Slideshow Presentation about a choice of Musician

 TEN STEPS TO A GREAT MUSICIAN SLIDE PRESENTATION

Due on December 15-22,  2020

1.) CHOOSE A MUSICIAN, COMPOSER, SINGER, SONGWRITER THAT INTERESTS YOU VERY MUCH. 

2.) FIND AT LEAST TEN FACTS ABOUT YOUR MUSICIAN.

3.) FIND FIVE AWESOME PICTURES OR PHOTOGRAPHS OF YOUR MUSICIAN.

4.) FIND ONE OF YOUR  FAVORITE SONGS OR PIECES OF THIS MUSICIAN.

5.) CREATE A LISTENING ASSIGNMENT FOR THE CLASS, THREE QUESTIONS. 

6.) CREATE A SLIDESHOW ON GOOGLE SLIDES TO SHARE WITH THE CLASS.

7.) PRACTICE YOUR SLIDE SHOW TO MAKE IT INTERESTING FOR THE CLASS.

8.) SHARE YOUR PROJECT WITH THE CLASS. PROJECT DUE DECEMBER 15TH, OR EARLIER. 

9) HAVE A DISCUSSION ABOUT ONE OR MORE OF THE SONGS WITH THE CLASS, HAVE STUDENTS SHARE THE ANSWERS TO YOUR LISTENING ASSIGNMENT WITH ALL OF THE CLASS. 

10.) ASK AS MANY QUESTIONS AS YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR BEST SLIDESHOW! 

Response to Yo Yo Ma's Cello Suite #1

J.S. Bach Yo Yo Ma Cello Suite #1 

Today we listened to this piece in my sixth grade music class, just the first section of the suite, and one of our students wrote this poem for the assignment. It is really cool!

The clapping sounds like thunder, 

the music light and jittery,

 turns ominous then happy, 

it sounds like sitting with a warm blanket 

near a fire in winter, 

now the music is deadpan, 

the hunter stalks about, 

but the wolves are safe,

 the spring is coming, 

the bees are buzzing, 

if you look close, 

you can see their footsteps in the air, 

gone behind a cloud, 

never seen again. 

Youth is short and sweet.

RETWEET!

 THANK YOU JOAN CHITTISTER 

Music: The Places Life Cannot Reach Without It
I have a parrot who does not sing. She cries a lot if I leave the room—if anybody leaves the room actually. She screams for whatever she needs—though it’s your responsibility to figure out what that may be. She talks to herself by stringing a long list of very clear but totally useless syllables together while she chatters in my ear.
 
But when I sing to her, or play music for her, she stands stark still and listens without making a sound. She just perches there. Almost breathless. Almost frozen. It’s totally out of character—and totally understandable—at the same time. It is something that fascinates me. I watched her over and over again and then I got it: I do the same thing myself.
 
Here, in the music, is all the protection I need from my restless or anxious or empty self. Maybe music is the basic living instinct, I think: common to us all—parrot and person alike. It is the one thing in life that gets into my soul, that cuts it off from everything but the electrical impulses of the universe, that encapsulates me.
 
I began writing articles to music as a young teenager. I would choose a march or a symphony or a piano solo and “write” the outline of a sentence in march to its rhythm, to its accents, to its phrases. Or, I would string out a wispy dream, or punch up a great, sweeping grand symphony by writing lines in an equally long cadenza. Then I would put words to them rather than chords until the sentence on my paper sounded like the rise and fall of the end of the opera or the volley of the street band.
 
Strange, I know. But important to consider. The truth is that music is not a melody, it is a place in time. It is somewhere to go where no one else, no noise, no interruptions can intrude. It takes us in and closes us off from all the clamor of the universe.
 
It gives us balm. It touches our souls. It saves us from the straggle and cacophony of the world. It takes our noisy, crowded lives and quiets us in the orbit of the sublime.
 
Music is the only sound of heaven we’ve ever been given. Play it often. Play it well. Play it to put yourself back together again after noise and confusion of sound leave you tired and alone and lonely on the floor of life.
 
Then, one thing and one thing only can accompany us into ourselves—our memories, our hopes, the pace of our soul and the power to quiet us to everything except distraction. Indeed, music is where the soul goes to put into notes what cannot be said in words. Happy listening.

Sunrise Final Presentation

 

My Peaceful Place

 My Peaceful Place

From the mountains above, melted snow flows down the streams and creaks

Maine is an awesome state and is always what i seek 

Many are born in state that the Appalachian Trail winds through

I feel lucky enough to be from one of those states too

My home is with my dad on our 80-acre farm in York

Where me, my Gramps, and Dad raise chickens, beef, and port

Chorus:

Down on the farm i pass all my sunshine hours

Running wild through the many flowers

In my childhood happy home down on the farm

Rock, Folk, Country, and Hip Hop artists come from the Trail states

So full of talent playing at many venues and on different dates

Many award winners are from the least likely places

Here in Maine we are lucky enough to see their familiar faces

I put on my head phones to listen to their music

While i think about school and all the teachers rubrics

Chorus

States along the Appalachian Trail have produced so many stars

While working on our farm I find myself singing a few bars

Anything that takes away our peace is to expensive

A little thought i had while mending the broken fences

This is why i love it here, a place i dont have to worry

Where life is slow and i dont have to hurry

Chorus

Nothing like the smell of fresh cut grass while Gramps hays the fields

Listen to the chicken’s cluck, the cows moo, and the pigs squeal

This is the only home i have ever known 

My safe place and where i belong

I wonder how this became my fate a place i love so dearly

Im proud of my farm and love my family

I will forever carry on this farms legacy

While knowing this is where i need to think clearly

Chorus

I sit on the front porch staring out at the whild life and deer

Listening to music to easy my mind and my fears

I know how lucky i am to have been given this life

Maybe someday ill get to share it with my Dad, children, and wife

But not now, i am too young

While the hikers on the trail are putting on their gear tackling the trail

Ill be on the farm putting grain in the pails

If you hike to maine and would like to greet me 

Our farm on Libby Lane is where ill be 

A little piece of heaven i hold dear to me

Chorus

Chorus

More Student Lyrica

 LUCY BABY

Lucy means everything to me 

but i know she does not last forever 

but i will hold her in my heart. 

She has helped me throughout my life, 

she has been my emotional support animal,

 she has been my best friend

 and a very good dog. 

We have gone on very fun hikes 

walks on the beach 

but we can not do them any more 

because she is getting old. 

                                    Lucy oh Lucy, 

you have been my best friend

 and will always be 

Lucy oh Lucy 

She has been a very good friend and 

she loves a good walk 

but we would not be able

 to do the Appalachian trail. 

But she would still try to do it 

even though her legs are bad. 

 Lucy has loved me 

since I was a little baby.

 She would lay by my crib.

 I know she loves me

 but I think I am her favorite 

even though my dad 

thinks he is her favorite 

                                Lucy oh Lucy, 

you have been my best friend 

and will always be 

Lucy oh Lucy 

                She loves walks on the beach 

but we can not do them anymore

 but we can go on short walks

 in our neighborhood.

                                 Lucy oh Lucy, 

You have been my best friend 

and will always be 

Lucy oh Lucy

Student Lyrics

 I Wish she was here

Sun on the lake 

waters  as clear as a crystal

honestly it's the happiest time of the year

                                         boat rides, and blueberries, shopping and food

kayaks paddling ,swimming and  hiking 

fishing, and islands, and mountain biking  

 happy and calm with mountains surrounding

but She hasn't been here in three years i've been counting

i've  asked her come  but she never could go

can't believe she was 8 last time she came

I wish she was here----

I wish she was here     

cause it's no longer the happiest time of the year 

said she was coming then this whole covid thing happened

I wish she was here--- 

I wish she was here 

I'll be seeing her soon 

haven't seen her since june 

I wish she was here 

i wish she was here this year

Summative project A.T. Music 6th Grade

 SUMMATIVE MUSIC PROJECT

6TH GRADE JAGUAR TEAM

Standard: Students will create their own compositions by applying the knowledge and skills of notation, symbols, and terminology of dynamics.

1.) Use Flat.io and/or Chrome music lab to create music that is inspired by your experience with the Appalachian Trail and the musicians you have listened to this semester.

2.)  Your piece of music should be at least 32 measures long.

3.) Your piece should have two time signatures in it, including 4/4 time, as well as one other.

4.)  Your piece should use whole notes, dotted half notes, half notes, quarter notes, double eighth notes and their corresponding rests.

5.)  Your composition should include an ostinato, and should have varying textures throughout the piece.

6.) Your composition needs to be in one of these musical forms: ABABAB, (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse chorus),  or ABABCAB, (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse chorus), Or you can use a Rondo, which we learned last year: ABACADA.  

7.) Use dynamics such as piano, forte, mezzo forte, pianissimo, and mark them in your piece so it is clear. 

8.) Use an interesting contour for your piece, so that it goes up and down gracefully, using scales and other notes that work well together. 

9.) Record yourself reading your lyrics  while your music is playing, to create a piece of performance art.  These are the lyrics you wrote earlier that describe your experience with music and nature this semester on the Appalachian Trail. Laurie Anderson- example of speaking over music

10.) Share your piece with the class, add pictures that have inspired you of the trail or of places in Maine, or singers who have helped you in your creative process. 

 EXCEEDS OPTION:  Use your lyrics that you have written and create a melody that works with the lyrics, and make a video of the song.  

LYRICS TO MY SONG

                             Inspired by the lyrics of my adolescence

About love, the passage of time and the essence

Of history’s mark on the world

My song begins to become unfurled 

The sounds of Paul Simon and his friend, Art

He would never be silenced or leave the top of the music charts

He wondered often what went wrong

Yet his message of hope stayed strong

John Smith became famous for his Appalachian Rain

All of the states on the trail were named

He would hike the whole way if he had to

To bring back his world of love so true

A voice of America created by Copland

His Appalachian Spring with its ballet so grand

Sounds like the birds, the rivers, the breezes

The cairns, the views across mountains as it freezes

The entire symphony showing simplicity 

Its greatest gift is for us all to be free

The trail becomes our way to believe

At a time when we all need to grieve

For those we have lost and those we can’t see

Music, nature, hiking, meditation, flee

Away from the stress of life 

Enveloped by the endorphins, the scales, escape from strife

Melodies, lyrics swirl in our head as we hike on this trail 

It is not too late to search here for the holy grail

CHECKLIST TO WRITE LYRICS

 Checklist for lyrics 

1. Lyrics should be about something meaningful to you.

2. Lyrics should be written like you would see in genius lyrics.

3. Lyrics should be at least four verses.

4. Lyrics don’t have to rhyme.

5. Lyrics don’t have to have a melody in mind, but you can if it helps you. 

6. Lyrics should have a form, Verse/Chorus/Verse/Chorus, or Verse/Chorus/Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Verse/ Chorus, or another form if you wish, but show me…

7. Lyrics should mention some of the musicians or songs we have been listening to and learning about.

8. Lyrics should talk about the A.T. in some way.

9. Lyrics should have at least twenty lines. 

10. Lyrics should show what you have learned so far in all subjects about the Appalachian Trail. 

SUGGESTIONS FROM CLASS ON WHAT MAKES GOOD LYRICS

1. DREAM

2. Something you did or that happened that you imagine in a different way.

3. SUBJECTS THAT MAKE GOOD LYRICS: Hurt, love, regret, sadness, joy, all feelings.

4. A Past Event

5. A Feeling about Something

6. 
   

7. 1. Words that have meaning 

   
   

   2. Something going on in the world

   
   

   3. Imagination

   
   

   4. Fantasy 

   5. What makes good lyrics? A chorus

   6. A meaning

   7. A perfect amount of repetition

   8. Rhythm to the words

   9. Rhyme

   10. Creativity

   11. Focusing on one subject at a time

   12. Clear and understandable lyrics

   13. Lyrics that create a picture in your head

   14. Lyrics you can relate to, (they could have happened to you)

   15. Uplifting

   16. Feeling

   17. Passion

   18. Something that is about an experience that could have happened to you

   19. Lyrics that express a personality

   20. Lyrics that relate to a season or a celebration or a holiday?

   21. Metaphors

   22. Meaningful about your life

   23. Sharing your perspective on what is going on in the world or your life

Coltrane...A love supreme, 

rhapsodical, rising and falling lines, repetition, 

pushing the limits of the instrument and the artist, 

legato, staccato, drums keeping the time within the time.  

The spoken mantra, a love supreme, 

A Love Supreme.  

Piano reflects the spoken mantra,

 and the bass plays this ostinato too..So- Bad Coltrane playing Bad Coltrane?  

Oblivion, ignorance, arrogance.  

The principal wrote to the staff one day, “I am growing accustomed to this clunky schedule.” Clunky, and it reeks of bad Coltrane, playing Bad Coltrane. Oblivion, ignorance, arrogance. Have you heard of a Coltrane Cover quartet? If so, it would resemble our teaching schedule this year.  First period, I am assisting in a classroom where the students are in school and the teacher is piped in from her house.  The students struggle to stay focused, but we manage. Second period I teach an online class of thirty-five students, because this same teacher always teaches from home, so we cannot break them up into smaller online groups.  It works, but it is clunky, unwieldy, flat, I am blowing my saxophone so hard my ears bleed, it’s bad Coltrane playing bad cover quartet, Coltrane. I teach a live class after that, of ten students, and then I take them outside, the whole grade, for forty-five minutes while the teachers inside discuss what they need to discuss.  Glorified babysitting, although we play old-fashioned games, like duck duck goose, and red light, green light.  Bad Coltrane, playing Bad Coltrane.  The rhythm is off, it is unwieldy, complicated, unmusical.  

Wednesdays the students all stay home, we come into school and teach large groups online while they cuddle up on their couches and enjoy the comforts of home and hearth.  That’s just strange; why come into school when we could just as easily teach everyone online at home? Rhythm, music, flow, focus, legato, staccato, depth of sound, pitch held true? None of it is happening in the time of COVID-19, and it is the quintessential bad Coltrane Cover Quartet playing his hardest and most complicated pieces.  

However, I am not one to shy away from a challenge, and years ago I told myself I would never say NO to anything that could move me forward in any way.  So- I carry on, finding new ways to power through, finding new ways to challenge students in person and on-line, and the "clunkiness" just becomes an observation, rather than a criticism.  A pandemic is as a pandemic does, despite the timing being off,  and the oblivion, ignorance, arrogance of the cover quartet just cannot be a part of my responsibility.  I just need to see it as rhapsody, until we turn the corner on this cover quartet.  

A NEW AUTUMN, A NEW SCHOOL

 It is still York Middle School but we have a hybrid schedule and a whole new curriculum for music and a whole new way of living at school and managing with so many complicated rules because of the pandemic. 

Today I gave an assignment to write a poem while they listened to "My Favorite Things" by John Coltrane, and these are a few poems that I read.  They were very sensitive and thoughtful. 

My Life

Misty...

Dark...

Raining...

That's how to describe tonight

It isn't a happy day

But I like to think somewhat positive as of least there is something good every day.

I start to feel..somewhat mixed on the subway home

What am I hearing? 

It's so...just..so...How to describe it? So...ominous..so breathtakingly smooth.

Like polished dark, inky black metal. That also relates

to my ...life. 

Jazz

oncor

harp

nap

cat

octopise

lizard

train

rain

ant

nap

eat

Pineapples

PIneapple, Pineapple

so bright and spiny

filled with citrus so sweet to eat

Pineapple, pineapple

So Light and tight

with juice so sweet to eat

it tastes like candy. 

Poem about Black Lives Matter

There's screaming in the town block

My brothers arrested by a cop

I'm screaming please, please stop

Color doesn't matter I tell the cop

I'm begging you please stop

I hope for a world where there's room for you and me

Until then can't you see

There is room for you and me. 

All the Reasons Students Said they couldn't come to my live google hangout classes

1.) It's lunchtime.

2.) Families don't have to follow the schedule of classes, they can follow any schedule they like.

3.) I have too much work to do for my other classes, I don't have time to come to your class.

4.) I thought you didn't have to go.

5.) Yeah, I thought it was optional.

6.) My computer was freezing, so I got off and couldn't get back into the meet.

7.) I thought it was just if you had questions about the work that you assigned.

8.) I have so much work to do for chorus, band and advanced art I can't come to your class.

9.) I was sleeping.

10.) I had to go on a bike ride with my family.

HOW CAN I ARGUE WITH ANY OF THESE REASONS.

Digital Portfolios- Chapter 6- Moving Beyond Portfolios

“Uncertainty is the foundation for inquiry and research”, Peter Johnston- This is the quotation that begins this chapter.  We are living with great uncertainty right now, but it has also been a very creative time as well, and the future is now.  This chapter makes us think about the future, the future of education, the future of how we think about technology and the uses of it for our students, and the future of grading and assessment.  What happens to those portfolios when students leave the schools?  This is the first big question that is asked.  What happens when digital portfolios become the norm?  What happens when students are given more choice and voice when it comes to their learning?

Our schools have already gone beyond traditional grading practices.  We have been using standards based assessment practices for over five years now, and it has been an easy transition for visual and performing arts teachers and students. I and many of my colleagues have always had difficulty with traditional grading practices when it came to students in the performing arts.  The type of feedback that the author talks about in this last chapter connects with the ways we have always worked with students in music classes.  Summarize, Explain, Redirect and Resubmit are perfect words to describe how we work with students on artistic projects.  If you take a choral group working on a piece of  music, for example, you summarize what they did, you explain what they did well and what they could have done better, you help them with how to make it better, and then they try it again.  Constant, positive, worthwhile and effective feedback is the way for students to learn and get better at any skill.  If you have consistent, timely, specific and thoughtful feedback you do not need grades, students can simply move forward from one standard to the next, and it also gives them license to work at their own paces as well. 

Our school has figured out how to showcase student learning and have students take ownership of their learning on a regular basis.  We always have student led conferences, where students create a portfolio of work that shows progress, process and performance, depending on the subject and where they are in their accomplishments.  It is not totally digital as of yet, but a lot of it is, and after the last twelve weeks of distance learning, all of our work will be available in a digital form for choosing and creating a portfolio for each student.  We don’t know what will happen this fall, but we are prepared to teach all of our curriculum using google classroom, and we are prepared to have classes using videoconferencing to meet with students.  Students have grown accustomed to working on projects asynchronously, and then asking questions via email, messaging or video conferencing.  Students have found more choice and voice just in the ways that we have been forced to teach the groups the last several weeks.  It has not been ideal, but I have seen certain gifted students soar, push themselves and find ways to learn without the distractions of others in a classroom. 

This takes us to the idea of the Genius Hour that the author describes in this chapter.  Our school has an area known as the “Maker Space” which includes several computers, lots of creative materials like recycled materials, beads, feathers, and also a big white board for collaboration with other students.  It has become a safe and creative space for many students when they have targeted learning time and want to work on their own projects, or when a teacher has a project time and wants to use that space and materials for their work.  I love the idea of Genius Hour because it really makes the creative process accessible for students inside the school day.  We have many opportunities for students after school for creative problem solving and the arts, such as Odyssey of the Mind, or drama club, or jazz band or Interact Club, but this is a great place for students to have voice and choice in their learning within school time.

Distance learning keeps coming back to me as I read this book and learn about digital portfolios.  We have taken learning to a different place because of the pandemic, and it has offered us many opportunities around independent learning, choice boards, and the idea of students being in charge of their own schedule.  Assessment is the big question in our meetings for the end of this school year, as we are not accustomed to assessing students within this format.  We have also lost many students for as many reasons as there may be: resources, time, taking care of siblings while parents have to work, just to name a few, so assessing them in a final comment bank and standards assessment seems unfair, unacceptable and inappropriate.  We are assessing them until the point at which we were no longer at school, and those who have continued to complete standards earn feedback specific to their needs.  We will have to deal with the consequences of all these decisions upon our return in the fall, and uncertainty is the final word, as we will not know if we are going to be in school or online or a combination of both until late in the summer.  Do no harm, I will continue our mantra, and think about how to implement continuous digital portfolios in any platform, in school or online, into the future.

Chapters 4 and 5 - Reflection on Digital Portfolios by Matt Remick

Digital Portfolios In the Classroom
Chapters 4 and 5
For the last nine weeks, our district has been figuring out how to deliver “emergency” distance learning.  We were not prepared for this pandemic in any way, and we were thrown into this experience at the last minute.  We learned how to fly the plane while we were building it, and in doing so, we had to just do the best we could with what we had.  Our district was in much better shape than some others, I believe, because we had been using google classroom all the way along, for when we needed to have a substitute, or for when students were gone for periods of illness or vacation.  We were beginning to talk about blizzard bags, so we would never miss school during a snowstorm, but we never expected the world to change like this. 
Digital portfolios seem almost simple compared to what we have been trying to accomplish in the last nine weeks.  These two chapters dig deeper into digital portfolios but the author wants to guarantee that the technology won’t take over the portfolio or its usefulness.  It is essential to remember all of our best practices in education, such as backwards design of curriculum, authentic assessment, using formative assessments that support further learning, and finally choosing the correct tools for the portfolios that will best demonstrate progress, process and performance.  Chapter 5 delves even deeper into the importance of leadership and shared leadership when creating digital portfolios. Money, time and energy focus are essential in this process, and it cannot be only a top down process nor can it remain a grass roots process. All of our best practices for educational leadership need to be involved to make it a successful endeavor. 
Reading this book at this particular time has taught me how far I have come in my own digital learning as a teacher in the last few months.  If you had told me a few months ago  that I would have a flipped classroom, if you told me “you will be practicing notation on google hangouts each day” if you told me, “Google Classroom will now become the spine of your curriculum”, I never would have believed you.  Every day I learn something new that can make me a better teacher online. I am studying ways to make my online and google classroom presence more stimulating and also organized for students who come to it every day.  We don’t know what the future will look like, and my goal is to continue to keep google classroom as the spine of my curriculum, to create more curriculum that translates best in an online platform, and to practice daily how to teach my classes better and better through my google hangouts. 
“People live through stories.  They are their own protagonists in their personal endeavors. Using digital portfolios to capture student growth gives context to their best work. They attend to the processes they used to achieve success. This builds lifelong learners because students learn how to learn. The veil is lifted for everyone involved on how students arrived at essential learning outcomes.” I have chosen this quotation by Matt Remick from page 95 because it demonstrates both the positive outcomes from this experience of distance learning, and also the issues that arise because of it.  Anything the students create right now can be saved, shared, archived, and improved, because every experience is an online experience. Students are sharing their “stories” with me musically, related to this unprecedented time.  If students are mature enough, distance learning can work.  If students have been prepared with protocols, with organizing tools, with discussions on how to be an online participant and how to act in online class, then distance learning can work.  If students take ownership of their learning, total ownership, distance learning is amazing. The veil, as Remick said, has been lifted, as I see some students perform beautifully, stay ahead of the work, hand in their best work every time, and “attend” to their processes when they continue to refine their ideas.  These students are focused and know how to act in an online class, and sit at a desk and wear clothes when they show up, ready to share or work or discuss the music that I assigned them to listen to on google classroom.
      These students are not the majority, however.  Fifth graders, as a group, are just too young to take complete ownership of an online experience.  Half of the students don’t show up for my class.  Some of the students who do show up, play with their animals while they are in my class.  They are in their pajamas, and playing with their stuffed animals, jumping on their beds, these students are not aware of what a positive online learning environment really is.
      If this continues into next year, our district and those like it, must transition from “emergency” distance learning to “quality” distance learning.  We need to develop protocols for how students act in our classes on a google hangout.  We need to continue to refine our ability to control a classroom in a google hangout.  We need to learn how to teach younger students to attend to their processes of learning online.  We need to bridge the gap between students who are prepared to take ownership daily of their learning at home, and those who just aren’t able to or don’t know how or even why it would be essential in their lives.  One of the big questions addressed in chapter four is “what did you learn in school that matters in life today?” (page 99).  I believe over the last few months the answers to that question have morphed into things that didn’t matter to any generation before this one.  What will matter will be how you have learned to organize your time, what you decide to take seriously and how that might affect your world and your life, and what your online presence will look like now and for the rest of your life.