Music Week 2

This week music classes began their lessons. 3rd grade began their recorder lessons. They learned how to hold recorders and how to blow into them. Students are encouraged to buy their own but it is not necessary. 4th grade began piano lessons. Students learned the proper posture and hand position. 5th grade began learning ukulele/guitar. They learned how to hold the uke and learned the instrument parts. Students were encouraged to bring in a guitar if they had one. Once again, it is not necessary but you may if you choose to. All classes learned what to touch and what not to touch on their respective instruments. They learned how important it is to take care of the things we have because replacing instruments can be very expesive.

K-1 learned about beat. We learned that beat is the pulse of the music. Beat is something that you feel not necessarily hear. We said that there are instruments that you can play the beat on such as drums but ultimately you have to be able to feel the steady pulse. We also said that beat and rhythm are two different things. They are related but they are separate things. We listened and moved to a song called Ev'ry Body Says and we listened to different sounds and talked about whether those sounds had a beat or not. I added that if you "feel" like you could clap to the sound then it had a beat.

2nd grade learned about beat as well. We used the song Zudio. We listened to a version on the music CDs but I taught the street game version. We also listened and moved to a song called Blueberry Pie. Students had to find and clap along to the steady beat.