I had originally started to work on the idea of a Star Wars Christmas script two years ago. I didn't finish the script until this past summer. While last year I didn't quite have the whole concept fleshed out, I feel it is kismet that I can joyfully bring this idea to our stage the same year that a Star Wars film is coming out.
I had asked a fellow music teacher for some input who had done a Star Wars themed play before. She had developed a script where some notable Star Wars characters met local school kids and began to learn about Christmas. I took the idea and wrote a script with the same basic notions.
Along with familiar Christmas songs, I have worked in three notable Star Wars songs by developing the idea where the Star Wars characters compare their own galaxy to our world. With the exception of the Grade Five performance where I composed an original boomwacker piece based on a Jedi-theme, each grade features a song from Star Wars including "Cantina Band," and "Imperial March (Darth Vader Theme)." In Imperial March, we hear the highly memorable rhythms that translate nicely to a speech and hand-drum piece.
This year drama expert Mrs. Reimer has worked a small group of dedicated grade six students to bring this play to life. The clever use of video technology and blue-screen backgrounds put the players in front of a few different situations that adds a whimsical and fun element to the play.
The student actors do a wonderful job playing the parts of notable Star Wars characters and local Mills Haven students.
The main theme is played on Orff Instruments (pitched percussion) by the small temporary club of dedicated grade five and six students. The song was taught with rhythmic speech in the form of a made up poem to go with melody of the piece. The accompanying parts take the harmony down to the most basic of elements. The process of playing and learning melodies in their very basic or "elemental" form is a pillar of Orff-Schulwerk. While it is a bit unusual to use a melody as complicated as the Star Wars theme, it sounds quite nice in this context.
By learning the song "Star Wars Theme" in this manner, the students learn one of the most important skills in music - listening! To play this song successfully, the students must be completely aware of each other's parts at all times, which they do wonderfully.
The song “Jedi Spar” develops the children’s abilities to play rhythms together, in this case with boomwackers. All students worked on movement and dance skills while doing play acting as Jedi knights “sparring” with one another using boomwackers. (side note: a great deal of care was taken to clearly set the limits for the “sparring” with a careful emphasis on safety). Nobody went too far in class. A grade five rhythmic element “syncopa” is written into this piece for further practice of that particular rhythm. Students also develop their ability to follow the conductor and watch for visual cues with this song.
Winter Wonderland featured ukulele skills to play the chords C, G7 and A minor. In addition, more skill to watch and follow the conductor was also developed by playing the boomwackers along to the correct chord changes. Singing skills are also the focus here as students learn a more difficult song.
The song “Imperial March” develops children’s instrument skills. The students speak the words written to coincide with the song while playing them on the hand-drum. Again, all students have had the opportunity to work on this in class even though circumstances only allow a few students to play them in performance. In addition, students are experiencing a certain rhythm often called “tim-ka” that is prominently featured in this piece. They will be made aware of this rhythm later in grade five. The highly memorable and distinctive rhythms of this piece don't really need the melody to be recognized!
Students also develop movement skills by choreographing a simple dance that includes a small section of “shadowing” when one student copies another by watching very closely.
Jolly Old St. Nicholas includes certain notes learned with hand-signs, (think of "Do a deer" from The Sound Of Music.) Those notes are, “mi, re, do,” and “la and so” below do. The “low la” and “low so” notes are typically learned in grade three and practiced in grade four. In this case they also learn skills to play the recorder while playing the above-mentioned notes. The pitched percussion instrument parts develop the children’s instrument skills in an arrangement that is more difficult than the simpler ones seen in grade one, two, and three. The students singing skills are also featured in this piece with the lyrics to the song. All students have learned all parts in class-time leading up to the performance.
The song Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree allowed students to explore the element of drama by pretending to be “bored” and eventually coming around to have fun and join in the Christmas spirit. This also allowed a spirit of levity in class that made it fun and just a little silly.
Cantina Band EDM remix features choreography that builds the children’s repertoire of dance moves that can later be worked into their choreography in contemporary forms, which is part of the curriculum. The choreography also matches the form of the song building on their understanding of how songs can be put together by highlighting the sections of the song that repeat.
My father moved from Germany so young that his earliest memories are of being in Canada. However, it has been an absolute joy to rediscover our German heritage together with his help in choosing the German song for our concerts the past few years. This year he suggested Fröhlich Weihnacht Überall. A wonderful choice. While I was talking with the students in the German Language classes, the students and I decided it would be fun to give the song just a little of a rock 'n' roll edge to it. A great idea indeed!
While this song is a repeat of last year's finale number, I decided to go with it again anyways for two reasons. One, it is simple to learn because all children already know it and the other parts of the play called on some more effort and time than normal. Two, it just fit really well with the script I wrote. Again, we give it a little bit of a rock 'n' roll flair to add a little bit of that "fun" factor.
This song was originally written on guitar by Franz Gruber near Salzburg in 1816. Although it was written on guitar, it sounds great on handbells too! This song is deliberately repeated every year as a Mills Haven tradition. This is because it is one of the most famous German language Christmas songs ever written, it sounds good in both German and English, and provides a song that students in the grade five and six handbell choir can play every year that will be familiar to them. This year we have more new-to-handbell grade fives than veteran grade sixes and so I elected to stick with one handbell piece instead of our regular two handbell pieces. By sticking to one Christmas piece, we were able to spend more time rehearsing our other big piece that we performed at Remembrance Day.