Music News
Online Ensemble Rehearsals and Music Lessons
String Orchestra
Adjusting to online String Orchestra rehearsals has presented a handful of challenges, however, they have been overcome by a collaborative effort from everybody. Although it has been too difficult to run rehearsals as a full orchestra, the ensemble is divided into several tutorials with around four to six students in each one. These tutorials are student lead, with many of the senior students stepping up and taking on a position of leadership. This allows for students to get specific and targeted help in areas that they may struggle with, in a friendly environment. Especially during the lockdown, these rehearsals have been essential for not only developing our musical abilities but allowing us to interact and socialise with our peers. We'd like to encourage everyone to continue to participate in the rehearsals, so they continue to be as successful as they have been in the last two weeks.
Jeremy Qi & Rhiann Thomas
Year 12
Guitar Ensembles
The move from making music in person to online has undoubtedly been a challenging one, though our school's Music program has made the best of the circumstances. Our Guitar Ensemble, alongside our Senior Guitar Ensemble, have been keeping up the regular schedule of rehearsals via meeting calls on Teams. We have found innovative ways to play our pieces, whether it be by recording ourselves playing separately and collating the videos or taking turns playing along to a backing track on call. In spite of not being able to play together as we usually would, we have embraced the opportunity to hone our improvisation skills, playing techniques and learn scales together, ultimately working to become better guitarists ourselves. Hopefully ensuring that upon return to school we'll be sounding better than ever. I think I speak on behalf of all the Music students in saying that we are grateful for the effort put in by our teachers at home and our band leaders who allow us to continue doing what we love.
Nadia Hadzikadic
Year 11
Big Band and Wind Symphony
Since this global pandemic has caused everyone to be isolated in their homes, the Nossal High School Big Band and Wind Symphony have not been able to rehearsal face to face. However, the hard working Music teachers have set up an online rehearsing method. During our normal rehearsal time, everyone gets onto a video call and we discuss the music and allocate parts. Then one of us in the group will play the music from their laptop, and everyone else plays to that music. This method has been working well for all the bands, but we will try different ways to keep improving and using better methods.
Nilesh Fernando
Year 11
Term two has been challenging for most of us. As a Year 9 student at Nossal High School, this year was supposed to be the year where I get the hang of how this school works, so when I heard that the school was shutting down, I was quite nervous. Fortunately, after one week, I was starting to get more comfortable with learning from home. Being involved in the music program at Nossal, I was wondering whether we were going to have our instrumental lessons and band rehearsals. Overcoming the technical difficulties of an online rehearsal and coordinating over fifty students, our Music teachers have managed to bring all the Music students together to distribute music and rehearse simultaneously. Though it was different to how we usually would practice at school on a Tuesday afternoon, all of the Wind Symphony members have managed to have three rehearsals so far, where we were separated into smaller groups. It felt great to still be in touch with our music and other band members.
Samudra Pathmasiri
Year 9
The experience has definitely been different learning online, but it has been an overall positive experience. While we are not able to play together because of the lag that is inherit with Teams there are multiple workarounds that we can use that have worked quite well. There are recording for sections and of the whole piece that we can play, and it is really beneficial to be in small groups where we can perform to each other and get some good feedback on how we can improve. Overall, while it is not an ideal situation, I believe that the best has been made out of it into an enjoyable experience in band.
Alex Wilson
Year 10
Big Band
With classes turning virtual, Big Band as well as numerous instrumental groups were sceptical as to how we were going to run our weekly rehearsals. We quickly realised that anything is possible in the digital age. Nossal's Big Band has been running online rehearsals on Thursday mornings since mid-April. We have been blessed to be under the instruction of Ms Haworth who has thought of creative ways to maximise the use of technology for us to work on our pieces together. From sectionals to uploading individual parts on Flipgrid to be edited into a video, Nossal's Big Band has proved that "your only limitation is the one you set up in your mind" to quote Napoleon Hill.
Ee Shane Lim
Year 11
Choir
Due to the lock down, Choir this term has adopted an online method of teaching. We run these lessons through 60 minute periods every Monday after school. After warming up in our general meeting for 15-20 minutes, we split up into our respective groups to practice our parts for the song we are singing, which is currently, Blackbird by the Beatles. An important part of choir is being able to meet new people and make new friends, and with our small groups we get to do that. For about 5 minutes at the beginning of our smaller meeting we allocate a time to bond with our group members, talk about how we are, and what we've been up to during quarantine. I really like these groups because someone is always there to help if you get stuck on a part or don't know something, and we are always learning something new. At the end of our lesson we go back to our general meeting and discuss about what we did in our groups, what we did effectively and what we can do to improve for next time.
Vaidehi Palliyali Vikraman
Year 9
Instrumental Music Lessons
My experience learning online with trombone lessons has been very different but overall, very positive. It is beneficial for me to be able to do the lessons in the comfort of my home, especially because I get to wear free dress! While it is definitely different learning in an online environment, thankfully it has worked fine for me so far. It is challenging to practice trombone at home because my sister and dad are also home, but I am still finding the time. The lessons have remained relatively the same content-wise which I am enjoying. I now have a greater appreciation of face-to-face learning but also of just how adaptable our Music program is, which I am very grateful for.
Alex Wilson
Year 10
Music in Quarantine
Hello readers! As you already know, we are stuck in quarantine, and remote education has been put into place to ensure we all have quality education, even during the lockdown scenario. All these classes online have greeted us with new experiences, and I will be sharing some of these experiences from my instrumental Music lessons.
I play the violin, and really enjoy progressing at a fast pace at Nossal. I have learnt many new skills, and improved on my learning since the lockdown, as I must take more initiative to ask questions and learn more independently, as effectively as possible. Of course, learning in a remote environment comes with its own challenges, network connection and audio quality being a major one! Violin being a string instrument must be tuned, and through a laptop, sometimes my tuner says the string is tuned, but it sounds odd to the teacher. Additionally, the teacher physically not being there can make me tighten my bow hold too much, or not have my elbow held high enough, but my teacher does his best to tell me when I am making these errors, so I can fix them up. Something that I have learnt from this is the value of independent learning and prudence. I am more careful as I play and take more time to perfect my skills!
Hritik Jagtap
Year 9
Year 9 Choral
Choral in isolation is very different to what it was when we were at school. It has its own goods and bads. Although many of the students are upset that we are not able to socialise with our friends from other houses, the teachers have made our experience more comfortable and normalised. Although choral feels a little different to what it used to be, the students are still getting the opportunity to dedicate 1 hour of their week to relieving stress by singing out loud, like there is no one listening.
We start of each lesson by taking the roll and jumping straight into the normal routines. Our class commences by watching Ms. Budd’s videos and doing vocal and physical warmups. Then we use the Powerpoints, music sheets and audio clips from Teams to sing along. By doing this, I feel like it helps take everything out of our minds and relax, providing us the peace of mind we need during this pandemic.
Adarsh Murali Ottur
Year 9
