Hi everyone!
Read your orchestra’s review below to see what we did this week. Please be sure to practice at home!
Our concert is about 2 months away! Students will be required to wear “concert black” for the concert, which is formal black clothing from head to toe. Please no jeans, no tennis shoes, and definitely no white socks! I encourage you to look for appropriate attire now so that you don’t have to rush at the last minute.
Without further ado, here are our reviews:
Beginning Orchestra
We did a bit of a pivot this week — I think that learning Twinkle, Twinkle by ear and without the music was helpful to some, but really difficult for others. We reviewed Twinkle, Twinkle and then we worked on reading music in the books. We started on pages 6 and 7, learning how to read G, F#, E, and D on the staff. Please try to learn where these are on the staff now, because the names of the notes won’t always be there to help you!
We then learned “Rolling Along” (#19 on page 8), which is also known as Mary Had a Little Lamb. Students should work on Twinkle, Twinkle and Rolling Along because we will be playing each one for our concert. I also taught the students how to play Baby Shark, so my apologies to the parents! Here are some sheets of how to play Twinkle, Twinkle and Baby Shark in case anyone needs them to practice at home.
Intermediate Orchestra
We began our second round of playing check-ins this week! We will also be recording them next week if you didn’t get a chance to do it. If you would like, you can also email me a copy of a video if you would rather not have the pressure of recording it during rehearsal. However, if you don’t send me a video in some way, you will need to sit at the back of the section. As a reminder, this month’s playing check in is on Rustic Dance measures 21-29.
Here is what we rehearsed this week:
- Rustic Dance — We only quickly reviewed this, because I wanted to wait until the playing check-ins are done to really dive in on the details. We did do the repeat, however, which we should probably do from here on out to get used to it.
- The Christmas Train — We then worked on The Christmas Train, especially for the violins and violas. As an advanced warning, our final playing check-in will be on The Christmas Train — measures 15-23 for violins and violas and measures 23-33 for cellos and bass.
- Rain Dribs — This one is going really well! We lose it a little from 21-29, but we worked on that together.
- Maiden’s Rescue — MY BAD. I knew I told you we needed to focus on one, but I thought it was The Christmas Train! So we only had time to quickly run through Maiden’s Rescue. We will do it much more next week!
Advanced Orchestra
We began our second round of playing check-ins this week! We will also be recording them next week if you didn’t get a chance to do it. If you would like, you can also email me a copy of a video if you would rather not have the pressure of recording it during rehearsal. However, if you don’t send me a video in some way, you will need to sit at the back of the section. As a reminder, this month’s playing check in is on Velocity. Cellos are doing measures 17-25, 2nd violins and violas are doing measures 37-45, and 1st violins are doing measures 45-53.
Here is what we rehearsed this week:
- Beyond the Thunder — This is sounding really great! We worked a lot on measures 46-end. I really want to unleash the 2nds and violas at measure 54, so don’t be afraid to give it all you’ve got!
- Appalachian Hymn — Honestly, we could probably perform this one tomorrow! We do have a few detail things that we could improve, but I’m really happy with this one.
- Velocity — We worked on the rhythm for violins and violas at 17, worked with the 2nds around measure 25, and worked a lot on measures 37-53. This is sounding so great, we just need to get a few details sorted out.
- Fantasy on Greensleeves — This piece doesn’t have many dynamics, so we need to start adding our own. For now, I want you to get louder as the notes get higher and get softer as the notes get lower — this can be an easy cheater way to make the phrases sound musical. I also want very long and light bows on this piece.
Have a great week!