in the Deep and Oasis' Wonderwall, using the stems from the singular vocal tracks. They had to zoom in, cut up the track in the parts they wanted to keep, change the tempo to fit the beat and change the pitch to suit their loops. They they added samples, their own recorded sounds and manually played keyboard sounds.

The activities continued, including using the MIDI keyboards plugged in via USB cables (thanks parents/guardians, who donated more). By the end of the term, students had used the computer microphones to record and alter their voice, explored the panning (left and right channels) and manipulate the dynamics (volume) through automation. These skills will be useful for future song recordings, analysing their own practising, podcasts and adding sounds to videos they make.

Then last, but not least. The Amazing Talent Show. What an excellent turn out with the students, parents and staff! Thanks to all who auditioned. Everyone is part of it from auditions to the grand finale. Shoutout to everyone who came and supported the talents from lion dancing, to mathes facts, to singing, violin playing, keyboard playing, dancing and gymnastics! Oh what a night! (Photos by Elliot)

Can't wait to see you all next Term. Enjoy your break!

-Joel, Music and Performing Arts

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