Dr. Seuss Door Decorations

This year my school is doing a whole Dr. Seuss week, complete with door decorations inspired by different Dr. Seuss books.  My book was The Foot Book, and what better way to decorate the door of the band/orchestra room than by adding feet to instruments?  I colored and cut out photocopies of feet from the book and added them to laminated pictures of instruments that I already had from an earlier bulletin board, and voila!  I think I like the feet on the trumpet and bass the best :)

Composer Trivia Bulletin Board

One thing that I like about our method book, "Orchestra Expressions," Book 1, is that it highlights several composers including Bach, Beethoven, Bizet, Copland, Strauss, Jr. and more.  The featured composers each have a portion of a page with their portrait, a short bio, a listening map for a specific composition, and a timeline.  The CD that comes with the book also has a recording of that specific composition for each composer; students are encouraged to listen to that CD track while doing various warmups.

Anyway, I took five of the composers and came up with a bit of trivia for each.  I put the fun fact on the front of a folded sheet of paper and the corresponding composer's name on the inside.  This way, it's an interactive bulletin board--students can flip up the flap to see if they guessed the correct composer!

Here are the pdfs of the text and pictures.  I laminated each bit before taping it onto the colored paper so they would last longer.  I've also included some pdfs of the same trivia written as a word balloon coming out of the mouth of each composer. Enjoy!

• Composer portraits (pdf)
• Composer trivia (pdf) 
• Trivia with word balloons (pdf)
• Great job! plus trivia word balloons (pdf)

William Tell Overture Arrangement

For this year's district-wide String Fest, I arranged Rossini's "William Tell Overture" for beginning orchestra.  There are two versions for the very beginners--one is a mostly open string harmony part with a few first finger Es and Bs, and the second is more melodic part that sticks mostly to D string notes.  The arrangement for second year players is very balanced--everyone gets the melody at some point!  Instead of writing repeat signs for repeated material, I wrote it out so violins get the melody the first time and violas/cellos/basses get the melody the second time.  This is written in G Major (so some low 2s) with no slurs (but a few tricky double down-bows in the intermediate arrangement that take some practice).

Orchestra members really enjoyed learning a "real" piece that they had heard before and seen YouTube recordings of professional orchestras playing.  While some students were initially put off by its length (two pages instead of one for the intermediate version), they quickly realized there's a lot of repetition and felt a sense of accomplishment as the orchestra learned each section.


Sheet music (all PDFs):

• Beginning orchestra score and parts
• Intermediate orchestra score and parts

Audio (WAV files) to preview or for students to play along with to practice:

• Intermediate arrangement audio file

Intermediate melody (first 8 measures only), which I used when introducing the piece:

• PDF sheet music of melody
• Word document of melody

Selected YouTube links:

• Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
• Animated graphical score

Again, I like to use clip art instead of labeling parts "beginning" and "intermediate" or by grade level, so you'll see matching images within the beginning and intermediate parts and scores.

Beautiful Bow Hold Bulletin Board

I had been wanting to create a bulletin board showcasing the bow holds of famous string players--and of my students--for a couple of years now and I finally made it happen this year.  You'll see some pictures both before and after I added the student pictures.  Students can check out some model bow holds and start to become familiar with the names of a few well known string players as well as feel recognized for their work on their own bow hold!

• Google doc of pictures, captions, and credits
• PDF of pictures, captions, and credits

Musicians included:

VIOLIN

• Regina Carter
• Yehudi Menuhin
• Midori
• Julian Rhee
• Chauntee Ross
• Lindsey Stirling

VIOLA

• Yuri Bashmet

CELLO

• Yo-Yo Ma
• Steven Sharp Nelson
• Monique Ross

BASS

• Edgar Meyer (French bow)
• Esperanza Spalding (German bow)

Thankful for Composers Bulletin Board

Right before Thanksgiving, one of my schools has a Thankful for Writing Day.  It used to be Thankful for Books Day, but with this change of focus this year, I wanted to create a connection to music with the hallway bulletin board.  Hence, a bulletin board dedicated to writers of music!

I made two quick posters: "We are thankful for writers of music :)" and "Thank you composers!" and pulled out posters I had already made of manuscripts from different composers (see this earlier blog post).  I added printouts of my students' latest compositions so they would be represented (and thanked) too!  And thanks to our general music teacher for adding compositions that her students had written as well!

Flashcards on Quizlet

After making paper copies of flashcards and seeing so many sheets in orchestra folders still not cut apart (thus, clearly unused), I went the digital route this year.  On Quizlet, you can take existing flashcards and modify them for your purposes.  Since I only have a free account (which means I cannot upload images), I used existing images of notes but organized them by instrument and string to get all the different sets that I wanted.  I was unable to find an existing image for the viola's high E (4 on A) when I was creating these, so that image is missing.  Oh well.

I do like that students do not need to be a member of Quizlet in order to access the content.  There are also several options for studying and learning the material on the website including a timed matching game.

Here is the short explanation I share with students followed by the links to Quizlet (right-click on the link and open in new tab to keep this page open):


These links will take you to Quizlet, which should work on both computers and iPads. I recommend using the "Flashcards" option and the "Matching" game. Some of the other activities/games do not work so well (such as "Gravity") because you have to type up the entire answer formatted exactly as I did, with both the letter name and the fingering. Sticking to the "Flashcards" and "Matching" options will give you plenty of practice identifying the different note names and finger numbers!

Be sure to click on the link for YOUR instrument!

OPEN STRINGS

• Violin
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass

D STRING NOTES

• Violin
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass

A STRING NOTES

• Violin
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass

D and A STRING NOTES

• Violin
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass

G STRING NOTES

• Violin
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass

G, D, and A STRING NOTES

• Violin
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass

E STRING NOTES

• Violin
• Bass

C STRING NOTES

• Viola
• Cello

NOTES ON ALL 4 STRINGS!

• Violin
• Viola
• Cello
• Bass

Hope this will save you some time!  Feel free to make a copy for yourself and modify as you like!

Celebrate Music with these Great Americans! Bulletin Board

With February being Black History Month, I wanted to create a bulletin board highlighting musicians and came up with the title "Celebrate music with these great Americans!"  It was hard to narrow the selection of who to include, so I think I will switch out some names halfway through the month (they won't all fit on my bulletin board at one time...).

I printed out the "condensed" file, trimmed and laminated each half sheet, and then attached them to a folded piece of colored paper.  If you'd rather save some steps, just print out the "double sided" file, fold each page in half, and you're ready to staple them to the bulletin board!

For each musician, I included their name and picture on the front and then their name/nickname, dates, instrument, profession, genre, and one famous title when you lift up the flap.

Here are the 24 musicians included (feel free to add your own):

• Louis Armstrong
• Chuck Berry
• James Brown 
• Regina Carter
• Nat King Cole
• John Coltrane
• Duke Ellington
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Aretha Franklin
• Dizzy Gillespie
• Jimi Hendrix
• Billie Holiday
• Scott Joplin
• B.B. King
• Wynton Marsalis
• Bobby McFerrin
• Jelly Roll Morton
• Thelonious Monk
• Charlie Parker
• Florence Beatrice Price
• Bessie Smith
• William Grant Still 
• Sarah Vaughan
• Fats Waller

Celebrate music with these great Americans--heading

• Google doc

Names, pictures, and trivia (condensed)

• Word document
• PDF

Names, pictures, and trivia (print double sided)

• Word document
• PDF

Enjoy!

String Fest Reflection Letters

Our annual district-wide String Fest field trip and concert is done for another year!  Instead of having students write up a reflection sheet to share their thoughts about their experience, this year elementary orchestra students wrote letters to the middle and high school orchestra students.  They answered essentially the same questions I would have asked them anyway, but this way they were able to communicate with students they performed alongside last week.  We took a large chunk of time during full orchestra to write letters, and I graded them based on how many questions were responded to in the letter.  Next, I sent them to our middle and high school teachers to distribute to their students.  Students really got into this writing assignment because they knew they were writing to real people--some even addressed their letter to an older sibling or neighbor in orchestra :)

Elementary students were super excited when they came to full orchestra a later week and found handwritten letters to each of them on their stands!  The high school orchestra members had taken a letter, written a response, and then stapled the two together so it was easy to return to the correct elementary musician.  The response letters were so positive and encouraging; it was so nice to read through them!  What a great way to make connections between the different grade levels and schools in our orchestra community! 

Update: I've added a second letter template with sentence starters to make it easier for those students who need the support.  I print the letters double-sided, and students can choose which side they write theirs on.  I've also started marking in the top right corner the student's school and grade level because each middle/high school receives letters from two elementary schools.  This way it is easier to sort and send the letters back to the correct elementary school :)

• Letter templates plus directions (Google Doc)