Composition Competition

Last fall I learned about a composition competition for the Washington Recorder Society. I thought this would be a good opportunity to work on an original composition for recorder ensemble. Knowing that the deadline would be Feb. 1, 2013, I knew I had time to come up with something.

I have slowly been working on two pieces for four recorders. One is a revamped piece I wrote for string orchestra called Minor Fantasy, and one is completely new which I named From the Sea. My working title for the latter was Dorian since I wrote this minimalist piece in the dorian mode. I knew that wasn't a great title, so today I hunted around on the internet for a little bit and found in two places that Dorian can mean "from the sea" or "gift from the sea".

These pieces are supposed to be 4-6 minutes long for an upper intermediate group. I am not sure what level that is, and I have no illusions of winning any prize, but at least I now have two original compositions that I did not have last fall. Thank goodness for deadlines!

Extending Lessons

I don't get to see my general music students very much. I get each 4th-6th grade class once every two weeks for 45 minutes (which ends up being closer to 35-40 minutes). I used to think that I should cover as much territory as possible, so I came up with a different thing to cover each lesson. I have come to realize that it is far better to learn one concept very well, attacking it from various different directions each time.

Now we are working on meter. Last session we sang Frere Jacques to various meters 2/4, 6/8, 3/4, 4/4 and then 5/4. This session we will be playing a bordun for the song in the various meters, starting with body percussion. Then we'll be moving on to lessons from Randy and Jeff's Gameplan Grade 5 which address 5/4 and mixed meter.

Throw in singing some Beatles songs (many of my students are unfamiliar with this iconic group), and I think we'll have some good times in music class for the next few months.

Playing Music

I love the fact that we don't call what we do as "work music" but rather, "play music." I know that actually making music takes a great deal of discipline and practice, but the goals are to actually play.  Over winter break one of my self-assigned tasks was to watch a few TED talks that I had heard about. Normally I find out about these talks but don't have 30 minutes at that time to watch, and then I forget about them. This time I wrote them down and the first one on my list was a talk about play by Stuart Brown. You can watch the video here. (I had a hard time with streaming from the TED site, so I hit the download button at the bottom of the video and watched it that way.)

I would love to work on ways in which to get my students to play more in music class. Of course, I have basic skills I need to teach them in order for them to have some kind of music vocabulary with which to play, and since I only see them once a week or so, this is tricky. Now I need to find a TED talk about incorporating play into the classroom. Anyone?