This was a good day. Everything went as smoothly as planned (thanks to Beatrice who was a great model in the dress rehearsal) and there were many great moments which I will share and reflect on.

I don’t know if it’s because of the holiday spirit or the emotions that come with the “end of the year,” but I am truly grateful for each person on our Music Plus Music Integration Team at Atrium: Beatrice, Randy, Michael, Linda, Susan, and Larry. When we arrived at Atrium in the morning, I was relieved to find all the student violins lined up in order. This made my job easier to tune and put the shoulder sponges on each of them, which did take about 20 minutes. Randy  worked on the PA system and setting up the two video cameras, one floor and one roaming. Michael made sure the each child has a foot chart and place on the risers.

After everything was all set up, Randy asked Larry and I to say a few words on video, in anticipation of the event. We had a good time, doing different takes and speaking from different angles. We even got to interview a violin parent who was nervous but super excited about the performance.

The whole Atrium Winter Solstice Assembly program opened up with the Explorers class, and I could tell that they were really excited as we stood in line to enter the Hall. But when they got to their violins, they immediately sat down (they still need to work on their listening skills as we told them to stay standing). After a few minutes, they held their violins in rest position and started filing on the platforms. I was a little nervous for them because they had no idea was going to happen in the next few minutes. Larry, Randy, and I had made some changes to our performance because we wanted to show the PROCESS of what we are going to do. So Larry opened with vocal solfege warmup with scales and short call and response segments. The kids responded and sang very well (they have such sweet soft voices!) and to my surprise and delight, Larry took the assessment one step further: instead of having them imitate what he sang, he pointed to syllables on the matrix and they sang the melody back. Amazing. Next, I did my segment with the rhythm cups and explained to the parents the purpose of this. The culmination activity was to sing Re and La in different rhythms shown by the cups along with a recording of Pachelbel’s canon. It was a great 3 minute show and we ended with the parents singing along to a Re scale and ending with a ringing “Cha….” I loved their finishing choreography!

I think some cool ideas to expand on this would be to split the group into teams and have each one sing a different rhythm that ties in with the symmetry unit. Larry also suggested having them pluck Re-La but sing the scale to Pachelbel. I want them to march so their inner rhythm is strong. So many things to work on and so very exciting! Next year we will definitely tackle the bows.

This will be a compilation video made by Randy this week which will summarize and zoom in on the key points of the violin pilot program. I think it was a big hit with the school, teachers, and parents. We look forward to more violin-ing next year!

Beatrice was back and we reviewed everything we knew from violin posture to lion hold to singing the matrix up and down. We also learned that the unit theme for math class was symmetry and asymmetry, and tried to integrate that idea into our violin lesson. First we discussed all the visual aspects of the violin — which parts were symmetrical and which weren’t? Then we talked about our feet and violin holding posture and what aspects of those are symmetrical or not. These kids were quick to observe the details and soon we learned that most things related to the violin are symmetrical.

Following the symmetrical theme, we introduced the idea of a symmetrical melody — a melody that sounds the same when sung both forwards and backwards. For homework we asked each student to create their own symmetrical and asymmetrical composition, which will be sung in class next Friday! Maybe all of them will end up on the hallway walls in school! It’s so exciting….

I asked the 7th graders to bring their interesting sounds again this week.  We arranged the chairs in a circle and organized ourselves so that everyone with similar sounds was sitting together.

Without a clear idea of what was going to come of our improvisation, we began by doing an inventory of the sounds we had in the group and brainstormed ideas of what they might represent in a plot-based improvisation.  With some clicking, lots of key rings, and the help of voices, we came up with a composition telling the story of a 20-car pile-up on a busy highway.

The high schoolers had a great time with the shapes game the 8th graders did last week.  Speaking of the 8th graders, they began small group compositions.  I gave each group the following paper:

Your group’s composition should include:

• Clear examples of legato, staccato, accents, crescendo and decrescendo.
• The composition should highlight a recurring shape, just like we did in the game last week.
• Everyone’s piece should begin and end in rhythmic unison, but should break from it in between.
• Similar to the shapes game we played last week, shape, articulation, and rhythm are more important than precise pitches.

They got to work right away (something that usually takes  a significant amount of coercion) and both their teacher and I were thrilled by their enthusiasm with the project.  As usual, the bell rang too soon, so they’ll continue their work next week until they’re ready to perform.

This week, since Beatrice was out of town, Randy and I had the pleasure of engaging the kids in some eurythmic activities  we think will help in their ensemble playing. We reviewed them on bunny ear bow holds, violin posture, and added a reflective discussion on their practicing over the past week. Some of my favorite comments were:

I really enjoyed the “crazy practice” because I could do something the wrong way and then fix it.

I liked doing the animal rhythms and marching the beat. It was fun.

We then asked them if they had any specific questions, and it was obvious that they had answers to everything! These kids are so smart! Next we had them talking about their drawings they made the week before about how playing the violin makes them feel. One boy said: “Playing the violin is like being sucked into a black hole. The black hole is actually music and whenever I play music, I feel like it’s powerful.” Wow, that’s all I have to say to that.

I know little kids love to do things with their bodies so we came up with the idea of marching the beat or pulse. We made sure to start at a slow tempo (speed) so that when the rhythms got more complicated, it was slow enough to understand and perform them. We mostly used animal rhythms: zoo, monkey, and alligator, and interchanged them with the African/Indian system: cha, taki, takadimi. The hardest part was marching the beat and clapping or singing the animal rhythm on top of the marching. It was tested their coordination skills but incorporating their bodies at the same time.