More singing and playing

The first week of music, I promised Forest and Mountain classes that they would be singing some songs in at least 3-part harmony by the end of the year. Well, here is half of Mountain class singing a 3-part round plus vocal ostinato. And it's barely October!

Mountain class sings!

I love this song. It's called "Dance For the Nations," and here are the lyrics:

Round and round we turn, we hold each others' hands and
Weave ourselves in a circle.
The time is gone, the dance goes on.
The first three weeks of Middle School First-Year Rotation were devoted primarily to rhythm. Now we're focusing on melody and harmony. Right now we're working on our technique on the xylophones, learning to play some melodies, and figuring out harmonies to familiar songs. Here they are working on cross-hand technique. To keep track of the rhythm, they're thinking "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
First-years play "Peter Piper"

Canoe Song!

This week, I've been (re)introducing all the LS classes to the Orff instruments. We start with just a few bars on the instruments, and gradually add more notes as the year goes on. Today, my Forest 1 group had four different instrument parts going while singing a three-part round! It was so exciting that I pulled out my laptop and made a Garageband recording, which you can listen to here.

The song is "Canoe Song," sometimes called "Land of the Silver Birch." Here are the words:

My paddle's keen and bright
Flashing with silver.
Follow the wild goose flight
Dip, dip, and swing.