Scratch recording students on the cheap without a lot of fuss.

Wildcat's Roar




Necessity is the mother of invention and in preparation for our annual round of standardized tests, I wanted to record my students as they chanted a rap that I wrote for them last year. 

Last year because of time I had no choice but to circulate a recording of me rapping..... no one wants to hear me rap..... so I knew that it was not a permanent solution.

I don't know about ya'll but sometimes my to do list doesn't fit in the hours I've been given, so it was REALLY close to testing time and I was faced with a choice.... suffer through another year of listening to myself rap on the announcements

for 3 weeks OR record my students....... Since I didn't suddenly wake up with a recording studio in my classroom I had to get creative. 

Here is what I did. 

1. I used one of my classroom macbooks. 

2. I opened up a track that included the instrumental loops that I h

ad used when I recorded the vocals originally.
3. I connected and then "

daisy-chained" 2 headphone splitters so that as many as 12 students could listen to the accompaniment at once and be free to record vocals,
4. I asked groups of volunteer 3rd,4th and 5th graders to come to the music room and take turns laying down tracks. 
5. Each time I would record a new vocal track, I would mute it so that the next group could match their voices to the original.
6. Then using Garage Band, I balanced the voices and mixed the tracks down to one.....

Not perfect, but sooooo much better than what I had before.

 

Transition notebook - Leaving a classroom and school in good shape!

Hey everyone! 

Here is how the end of the school year feels to me!!!! 

We are all facing the end of year rush and this year because I am changing schools I get to not only inherit someone else's work when I go to my new school, but I also get to leave behind a music program for someone else to step into. 

The last time I left a school, I also left a teaching partner with whom I had essentially shared a brain, so I didn't have to remember where the mallets were, or which key went to which cabinet because my former co-teacher already knew all of the things a new teacher would need to know. 

In the situation I am currently leaving,  even though I'm not teaching music alone, as the all day teacher who doesn't have to juggle multiple campuses I have become the keeper of information...... 

So I am starting a "need to know" book that I will leave behind for the teacher who follows me. 

The purpose of this book is purely informational.  I want to include the information that I keep in my brain about what I do that the principal, my teaching partner or the school secretary might not remember.  I want to aide the new teacher in their transition so that as they claim their new classroom and make it their own, they can do so with enough knowledge of what went on before to make their job easier. 

Additionally, this notebook will keep me on task as I create it and will help me ensure that I don't leave anything in a mess, undone, or un-findable. 
 1. Have a remembered to go into the costume closet and organize it nicely while removing personal items and returning borrowed ones?
 2. Have I "summarized" the piano lab in such a way so that someone else won't spend hours untangling a mess of cords? 

Here are some of the things that I will include in my notebook. 

 

I'm hoping that some of you who have moved recently will be so kind as to leave a comment with a suggestion.  When I get a book together that I like I'll pretty it up and create a free downloadable for everyone to have.

Instruction

1. District curriculum CD - Hard copy is in the classroom library
2. List of performances that each grade level has participated in (including songs)
3. Rhythm systems(ta titi, da da....) that students are accustomed to.....
4. Melodic systems (fixed or movable do, or numbers)
5. grade levels who have used recorder - method book
6. A brief explanation of what my students covered and where I think there might be holes.

Management - STUFF

1. This may be on a CD with important documents
2. Equipment - (where are my manuals?) This list may be important if things are moved over the summer
3. costumes, uniforms, and choir shirts - how many?  .jpeg in case there needs to be more ordered.
4. vendor list  
5. Money - what we have, how to use it, how to make it grow
6. What has been ordered for the fall

Resources -

1. Textbook series with resources - most important if these things are moved
2. Magazine subscriptions (Music Express, Music K-8, Activate ) - with the volume
3. Donorschoose.org list of projects

Tips and tricks -

1. Is there a special way to open that cabinet?
2. Is there something hidden somewhere else on campus like a CD burner in the library?
3. pictures of possible room set up - My room is the place where ALL of the furniture in our pod ends up when they wax the floors in July, so providing a furniture list with pictures might be handy. 
4. Setting up the DVD player so it will play on the activeboard......
5. What items need attention - I can put a work order in for everything before I go, but it would be great for the new teacher to know what should have been fixed so that if it hasn't been addressed, he or she can address it in the fall.

Who to call

1. If you need to know who the volunteers are
2. If you need a parent to go on a field trip
3. If you need an accompanist
4. If you need another music teacher

Special projects

1. Upcoming grant initiatives
2. Campus events - planning (i.e. Carnival)
3. After School program

Here is the sad part.... I haven't created ANY of this yet..... but NOW I have an outline and I have a notebook with pockets so I can at least start making a pile of things to go into my "need to know" notebook. 

Please leave a comment if you think of something I should add to my notebook!  :)

Super Sized Post-it Notes! Orff Instruments and a 4th grade "informance" that is finally taking shape.

I like to learn new things.  I am primarily a singer and as a result, I am generally more comfortable with performances that deal with singing.  Using instruments for performance is something I've been working up to..... Although my Orff training is limited to the classes I took in college (which I only sort of paid attention to) and a workshop here and there AND although I don't claim to have any kind of deep understanding of the work, what I HAVE learned of the Orff approach is fitting in nicely with the way that I already practice my teaching as part of my study with the Richards Institute of Language and Research....Many of my ETM friends from around the country are also great Orff educators, so I'm sure they will let me know if I misunderstand, but as far as I can tell, these philosophies dovetail in their belief that a formal label is only as valid as the experience it represents. Basically, LOTS of experience first, then when labeling is necessary it becomes a simpler matter because the quality of the experience is rich. 

This year as I was developing the idea of our 4th grade "informance" I wanted to use as many folk songs as I could that are a part of the ETM song experience game collection.... But I wanted to stretch my students as well as myself by trying to take the song experience games that we already know and love and adding accompaniment. 

So when I went to TMEA I was on the hunt for good Orff resources.  I wanted resources that would help me find success without a lot of fuss despite my lack of formal Orff training.

Here are some of the resources that I found that I have really enjoyed.   This is probably my favorite... because for me, as someone who doesn't quite think "Orff" ..... it provided a systematic support as we moved through each slide AND because the instructions are on each slide I didn't have to refer back to the teaching manual..... it's all right there. 

Interactive Folksongs by Christi Cary Miller

 

Orff Source Collection This link takes you to the Music in Motion Website.  Volume 2 and Volume 3 are easily available from several sources.... Volume 1 is harder to find online.

While at TMEA I purchased Volume 1 and Volume 2 and am now using arrangements from both volumes to accompany ETM songs.....

Which leads me to my primary source for the majority of the songs I use in my classroom and in this "informance". 

Often, when students know several of the ETM songs, we will put them all together as a set of partner songs.  It takes time to play the children into this experience, but it is always worth the time and effort.  One of my classes took the partner songs that they have sung and added their own instrumentation made up of yet another partner song......

Register for a Colloquium or Winter Course TODAY!

I have purposefully not included a link directly to a purchase page for this book because the book by itself is not nearly as useful as the classes themselves.  After all, if your only experience with a football game was the coaches playbook, you might not ever be inspired to watch an actual game..... If you are looking for a place of inspiration, information and insight, then a time of study with ETM is exactly what will meet your needs.  The link above will send you to all of the current course offerings.  If you decide to attend, please let me know!!!! 


Organizing it all! 

Because I was putting songs together from so many different sources, I copied the pages I needed, slipped them into page protectors, made notes about which classes had what responsibilities and then used my BIG post-it notes to remind myself of who was playing what.  The post-it notes are my working memory for the informance.....We are presenting our work on Thursday.....I'll be sure and let you know how it goes