Serenading Santa

I  met Santa when he visited Ennis last week and of course I took the opportunity to tell him that the boys and girls of Blazing Bows have been very good indeed. He was sorry to have missed the concert but I played him a tune anyway 

Blazing Bows Debut performance at SCR Hall Ennis



Jordan leads the ensemble




 The House Band 

 The Blazing Bows Violin Ensemble                

The 4^th class with David McMahon at Scoil Chríost Rí   in their inaugural performance at

                            Tuesday  14^th December.

With director Cathy Desmond  and  Karen Vaughan on keyboard

Programme           Vivaldi on G

                                O Come All Ye Faithful

                                Silent  Night

1.     ***************************************

                                 First finger on E to Irish air

                                 Toreadors March   

                                 Fox Trot 

                               

                              ************************************

                                Rudolph Retakes  

                               We Will Rock You     Queen  

                               Finale Jingle Bells (Down Up Bells )   

 4th Class Blazing Bows    You Rock !   

I am very proud of you all today .  You performed very well and I really enjoyed the concert.
The school band were brilliant and what about that Christmas rap number - fab! The singalong was great too !
Thank you Dylan, Damien Mafouz and Jordan for introducing items and leading the ensemble . Well done Mary on double bass.

What  did you enjoy most about the performance today?  Do you have a favourite piece. 

Weren't your fellow pupils a great audience . It was great fun! Bravo !



The audience settles down



Group in place



All together pizzicato



percussion section

Violin Floor

Bilkees Saidi past pupil

You're the top!
You're the Coliseum.
You're the top!
You're the Louver Museum.
You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You're a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare's sonnet,
You're Mickey Mouse.
You're the Nile,
You're the Tower of Pisa,
You're the smile on the Mona Lisa
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

How many metaphors can you count in these Cole Porter lyrics?

This was our final rehearsal before our first performance next Tuesday .  Here is our draft programme

Vivaldi  on G /           
 O Come All Ye Faithful   same riff as Vivaldi on G
 Silent Night   Broken Chords    [ D A]   
New Note E   (Irish Air - keyboard accompaniment)
Jingle Bells   Down Up Bells on
Rudolph Retakes    Down Bows  on D and A
Foxtrot      Sidestep & Dip  pizz on  D and A
Toreadors March       pizz  on D and A repeat
Rock You          Down Up   Bows  on A

Thanks to Ms Howard for her help in setting up. 

Over the week 4th class will be practicing their spoken introductions. Well done 4th class . A super terms work!

Ms Desmond

Getting ready to put on a show




Ms Howard  rosins the bows

  


Conductor Gearoid Grant



 leading  the Foxtrot



Todays class focused on preparing to perform and  stage etiquette *



Rule  1 Follow the leader.  Dylan , Mafouz and Dana took turns to lead the class ensemble today  and practiced introducing the pieces loudly and clearly . We practiced our Vivaldi pizzicato on G, Foxtrot , Jingle Bells (Down Up Bells ) Rudolph (Retakes)  We played  pizz first finger on E  to Ms Vaughan's Irish air .   We whizzed through our flash cards and  had a quiz on the  web site video clips . Bravo eveybody. Excellent attention and we will have our final practice next week.

The class are really looking forward to seeing Anything Goes  by Cole Porter at Colaiste Muire tomorrow . The new  clip this week is from a London production  of the show. I hope you enjoy it .

I spent the weekend rehearsing and performing at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and I include a photo of myself and  bass player Seamus Doyle  aand  one of the conductor discussing a point with one of the brass  players .



Little and Large Violin and Bass Seamus Doyle  Conductor St Agnes Orchestra Crumlin





* Etiquette .     Way of doing things

 





































Learn and Explore at National Concert Hall

 

Check out  the link  on the right to the Learn and Explore section of the National Concert Hall's website.

You can check out the Hall of Fame. Can you see anyone from Clare ?

Try out the Guess the Instrument Game

RUDOLPH RETAKES AND JINGLE BELL CHORDS

Yippee  Well done everybody .We have finished our first  ten lessons in the project today. With a Christmas Concert coming up we began rehearsing our concert programme to Ms Vaughans wonderful keyboard  accompaniment. We learned how to do  long retake bows  or big circle bows on D  to Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.     We played shadow  Down Up Bows to Jingle Bells before putting our bows on the violin strings ., and playing little down up bows and we learned how to make a chord .  Blues on D and Browns on A to make a two notes sounding togethe,r  a chord . 

Here is our  programme  for a preformance in two weeks time

Foxtrot  (with sidestep ) , Toreadors March , Vivaldi on G (O Come All Ye Faithful),  Jingle Bells , Rudolph the Red  Nose Reindeer and Silent Night, Rock You  .


Remember follow the leader  .

Ready Steady - Fingers down

Week 9  We are nearly at the end of our first term of of lessons . We started off with some finger marching exercises and  we played our Toreadors  March from the opera  Carmen .  We took two new steps today. We placed 1st 2nd and 3rd  finger on our D string to make new note G' .   We revised last weeks new note E (1st finger down on D)  Remember- fingers down on fingertips  We played  our new note G  pizzicato to accompany Mo Gile Mear played  by Ms Vaughan on keyboard .

We played a card game with  musical symbols and   we used our bows to play quavers with no stops   Finally we played Rock You .  Check out the lyrics below . We learned to loosen our bows  and packing away was really smooth today .  Bravo!

I was delighted to be a guest of MrGann's 5th class today .  We looked at  a real clarinet , trumpet and  we played along to the hit from the movie High Society 'Now You Has Jazz'  with Bing Crosby and Duke Ellington .

Look at the 5 video clips Quiz next week on the video clips .

Blazing Bows Week 8

BLAZING BOWS

Well done everyone , the class filed in and took their places very quickly and after our bow we practiced placing our violins in playing and rest position quickly without making a sound .  We raced through some of our repertoire from last term. We practised Vivaldi in G and used the same riff for O Come All Ye Faithful.  It worked really well. We did some left hand strumming .   With Dana as leader, we played through Foxtrot .  Continuing with our preparation for Christmas, we worked on a pizzicato broken chord accompaniment for Silent Night  using all 4 open strings , the first time we have used all the strings in one tune .  We needed just two strings  to back   Rudolph  the Red Nosed Reindeer.  We jazzed things up with a new backing track for This is E putting our first fingers down firmly on our D string. We finished with our down up Rock You riff.   Packing away was really smooth today and  a special thank you to Mary for her help .

Thanks to Custy's Music for their  designer teeshirt .  Students - there were four instruments on my shirt today. Can you remember what they were?

Blazing Bows week 7

Blazing Bows   Teacher’s  Blog  Lesson 7

 2 November

It was wet and windy today.  I called to see the class in their classroom .  We looked at the new notes we need to play Twinkle ,  Twinkle.   We heard  what a ( sharp ) # sign does to a note.   I played a movie theme for Jaws  based on a scary semitone or half step .

In the hall our new step was placing our first finger down firmly  on the A string to make new note B.    We learned how to play a scary tremolo by moving our bows very fast on the string.

Finally we revised our favourite ‘Rock You’ with our bows  .  Bow  grips are looking good !

Stephanie was awarded bonus points  for effort  and  thanks  to Jake and Dylan who  to helped to  pack up.

Today’s Quiz

1.   How many letters in musical alpahabet? List them

___________________________________________

2. (a)  D D A A  B B A_      G  G  F# F# E  E  D_

           0   _ _  _   _  _   _         3   _  _    _   _   _   _

      Fill in the numbers of the missing fingers

     (b)  Which finger pattern is  (i) 1   23    4     (ii) 12     3    4

______________________  Write i or ii

3. # What is this musical symbol called._____________

     Which is higher  F or F#   ___________

4 Name the four members of the bowed strings

_________________________________________________.

5 ┌┐      This sign means ____________ bow

     V        This sign  means ____________bow

Blazing Bows week6

Blazing Bows : Class Blog   19^th October

A busy day today as we prepared to run a dress rehearsal of all the tunes and technique we have learned this term.  Daniel was appointed leader for the day.  We practiced the quavers and crotchets to Old MacDonald , Foxtrot, Vivaldi on G and  Toreadors March . Finally it was bows on for We Will Rock You .  Prize winners for best attention today went to Chloe and Jordan  and  Daniel was  also commended for his leadership skills.

Class Blog week 4

Blazing Bows Class Blog Week 4 

Today we began by playing pizz. crotchets and quavers  on D to Old MacDonald. Next we moved on to learning an exciting  new piece The Toreadors March . It sounded great !

We did some shadow bowing , we learned the difference between down and up bows (┌┐  and Ṿ ) ( Frog leads for down and tip leads for up)

Next we placed our bows on the string and played our down ups to We Will Rock You by Queen .

Principal Ms.  Power looked in to see us revise our Foxtrot number . Finally we listened to the Blue Danube waltz by Austrian composer Johann Strauss  .

Thanks to my great helpers Dana, Dylan ,Damien and Gabriella.

Excellent attention was paid by every student . Bravo tutti .

See you next week for week 5

Lesson 5




Vivaldi

  Blazing Bows Class Blog  12^th  October

Today we began as usual with a bow.   We   revised  tunes from   our repertoire FoxtrotToreadors March and our . Sounding and looking good class !

We learned how to read the note G the lowest string and we played  pizzicato along with some Vivaldi.

We played arco  down up on G to Ms Vaughan’s accompaniment of Mo Gile Mear 

We  looked  at a  clarinet  and its reed and how all the pieces fit together. And we listened to a jazzy piece by American composer George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue which was a piece for big orchestra and piano.  

Dana,  Kevin and Daniel had a quick double bass lesson. Eric and Chris were great helpers and Dillan and Niamh were specially commended for their effort and attention  today .

CD

Lesson 3

Blazing Bows  at SCR 4^th class blog

We had great fun today. All students are holding their instruments comfortably and playing pizzicato really well. Ms  Barry was very impressed  with Foxtrot  complete with sidesteps. 

We warmed up by playing along on D to Old MacDonald and on A to Twinkle Variation 1

Our new step today was to place our bows on the A

string and play Down Up to  our backing track

Composer corner today featured an exciting march by Bizet the Bullfighter or Toreadors’ March from the opera Carmen.

Mr Moloney and Ms MacNamara also joined us for their last day at SCR

Bravo Everybody    It will be a class full of more ups and downs next week .

Cathy Desmond

Lesson 2

Scoil Chriost Ri Class Blog Stringschool Lesson 2

4^th Class  were joined by Mr Moloney and Ms MacNamara for violin class today. Today we  learned a new tune Foxtrot using D and A strings  and we  began learning how to use bow  practicing with a pencil .  Every student paid really good attention but special mention goes to Jordan and Jake who were really excellent. The dancing element proved a little too much for some participants .  We listened to another section of the Violin Concerto  Winter by Vivaldi .

Bravo tutti!

Lesson 1

I   received a warm welcome when I called to see  Mr McMahon’s class on Monday to introduce myself  and the violin  . I was delighted to that many of them can play  the tin whistle and I look forward to hearing them play some of their tunes .

The first violin class took place    after break on Tuesday 14^th .

We learned how to hold our violins comfortably in playing and rest position, how to stand while playing and very important how to bow to our audience.

We warmed up with some finger exercises  . Next we learned the names of the strings and how to play pizzicato  to a steady beat .

Finally  we were introduced to all the other members of the bowed string family Viola, Cello and Double Bass .

Composer corner today featured Italian composer  Vivaldi and featured piece was ist movement of Winter , Violin Concerto .

The students payed excellent attention throughout  and I can’t wait to see them for lesson 2 . 

 Bravo ! tutti