Our learning and process around the music festival

Here is Gabrielle’s base group’s thoughts on the process we went through to produce our piece in the music festival, and our reflections on how it went.

Preparation      BY  Elliot and Jessie

Contents:

Andreas

Learning about music

…………………………………………………………………                

We had 10 weeks with andreas . He gave us lots of tips, so that gave us a head start.  When we were working on making our performance shine, he was helping our main drummer alastair and alastair got teached at by him in slots of school time because he was in the parade for the music  festival aka  going out with the little kids into the courtyard.

We basically  had  learning about music school   which was fun.

1.    we learnt about the ear and how it hears sound with Gabrielle
2. We drew to the sound of music with Hamish
3. And wrote and composed music with John            

Process

Step 1. First we listened to lots of different types of music to understand how to compose a piece of music. We listened to the beat and how the layers of music were composed and how all the music flowed.

Step 2. Then we brainstormed some emotions that we could use to explain a story. Soon we all agreed on some emotions.

Step 3. Then we had to write some stories on how the performance will work and then we had to do a vote on whose was the best and then we all decided on one!

By Emma, Lucie and Alba

Process of music festival (How music works)    

At the start of term 3, every student knew that the theme was music. Gabrielle's base group started off with visiting, Hamish.  Hamish taught us about the many parts of music, for example: Tempo, Rhythm, crescendo, decrescendo. That is not all of them, But you probably get the Idea.

Hamish got us to listen to about five songs, focusing on the tempo. Finally we listened to the last song twice and drew what we thought  it was like.  To me it was like when humans invaded the earth.

We actually went to hamish’s base group twice. The second time we got into groups and made a music peace.(we only had about 10m) It was interesting how the other groups had made their pieces.

With John: John’s theme was layering and melody made us think of catchy tunes.(They were actually a little bit annoying) He said “do not use any vowels,” after that we needed to go down to bottom cout. We got into groups and thought of silly words to use in catchy tunes, then we layered them. We shared them to all the groups and had time for something else.  So he gave us the poem he loves, I think it’s called the ning, nang, nong.

NEXT DAY WITH JOHN:      

Got into new groups and made a little song me and peters group went like this:

Little man, little man, little man, little man to the shop. Woooo ooooo oooo oooo  ooo oooo.

Medium man, medium man, medium man to the shop. Woooo ooooo oooo oooo  ooo oooo.

Big man, big man, big man, big man to the shop. Woooo ooooo oooo oooo  ooo oooo.

Cool right! And that’s how we learnt how music works.

By peter and Rico.

The Process

For the music festival:

We had to listen to different types of music and see what emotion you felt, we wrote it down in our books.

We went to the mat and voted on a theme, we chose dream and space.

We wrote a story to follow.We chose caitlin's  story, her story was: A person dreamed of going to space, and found a G.P.S it led it to the edge of outer space.They found teleporter and a time machine, they were going towards the teleporter when the G.P.S drove them to the time machine, they went back to when the first person whent to the moon, they were the first on the moon.

We got into small groups like the lyrics group.

We focused  on one emotion and composed a piece with a type of emotion.

By Louise, Evie and Milla

The performance.

We performed on tuesday and wednesday seven five minutes performance´s.Every single performance was fun.It was hard to not  make mistakes but we had to make sacrifise’s. Every body had jobs and we had rely on each other.    

By Theo, Nick and Chester

Reflection for the music festival.

I think we did well with: composing music, decorating, dancing, making the poem and making the costumes.

We have to work on: keeping in time, getting ready on time before the bell rings, staying quiet while someone else is playing.

By Sylvie and Caitlynn.

                          

* The music festival performance *

P	M	I
How we got to make our own music in our own way How we had little sentence’s so the audience knew what was going on Nobody forgot their lines	Some of the transitions were a bit distracting for the audience The musicians when it was not their turn they started to move around Some people weren’t focusing enough in practice and you could tell in their performance	How the costumes looked when they had dried How we got to paint our top’s How it looked when when we played it to ourselves

By Maddie, Josie and Meg R

P	M	I
Timing. The music went well with the story. The music flowed with each other. We all followed our cue. The performance was at the 5 minute dot. The speeches were said at the right time. When you see the dancing for the first time you know what's going on. The words the people said made the music and dance come together.	The dancers stuffed up sometimes. Some people forgot their places. People were bowing too early. People were making shadow. puppets with the spotlights. People forgetting their lines. People laughing at the beginning People playing their instruments very lightly at the beginning. Have more practice with the lines. Dancing with the first thing on the keyboard. A bit more practice with staying in time with each other. A bit more learning about different parts.                                    To slow down or add on more to make it to the 5 mins mark.	Sometimes the music changed. The costumes sort of glowed.

By Bella, Stephanie and Charlie

p	M	I
-we had good transition Between groups. -we had a good story behind it. -we had good Timing	-we could work on our dance. -we could improve on our being quiet between parts of our music festival.	-it wasn't that bad as we thought. -

Cody JASPER sam.ST alastair

A duet of a viola and the cello

Thanks Margaret and Chris for coming in and playing to us. It was beautiful to hear you play and you really sparked our imaginations with Beethoven's melody...

Music festival: daytime rehearsals

Just in case you missed our performances, here is a daytime rehearsal we did on Wednesday in front of Mahutonga Matariki. Of course performing at night adds an extra special element and we weren't all in our costumes for this practice, but it gives an idea of what we were up to!

Music workshops

We've had some music workshops this week to complement the work everyone has been doing for their musical performances.

Rob came in and performed on the bagpipes for us in the courtyard. Everyone got into the spirit of this and joined in a jig, then marched. We also listened to a 'quieter' piece (Amazing Grace), then Rob spoke to us about how the bagpipes work and the different sounds the drones and other parts make. Thanks Rob, we all really enjoyed learning about the bagpipes and listening to you play!

WBS marching to bagpipes from Matariki on Vimeo.

In the afternoon, Ray came in and talked to us about his experiences listening to the guitar as a child then learning to play, joining bands, performing, and then learning to make guitars and building this skill into a career. He showed us a beautiful guitar he had made, with paua inlaid around the edges and penguins inlaid, and showed us the pieces he uses to make a guitar. He also talked to us about the different types of wood he uses, and why he chooses them. It was really interesting and we were treated to Ray playing a piece at the end. Thanks again Ray.

Recording

Recording voices and All Sorts of Sound for the Music Festival.

We have been incredibly creative over the last week recording voices and all sorts of sounds for our piece.  The wind, birds, rocks rolling down the slide; it’s all inventive.

We are also turning poems into chants and songs.  There is a great deal of learning going on around the recording process, layering sound and arranging these layers into a cohesive piece.

Lucas is concentrating on making his music sound good.  Fingers crossed!

How do instruments make sounds?

We have been exploring how different types of instruments make sounds. We have looked at how the sound wave is first produced, how you can change the pitch of an instrument and how the instrument amplifies sound. For instance, in a guitar the sound chamber amplifies the sound and you can make the pitch higher by placing your finger on the string (making chords) or by using the tuners to tighten the strings.

We have had a look at guitars, ukeleles, drums, xylophones, harmoniums, and today Hamish's base group were lucky enough to explore a cello. Thanks for bringing it in Jane and spending some time with us. We've also done some research about how electric instruments work.

Creating and Playing our own Soundscapes

We have been exploring sound and creating music in lots of different ways over the last week. On Friday we spent the day creating a soundscape. Each row is a different person playing a certain instrument. Our music score means we play a piece of music together like an orchestra.

 
Soundscapes 1 from Matariki on Vimeo.


Soundscapes 2 from Matariki on Vimeo.


Soundscapes 2 from Matariki on Vimeo.



Soundscape 4 from Matariki on Vimeo.



Soundscapes 5 from Matariki on Vimeo.

Word Rhythms from Matariki on Vimeo.

Word Rhythms

We have been having a lot of fun playing with rhythm, sometimes using instruments, sometimes clapping and using body percussion and sometimes using words to create rhythmic patterns.  

Now we are looking at melody and harmony, giving a tune and texture to some of the compositions we are working on.