Our School programs are the best! We’re sure you’ll agree and we’re ready to show you. Most can be presented as an assembly as well as a multi-day residency program. We customize every time so that your classes get exactly what you want for them.
A Voice is a Choice
Taking our cue from the literary element of writer’s voice, we work together to develop individual voices. The result: Songs. Composed by students. The simple premise, the direct connection, yield an amazing number of teachable moments. Learning about songs, creating their own, students learn to pay attention to what they say and how they say it. Composing sentences is no longer a chore, it is a vital component of them getting their stories out and telling them effectively. Students are guided by a professional performer/composer who creates accompaniment to round out the song and help students realize: their voices are beautiful!
Listening to Nature: Frogs, Birds, & Bugs
Description: Using songs familiar to all children we explore pitch, rhythm and volume. Students play at varying each element and the often amusing results are discussed. How do these changes affect the meaning of a song’s story? Their newfound attentiveness to sound is then applied to the songs of birds, insects and amphibians. The songs of these animals help to tell their story: their natural history. Much singing and mimicking of animals!
Designed for grades K, 1, 2, 3, 4: Title/Topic: Listening to Nature/using the elements of music to learn about animals
The Purple Cello
Explore the cello’s use in contemporary popular music and how technology opens new doors to
composition. Multimedia performance with cello and recorded and electronic sounds makes this program unique and fascinating for all ages. Some tech topics include: digital analogue workstations, sequencing, sampling and amplification, and multi-layered compositions.
Many of these are surprisingly low cost and easily available, offering students insight and inspiration in how they too can begin to create new music of their own. Entertaining and educational for any group, this program becomes a practical hands-on experience for string orchestra students.
Pythagoras Picks His Nodes
Go beyond the theorem to ratios, physics and the man who started it. The Pythagorean Theorem is introduced in 6th grade, culminating in a large unit in 8th. Pythagoras was also a pioneer in the theory of ratios and is commonly regarded as the first western music theorist, and he was a storied and colorful character. Connections abound between physics, mathematics and Greek history (7th grade Social Studies content) and are exploited to give a human face to often-dry topics. Pythagoras’ original Monochord instrument is used to demonstrate, modeled by our modern guitar.
Designed for grades 6,7,8: ODE Theme/Strand Connections: Order and Organization/multiple strand connections
Raising the Roof and Shaking the Foundations
People inherently feel the power of music, this program illuminates that fact by showing how sound energy becomes music. Using acoustic and electric guitars, recorded and synthesized music we explore how sound and kinetic energy are related, how energy transforms from sound to electrical and back and even how our bodies function as transducers converting sound energy into thought impulses. Graduating from hand claps, and shakers to electronic music in all its diversity opens young scientists to the immense field of technological music.
Designed for grades 3,4: ODE Theme/Strand Connections: Interconnections Within Systems/Matter and Forms of EnergyElectricity, Heat and Matter
Songwriting: For Everyone
Creative music making is the heart of our education programs: students are given the tools and the freedom to make up their own music. Music composition is no more mysterious than English composition, and we teach it quite similarly: Brainstorm for ideas, sketch or outline, rough draft, revise, revise, revise. Because our approach does not rely on students possessing knowledge of music theory, we can adapt this program to any age and ability level and any style of music. Focus of the project can be instrumental, vocal, student-led, or centered around a school concept such as: Right to Read Week, anti-bullying, multiplication facts, a school anthem, etc.
Sound and Music
The properties and elements of sound, music, our bodies and instruments come alive as we sing, move, listen and then trace from the “final product” of music back through the instruments and voices used to create it. From there we explore what objects can make sound and the differences in those sounds. Simple terminology lays the foundation for future classification and understanding of objects and phenomena: loud/quiet, high/low pitch, short/long sounds etc. Sound sources include voices, bodies, classroom materials, and the special treat of new instruments such as guitars, drums and shakers. Sound and music are defined jointly, laying the foundation for understanding music in terms of its science.
Designed for grades K, 1, 2: ODE Theme/Strand Connections: Observations of objects and materials/properties of everyday objects and materials
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Elementary classes made Posters to advertise their original songs:
Is it Summer yet?!