We will start and end tonight's showcase with performances by our third year students! In this final year of Let's Play Music, students learn all of the note names on the staff, identify accidentals and key signatures, are introduced to transposing, play level 1 piano repertoire, and learn about ABA song form. They build and identify triads, find the root of a triad, and invert triads. They learn 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures, count rhythmic notation, add chords to a melody, and take melodic dictation. The culminating skills in Let's Play Music is when the students put all of this knowledge together to compose their own piece, which they will perform for us today!

Each student will introduce their own piece and give you something to listen for that makes theirs unique.

Scroll to bottom to "meet" our composers!

In the first year of Let's Play Music, we use engaging songs and games to learn musical concepts. Students are introduced to the staff, sing the major scale using solfege syllables with hand signs, keep a steady beat, match pitch using a minor 3rd interval, play melodies and ostinati on tone bells, and learn the three primary chords on the autoharp. Students learn to divide and subdivide beats, read rhythmic notation patterns, read steps and skips on the staff and play them on the bells, and more. The best part is that it's all accomplished through PLAY!

1st YEAR STUDENTS
Maci Bray, Savannah Clement,
Niko Flores, Keith Frost,
Sara Grace Johnson, Ajax Lamberth, Maggie Martin, Grace McDonald,
Fae Perkins, Perri Claire Pierce, Annabeth Riley, Emmalyn Riley, Joseph Robbins, Barbara Wyatt-Reyes

Primary Chords Song
Autoharp: Grace, Joseph, Savannah

Three chords make up over 90% of the music we listen to. We've learned all about the red (I), blue (IV), and yellow (V) chords. We know the pieces of these chords and understand their function in music.

A Frog Went a Hopping
Autoharp: Ajax, Sara Grace

Listen to our frog hop ostinato (a musical pattern that is repeated over and over) on the bells while we sing the melody of this well-known nursery rhyme.

I’ve Been to Harlem
Autoharp: Fae, Keith, Perri Claire

Our traveler has been all over! Listen and decide if he is happy (major) or sad (minor) about his travels. Our students can identify major and minor sounds, understanding their function in music.

El Gallo
Autoharp: Barbara, Niko, Maci

This song teaches us to hear harmonic rhythm. We will also impress you with our Spanish!

Are You Sleeping?
Autoharp: Emmalyn, Maggie

While you will surely recognize this simple nursery rhyme, it's impressive to know that it teaches valuable musical skills, such as audiation (hearing music in your head), harmony, using an ostinato, and singing in a round.

Dinosaur Song

Climb up and down the 7 dinosaur spikes but watch out for the landing at the end! With this song we learned to move up and down the staff in steps and skips.

Magic Lamp

We love our puppet shows! While we play, we're listening intelligently to classical music, learning about form, recognizing htmees and the moods of themes, and distinguishing various instruemnts. This puppet show is performed to "Argonaise" from Carmen by Georges Bizet.

***1st Year Group Photo***

In the second year of Let's Play Music, we transfer the skills learned in first year to playing the piano, where we also learn chord notation, intervals, and harmonic improvisation. Students are introduced to the keyboard, learn middle C and C position, identify and play intervals, play primary cadences on the keyboard, and accompany themselves. Students play the keyboard in contrary and parallel motion, learn the major scale, sing in harmony, learn more complex rhythmic notations, learn more note names on the staff, and learn the names of the white keys on the keyboard.

2nd YEAR STUDENTS
4 pm
Olivia Beadles, Aspen Black,
Christian Garcia, Addison Hill,
Bennett Olson, Mary Grace Scalf
Sawyer Werner
5 pm
Owen Kriete, Adrienne Collins,
Evin Flores, Gabriela Flores
Kailyn Lenz 

Music Alphabet

A pinnacle moment in any keyboard instruction is learning the names of the white keys on the keyboard. We identified similarities and differences with the regular alphabet and learned a fun way to remember the placement of each key: the Dog house and Grandma's house!

Turtle Shells
4 pm class on keyboards

An important skill of reading music is the ability to quickly see the relationship between two notes. This relationship is called an interval, but we like to call our intervals turtle shells! Listen to how well we know and play our intervals!

I Am Learning How to Skip
4 pm class on keyboards

This is a throwback from our first year class, where we learned about skips on the staff board. This year, we learned how to play those skips on the piano. Understanding the differences between skips and steps has even helped us as we’ve learned how to sight read!

I Am Robin Hood
5 pm class on keyboards

Playing rhythms correctly can be difficult. We have learned to do this by first feeling the rhythm through full body involvement. Listen for the "dotted quarter and eighth note" rhythm on the keyboards as the singer "shoo-oot their arrows!"

Tinga Layo
5 pm class on keyboards

Once the basic chord functions are ingrained in our hands, then the real fun of variation and improvisation can begin. Listen for our primary chords as they are played not only broken, but in our tricky calypso rhythm!

The Pirate Ship

Interpreting classical music is both a skill and an art! By guiding the children's ear to the hear the individual themes in the music, and the recurrence of the themes in a balanced form, we are teaching them to love classical music because they understand it. This puppet show is performed to "Hungarian dance no. 5" by Johannes Brahms.

***2nd Year Group Photo***

3rd YEAR STUDENTS
Abigail Bae, Owen Blatter,
Braxton Harward, Kinsley Hurst
Freya Lamberth, Poppy Kate Pierce, Lucy Warner

Let's Find the Root

We’ve learned some impressive music theory this year! We know how to build a triad and find the root of a chord, and we’ve learned how to play chords and scales in several keys. This song helps us identify the root even when playing inversions, where chords are flipped around!

Going Home

In this adaptation from Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 1, we were able to identify and practice ABA form and repeat signs. We also got to choose which part of three to play- and sometimes even played two at once! This beautiful, hauntin melody ('Goin' Home', as some know it) is one that many of us have grown to love.

***3rd Year Group Photo***

Do Re Mi Finale

Do Re Mi wasn't just made up for the Sound of Music! Solfege is a music-teaching method that is over 100 years old. Watch for all the magic happening here: our 1st Years will play the Major scale up and down in baby steps on tone bells, 2nd Years will transfer that knowledge to the pianos, and 3rd Years will crush their boom-whacker playing! Families, please join us by singing the harmony “When you know the notes to sing, you can sing both anything!” at the end!!!

***Individual & Family Photos***

Abigail Bae: "Cooking Eggs"

My name is Abigail. I'm seven years old. I have one little sister and I love her most of the time. I love the color blue and music. I'm always singing or humming and can't help moving my body whenever music is playing. One of my favorite things to eat is scrambled eggs that my daddy makes for me. I like to help by cracking the eggs and love to watch him whisk it up and cook it for me. When he puts it on my plate, I like to sprinkle big pieces of salt all over it before eating it. It's delicious! My daddy says the protein in my eggs are really important to me. I don't know what protein is, but that's okay -- I just like that it tastes really good.”

Braxton Harward: "Uno Game"

Braxton love Taekwondo and just earned his green belt! He is now at an intermediate level and continues to challenge himself. He loves music and has always had a good ear and passion for it. He plans to continue his studies after Let's Play Music!

Freya Lamberth: "My Cat Tonks"

Freya is a 9 year old in 3rd grade at Thurman Francis Arts Academy. She loves cats, reading, arts and crafts, and playing with her younger brother Ajax. Freya has been in Girl Scouts since Kindergarten and is so enthusiastic about it that she has convinced multiple classmates to join. She loves being silly and telling jokes. She loves going to music classes with Mrs Rachel. 

Lucy Warner: "Forest Surprise"

Lucy is 8 years old and loves music! She can be usually be found singing, dancing, and playing the piano. She likes to read books and has a creative imagination. She has a cat named Willow and loves the movie Wicked!