100 Notes for the 100th Day of School

 

I teach at two elementary schools, and the 100th day of school is a pretty big deal, especially for the younger grades.  I'm always looking for ways to embed orchestra into the school culture, so I've made a tradition of playing 100 notes on my violin for the 100th day of school.  Depending on how much time I can spare that day, I'll pop into as many classrooms as I can to ask if students would like to hear 100 notes on my violin and then play what I've prepared.  I look for a piece with fast notes so it doesn't take long and then count 100 notes and write in a mark to stop there :)

Then, since COVID, I started recording a short video and sharing that with teachers.  That has worked our really well, as I can't be at both schools at the same time, and my schedule doesn't always allow me to visit all the classrooms in the school that I am at that day.  This way, teachers can share my video at a time that works best for them plus more students can get introduced to me and hear some violin music.

Some pieces I've played excerpts from in the past:

• Pachelbel Canon in D (the fast bit in the middle)
• Bach--E Major Preludio, G minor Presto, G Major Cello Suite Prelude
• Bohm Moto Perpetuo
• Rimsky-Korsakov Flight of the Bumblebee

My script is basically:

"Happy 100th day of school!  My name is ___ and I teach orchestra at (name of schools).  To help celebrate, I thought I would play 100 notes on my violin for you.  This is (name of piece) by (composer)

[play piece]

And that was 100 notes!  Have a wonderful day!"

The whole thing takes less than a minute.  There's one teacher at my school who likes to have her stopwatch going while I play to tell her students how long it took me to play those 100 notes--they're pretty impressed!  There are always students who I see in the hallway later who tell me they really enjoyed my 100 notes too :)