Junior School
Performing Arts

Mrs Katie Sinclair

Keep calm and play on

Mrs Moxey has been keeping our Junior School violin players busy over the last few weeks by having them learn a piece of music called ‘Going Viral’. Mrs Moxey wrote this herself during lockdown and scored it specifically for our violin ensemble The Four Fiddles. Each individual musician learnt their part and played along to the previously recorded tracks from the other musicians. This is not an easy task as anyone who’s ever tried it will tell you! It takes excellent listening and ensemble skills to get each part to sync correctly.

Once recorded, Mrs Moxey put her recently honed technical skills to the test by mixing this into the final recording. We are sure you will agree that their hard work has paid off and the result is terrific!

The Over Commercialised Radio Program

If you didn’t catch this last time, here is Speech and Drama teacher Mrs Kerry-Anne Callaughan with a student-lead project she called ‘The Over Commercialised Radio Program’ which I encourage you to watch. Very clever to have all the performers engaging virtually with this and a wonderful way of keeping students’ skills honed over this remote learning period. Well done to all involved and a big thumbs up to Mrs Callaughan and her daughter for the IT support!

Instrumentalists

Many of you are aware of the wonderful ways in which learning an instrument helps with cognitive development. Here’s some more interesting research from Australian group Bigger Better Brains who have put a short video together about the way in which participating in music has a positive effect on inhibitory control (i.e. the brain mechanism that manages judgement, aggression, emotions, planning, reasoning and social skills).

Watch the video here:

BBBX – Inhibitory Control

We hope that we can resume all instrumental tuition very soon, but for now, keep practising!

Zoom Music Lessons

Joshua Wescott receiving a zoom piano lesson from David Shaw.

Mrs Katie Sinclair