It's Treaty Time

'The Magical Melody Tree' is getting more and more leaves each lesson as Puriri children learn to use their singing voice instead of their talking voice in the Hello song!

Each class has also been working on a classroom Music Treaty, so that we can all agree on the right ways to behave in Music!

Welcome to Music in 2015

It's Junior Music time again!

 

Welcome back Grey Lynn children. I hope you had a good holiday and a special welcome to all you new entrants coming to Music this term!

This year the first thing you will notice when you step into the music room is the 'Magical Melody Tree'. Our school theme for 2015 is 'Sustainability' and we all know trees are very important for sustaining life on the earth. BUT the 'Magical Melody Tree' is different to all other trees. It loves melody and grows new leaves when it hears children singing beautifully!

See you in class!

I'm Yours by Totara Team!

Hi everyone! This is the final blog post for this year. The Totara Team at Grey Lynn have been learning ukulele and a few chords on metallophones this term. Each group chose to make an introduction or arrangement of the song 'I'm Yours' for their end of term task. This is my 'favourites' edit!

I'm Yours from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

Happy Holidays!

Highlights from the Totara Elements Bands

Rm 10 Elements bands from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

Rm 12 Elements Bands from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

Rm 9 Elements Band from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

Rm 13 Elements Bands from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

Rm 11 Elements Bands from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

The Totara Musical Elements Bands

Recently in Totara music we have been learning about the musical elements. We used what we learned about timbre, texture and structure to improve the quality of our rhythm compositions.

Look out for our audio and video performances soon to appear at The Music Room!

Rm 3 discover 'London's Burning!'

On 5 June Room 3 put 4 beats into their carriage of the Music Train. Clapped through all of the carriages on the Train and were off on another Journey to discover the music of the world.



The music train clap from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

They ended up in London in 1666 where a dreadful fire was raging.

Room 3 learned to sing London's Burning as a round.



London's Burning! from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

 Room 2 in Never-Neverland

Today Room 2 went on the Music Train to Never-Neverland

We listened to music from the musical version of Peter Pan and practised performing the role of Lost Boys.

The Lost Boys from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

We thought about which instruments we would choose for Tinkerbell music and also what we would choose for Captain Hook music.

We thought Tinkerbell should have high tinkly sounding instruments because she is little and magical.

Tinkerbell Music from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

We chose low sounds and sharp sounds for Captain Hook because he is big and bad. The boys' music for Captain Hook is exciting and full of action.

Captain Hook Music from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

Room 8's Pan pipe experience!

We started the lesson by putting the right amount of notes into the Room 8 carriage and clapping the rhythm the notes make.

 

Then off we went in the Music Train.

Our journey today took us to South America where a culture group was playing guitars and pan pipes.

We drew faces to show whether the music sounded happy, sad, exciting or peaceful.

We made pan pipes out of straws!

We found out that the short straws make the high sounds and the long straws make the low sounds.

 

The Music Train

This term in music we are learning about the music notes ta and te te. Ta is a 1 beat note that goes at a walking pace whereas te te notes are running notes. Te te notes are joined by a beam. Today Room 1 made their own music notes to go in the Room 1 carriage of the Music Train.

  

 The Music Train has carriages which can only carry four beats. We put four beats in the
room 1 carriage. I wonder whose notes will end up in the room 1 carriage next week!

Now that the train has passengers we are off on a Music Train journey!
This week we travelled to the Wild West of America and listened to 'Ive been Workin' on the Railway".




The Music Train from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

Rm 2 Shark Attack

Shark Attack from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

Rm 3  Adventure on the Island of ‘Scrape It’

 

After the Pirate children escaped from their sinking ship they were whooshed in a fast ocean current towards the island of ‘Scrape It’. Along the way they had to
scrape off swarms of harmless jelly fish in the water.

They were swept into a sea cave where Magical Mary-Elle the mermaid was making twinkly sounds with her Mermaid Keys.

 Magical Mary-Elle promised to help the pirate children survive if they would complete a musical challenge.

Magical Mary-Elle poured gold coins, music cards and instrument cards into the water The children dived in and got them. They completed the challenge.

Magical Mary-Elle magicked them home and the children woke up in their beds thinking that they had dreamed everything that happened. 

This term we are learning about the difference between a band and an orchestra.

We are learning instrument names and ways to produce long and short sounds on classroom instruments.

We are performing patterns containing short and long sounds.

We listened to Octopus Garden by Beatles.

Does it sound like a band or an orchestra? What instruments can you hear?

Rm 6 Adventure on the Island of ‘Shake It’

The Island of 'Shake It' has dangerous rocks surrounding it. When the pirate children escaped from their sinking ship they had to wriggle and shake their bodies through rocks in the water until eventually they made it to the shore. Once they got out of the water they were amazed to find no beach, just steep cliffs, trees and bushes, rocks and more rocks. 

On shore, the children clambered over big rocks and little rocks looking for the safest place on the island. Their Shake It instruments sounded loud and jolty climbing over big rocks and soft and even walking on the little stones.

Then they noticed a house at the top of a big cliff. But how could they survive the journey up there? The way up was very dangerous and steep.

They made a ladder by tying their life jackets to their tambourines and got their best climbers to tie the ladder to strong branches and tree roots.

 The children successfully climbed up the cliff using their tambourine ladder.

They found that a hairy old man lived in the house on the hill.

The Hairy old man had been living alone on the island since World War 2. He was almost at the end of his war-time supplies of canned food which were getting a bit rusty. His only chance of calling for help was an old morse code radio transmitter.

It had instructions but he didn’t know what the dots and dashes meant. So he was stranded on the Island.

The clever pirate children worked out that a dot means make a short sound and a dash means make a long sound.

The children played the short and long code patterns to the Hairy Old Man on their instruments.

They helped the old man do an SOS pattern, which was eventually picked up by a coast guard, who rescued everybody!

ROOM 4

Adventure on the Island of ‘Beat It’

To survive on the Island of ‘Beat It’ the pirate children used their ears to listen for signs that would help them survive. They heard a drum in the distance and walked towards the sound to find the only humans living on the island. 

The drum was played by ‘Big Chief Walla Walla’. 

He told the children he would get his villagers to cook up a big feast. But only if they promised to solve a musical problem for him.

The villagers sizzled some bacon and sausages for the hungry children.
Guiros make scraping sounds. Cabasas make sizzling sounds.

Then the villagers fed the children.

This is Big Chief Walla Walla’s problem: On his island he has found a secret stash full of musical instruments but what are their names?

The pirate children told the chief the name of every instrument in his secret stash!

Then everybody celebrated by playing the chief’s favourite song!  

Beat It from Rosalind Mason on Vimeo.

ROOM 5 STAY ALIVE!

Puriri’s adventures continue in the Survival Islands.

In a big storm the ship crashed into jagged rocks and began to sink.

The Room 5 pirate children started running around on the decks panicking but a big Genie came up out of the sea spray and waves. He told them that in order to survive they must put on their life jackets, grab their percussion instruments and swim to the survival island that matched their percussion instrument. He pointed out three different islands that lay near by.

This island is called ‘Beat It.’

These children beat off the baby sharks guarding the island and safely brought themselves and their instruments ashore.

This island is called ‘Shake It’.   

These children held their shaking instruments up high and wriggled and shook themselves, twisting and turning through the network of rocks in front of the island and finally came ashore holding their shaking instruments.

This survival island is called ‘Scrape It’. 

The children who went to this island swam with their scraping instruments through big swarms of jellyfish which they had to scrape off their arms, legs and faces. Luckily they were not Stingers!

We are learning the names of the classroom instruments.

We are learning how each instrument makes its sound.

We are learning to play in time with the music by listening for the beat.