February 4, 2020

Hi everyone! It was cold and the roads were slippery, but we had great rehearsals this Monday. Look below to know what we did and what students should practice at home this week.

Beginning Orchestra

In the Beginning Orchestra, we reviewed everything we did last Monday. We then learned about our bows, how to take care of them, and how to hold them correctly. If you want more information about the bow, look to the videos below:

Basic bow info:

Violin/Viola:

Cello:

Bass:

This week, students should practice the music on pages 16 and 17 to practice using the bow on the D and A strings.

Intermediate Orchestra

This week we did a lot of work in First Finger Pachelbel. This piece is unique because it only uses open strings and 1st fingers. I made this cheat sheet to help the kids with the notes:

In our remaining time, we learned the beginning of Dragon Slayer.

Students should continue to practice at home and try to learn the pieces on their own. We will do more work in the book next week and definitely introduce Impulse.

Advanced Orchestra

In the Advanced Orchestra, we started with Conquistador and learned through measure 20. This week I’m hoping students will learn through measure 40 at home.

We then moved on to In the Hall of the Mountain King and learned the 2nd theme so that everyone can learn the difficult sections early on. We will start putting the song together in its real order next week.

Then we played Gauntlet and played through measure 24. I’m hoping we can get to measure 41 next week, so students should try to practice at least that much this week.

We then only spent a brief amount of time on the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. 1st and 2nd violins especially need to practice measures 5-15 this week.