We just celebrated our Spring Recital 2022!
This was our 2nd virtual recital that we’ve done. All the students that participated have spent the last couple months working on their songs and pieces. Then they recorded themselves performing at home and I compiled all the videos into one using iMovie on my phone! I was also able to add the students’ names and titles of their pieces into the video.
Nine out of fourteen of my students participated in the recital. Three of them were teenagers, 2 were adults, and then rest were elementary aged children. There was 1 flute student, 1 voice student, and the rest were piano. Several performed 2 or 3 pieces, and 1 student did a voice song and a piano piece. Most of the students who participated were from Virginia, but I also had a student participate from North Carolina!
All in all it was a terrific recital and the students all had a great performance!
On the heels of this great performance, I thought it would be fun to practice a little composing with some of the students. Composing is when you write your own music. It sounds complicated and sometimes it can be, but it can also be as simple as just a few notes or letters!
A couple of my more intermediate students are working on composing a whole piece for their instrument. While most are just working on some smaller, beginner composing exercises. Both types of projects are resources from Vibrant Music Teaching by Nicola Cantan, which I have discussed in pervious blog posts and has great resources for teachers and students.
The smaller exercises are arranged into a mini book and each exercise is given a theme or topic to compose about. Like the ones below that are just a few measures and the students are either given a rhythm and they add letters, or sometimes they get to create the rhythm too. This is an easy way to get started in creating your own music. I’m looking forward to seeing what my students create and I’ll share more in the next blog post!
Miss Donna 4 Music 