Tuesday, October 20, 2020

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.  


Monday, October 19, 2020

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.


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


  1. Lyrics should be at least four verses.


  1. Lyrics don’t have to rhyme.


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


  1. 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…


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


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


  1. Lyrics should have at least twenty lines. 


  1. 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


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

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


  1. A Past Event


  1. A Feeling about Something


    1. Words that have meaning 


    1. Something going on in the world


    1. Imagination


    1. Fantasy 

    2. What makes good lyrics? A chorus

    3. A meaning

    4. A perfect amount of repetition

    5. Rhythm to the words

    6. Rhyme

    7. Creativity

    8. Focusing on one subject at a time

    9. Clear and understandable lyrics

    10. Lyrics that create a picture in your head

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

    12. Uplifting

    13. Feeling

    14. Passion

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

    16. Lyrics that express a personality

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

    18. Metaphors

    19. Meaningful about your life

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

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

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.  






Friday, October 2, 2020

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.