Week 2: 8/23-8/27

During our second week of “Intro to Music,” we continued to build upon the structures we set up last week: classroom procedures, norms and routines. Our typical music class will start with a greeting, immediately followed by singing (vocal warm-up and repertoire) and melodic/rhythmic musicianship activities, and then some kind of group music-making experience. Vocally, we continued working with “Welcome Back” and “Home” by Phillip Phillips. We began working with pitched percussion instruments (xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels and marimbas) this week, exploring the musical alphabet, practicing care and technique and preparing the instruments by removing, re-organizing and replacing the tone bars. Some students figured out how to play the chorus of “Home”, which led to others’ curiosity, which led to practice time, which led to an ensemble rehearsal where we played that melodic phrase in unison. We’re talking about seeing ourselves as a musical ensemble.

Next week is our last of the 3-week “Intro to Music.” We’ll continue to explore these activities further, and prepare to start “Intro to Art” on 9/7 by visiting the Ceramics Room on 9/1 and 9/2.