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.