Our 6th, 7th, and 8th graders have been having a ball playing the ukuleles in general music during the 3rd quarter! We have mastered playing melodies using the open strings, and now we are moving on to chords. During the first 4 weeks of the quarter, we will learn four chords using the song You Are My Sunshine. We are also learning how to read tablature, and we will be doing a project in which students will teach themselves a chord using tablature, and then will teach their chord to the class. During the second half of the quarter, we will be moving off of ukuleles and into technology for a composing project on the iPads. Students will wrap up the year by creating a composition that uses everything they have learned about rhythms and note reading to compose their own music and share with the class.
I'm very pleased to announce that Disney has just purchased 16 brand new ukuleles, which means that grades 6, 7, and 8 will be hula-ing into a unit all about these wonderful instruments! Every student will have their own ukulele to work with in music class, and they couldn't be more excited! We will spend weeks 1 and 2 getting acquainted with the ukuleles and learning about their history in Hawaii, then we will spend weeks 3-5 learning how to play a Hawaiian melody on the open strings. Beginning in week 6, we will learn how to read melodies for the ukulele using traditional music notation on the treble clef staff, and will compose our own short melodies to perform. At the end of the quarter, we'll begin learning chords on the ukulele. Hopefully once we're done, your student will be well on their way to being ukulele superstars!
We just wrapped up our unit on Caribbean music in 6th grade, after lots of singing, listening, and steel drum playing! We sang 3 folk songs from the Caribbean this quarter, including Lost My Gold Ring, Hill and Gully Rider, and the Banana Boat song. We listened to Harry Belafonte sing the Banana Boat Song (Day-O), then listened to some other artists sing different versions of it so we could compare and contrast. We then learned a mash-up of the Banana Boat song and Hill and Gully rider with our voices and instruments that we performed as a class! Students also composed an 8 beat melody with their steel drum groups this quarter, and did an awesome job performing them for each other!
6th grade has been all about Caribbean music this month! Students have been playing steel drums and learning about rhythms. We've also been singing songs from Jamaica, including Lost My Gold Ring and Hill and Gully Rider. We've been working on our ensemble playing by performing ostinatos with chants and instruments!
When I came to Disney and found that we had a set of steel drums, I knew I had to do a unit on Caribbean music with the 6th grade! In the first week of school, we started learning a song from Jamaica, and next week we are going to dive right in to playing the steel drums. We will be using them to play rhythms, melodies, and accompaniments as we explore the music of the islands in the Caribbean Sea!
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February 2016
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