Here's link to download a free copy of my arrangement of Bittersweet Symphony - EASY.
I arranged it a couple days ago because I was thinking it would make a fun concert opener for our concert next month. I wanted it to be easy enough for my students to pretty much sightread it because we have plenty of work to do on our other pieces.
My year 2 students learned it in 5 minutes. Sorry in advance to the basses. I am going to have just one bass player play it on electric bass and have others help with other things...maybe play some percussion. If you have no basses, divide have a couple cello players play that part.
Here's my lesson plan from today! It's a super fun and effective way to help students pay attention to their technique and musicality.
Personally, I love to introduce my lessons with a fun video. This is the video I showed at the beginning of class:
In the video, the paintings are supposed to look like the people posing. Unfortunately, the paintings looked nothing like the actual people. In orchestra class, we are supposed to look a certain way when we play (accurate left hand and right hand technique, bowing, etc) and we are supposed to sound a certain way when we play the music. Let's see what we really look like and sound like!
I made a simple slide show and I had a student walk around the room with a chromebook and take pictures to insert into the slide show. It's easy and fast because with a chromebook, you can take pics and insert them directly into Slides by clicking on INSERT: IMAGE: CAMERA. I have a student TA in each of my classes and that is who I had take all the pics. If you don't have a TA you can have students take turns taking pictures...or if you have a student with a broken arm or something...here's a way to include them! The pictures show left hand technique, straight bows, crooked bows, instrument placement...all things students don't always notice when they are playing. At the end of class, I showed the slide show and it was super fun. Student want to do this activity again!
Here's a shortened preview of one of my classes slide shows. This particular TA added arrows to point out specifics and she even took a picture of me with a saggy violin! haha
Throughout the rehearsal, I took video of various passages and we listened back to see if we were sounding how we want and need to sound for a fabulous performance. Students were very motivated to make changes and fix intonation when they heard the problem passages for themselves. We were also able to listen to some well-played passages and celebrate progress.
I posted this video on social media and it went a little viral! We had fun playing a rehearsal game before spring break. As part of the game, I brought out this special guest conductor to see if students could listen to each other and stay together. It was super fun! I keep this guest conductor in my closet and use him every year...maybe he'll appear at a concert sometime!
For April Fools, I'll be having students work to find foolish mistakes in the worksheet. I customized the content of this worksheet for the skills my students are currently working on. At the bottom of the worksheet, students are asked to find wrong notes in the 'Jupiter' melody. My students are learning that melody right now. If your students don't know the melody, play it/model it correctly and see if the students can find and circle notes that are wrong.
For our rehearsal, I'll review foolish mistakes often made in our concert music and we'll work to overcome them.
FREE WORKSHEET HERE. It's not customizable because this one was quite involved to make using a couple of different programs to pull it together.
I've been working hard to ensure my students are ready for the 'next level' of orchestra. These are the main skills I'm tracking for my students. Technically, these skills are always 'in progress' as we refine our abilities each year. But I do expect the highest possible standard for my beginners.
I teach middle school students fresh out of elementary school where there are parties and games and activities for every holiday. Then they get to middle school and many of those fun activities go away. I don't think they are ever too old to have some fun...even while getting important practicing done during rehearsal.
We have plenty to work on as we polish our concert music. We'll work on all of the tricky passages in our music while doing a few fun challenges. I used the AI coding feature on Canva.com to help me create a St. Patricks Day spinner wheel. I described what I wanted in the prompt and after a few adjustments, published my wheel as a website so I can use it during class. I'll have a student volunteer to spin the wheel and can have the student, a section, or the whole class do the challenge...depending on what I am working on.
I'll have a few fun prizes as we go. I have some fake gold coins to hand out. And some of those super tiny ducks students collect these days. Some lucky horse shoe charms. And some little boxes of Lucky Charms so I can share some snacks.
This week I wanted to review rhythm and counting with my students so we played 'Crossy Road Rhythm.' I showed a video of the game and we observed how the player must be pay attention, move with correct timing, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and sometimes wait. I used the music snippet extension in google slides to add rhythms to the slides. I also added a number line to help the students see how the beats are aligned in each measure. Whenever I use a number line, students seem to really 'get' rhythm and have a lot of success performing correctly.
I am presenting 'The Concert Revolution' at the National ASTA conference in San Francisco and I wanted to share links for some of the products I have used in my concerts.
This makes a great sub plan! Students get to practice with a partner. It works just like the real battleship game, except the 'ship's are practice passages. Each time a ship is 'hit,' the student must play the passage one time for their stand partner.
It is editable in google slides so teachers can type in the music passages for students to practice (as shown in blue). The students place numbers in the grid to 'hide' the practice passages.
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