Hi everyone!
Look for your orchestra below to find out what we did on Monday. We will not have any rehearsals next week due to Thanksgiving Break, so our next rehearsal will be on Monday, November 27th. Be sure to practice during break!
Beginning Orchestra
We began our rehearsal by reviewing the songs we already know:
- Twinkle, Twinkle
- Rolling Along (Mary Had a Little Lamb)
- Lightly Row
We then started learning Old MacDonald, found on page 14. This piece does not have the names of the notes inside of the noteheads! Try to just write the names of the notes on the scale at the top of page 14 and figure out your notes that way. If you need to write in the names of the individual notes you can, but try to see if you can just read the music! Old MacDonald is mostly G’s, so if in doubt, play a G!
I also very quickly introduced Jingle Bells, which is also found on page 14. Jingle Bells will be our trickiest piece! I will also have a playing check-in after break on Jingle Bells. Since we haven’t gone through the whole thing yet, I will start the playing check-ins on December 4th.
The Beginning Orchestra hasn’t done playing check-ins yet, so let me just introduce the concept. Students will record themselves playing Jingle Bells on my computer during class. They will go to a practice room and record them one by one. Students can also choose to record it at home and send it to me via email. With this information, I will see how everyone is doing and I will also use this information to decide where everyone will sit in the concert. Have your student practice if they want to sit near the front!
Intermediate Orchestra
We are sounding great! As a reminder, we will have the final playing check-in once we get done with break. This playing check-in will be focused on The Christmas Train — violins and violas will play measures 15-23, and cellos and basses will play measures 23-33. Be sure to practice at home!
This is what we did this week:
- The Christmas Train — We worked a lot with the 2nds and violas on their music from 15-23, and it’s sounding great! It’s confusing to have the patterns change so much, but you can do it! We also practiced the music from 23-33 quite a bit with all of the parts. Make sure you know those parts!
- Rustic Dance — This is sounding great! Your dynamics were still excellent this week, which was very impressive! We worked quite a bit on measures 21-29, mainly on each section being really confident. Ignore the “pianos” in those measures — everyone needs to play loudly!
- Rain Dribs — We have a little bit of work to do to make sure that we stay together, but overall this is sounding great. We also need to get used to doing pizzicato with a bow in our hands — we won’t have time to put them on the stands!
- Maiden’s Rescue — We just quickly went through this one, but it’s sounding great!
Advanced Orchestra
We had a ton of fun on Monday! However, be ready to rehearse when I see you after break. 🙂
We will have our final playing check-in after break, focusing on the following parts of Beyond the Thunder:
- 1st Violins: measures 62-end
- 2nd Violins and Violas: measures 46-54
- Cellos and Bass: measures 29-37