New term, new projects - Clara

Last week Gemma posted a blog about the awesome projects she completed with her groups last year, and her plans for the new school year. It was wonderful to hear the students' recordings and I was very impressed with the arrangements and level they've achieved.

So, not to be outdone, I thought I'd blog too!

Most of my groups had a go at songwriting. This is a great way of getting mixed age and ability groups working together. Using chords which beginners can quickly master - C, Am, and F - the children came up with a basic chord progression and added their own individual parts. We worked on the lyrics as a group.

Little Melton beginners wrote a song called I Love Doughnuts - great fun! We performed it to the school in assembly at the end of term.

Hempnall beginners wrote I Go Down a River, which they also performed in assembly. Browick Road Primary wrote Nature Song and the Food Song, which worked so well that I taught it to my other schools, who made up their own verses.

C                      Am
I like burgers covered in sauce
C                                     Am
Sausage and chips of course
​G7
Mmm delicious
​

Little Melton Uke Club performed their songs on the band stand at South Norfolk on Show. Performance opportunities are important because they give us a goal to work towards and a great sense of achievement at the end.

Photo by South Norfolk District Council

 So what are we working on this year?

Little Melton improvers will be working on our own arrangement of Count On Me by Bruno Mars and writing a rap song. Little Melton Beginners, Mulbarton Infants, Browick Road Primary, Hempnall and Woodside Infants will be learning the popular Disney song Someone to Lava and Blast Off. As always we'll be doing lots of work on playing in time together and exploring different sounds and strums.

Also this term we've introduced the Music Monsters for years 1 and 2. Now, although you can't see them, the Music Monsters have very sensitive ears. They love to hear students making beautiful music together and listening nicely, but if it gets too noisy they have to go back in their box, so each student is responsible for keeping their monster happy. This idea I 'borrowed' from one of my one-to-one students Shaun, who is a primary school teacher, so thank you Shaun!

I guess we better do the Monster Mash sometime this year too then!