Thursday, September 29, 2011

Band Week 3: Still going strong!

Happy RB Homecoming! I'm sure many of you will have older children participating this weekend. Be sure to cheer extra loud for the RB Marching Rockets! They are doing a FANTASTIC job this year and have made huge strides in the last few years!
This week was another good one for the beginning bandlings! Note reading is going very well and we are progressing nicely. I use a program in my lessons called SMART MUSIC and the students have really enjoyed using it! My simplest explanation of what it's like is imagine Guitar Hero for band! Like the CD's, this program has background music that we play along with. It makes a recording each time we use it and I can save it as an mp3 file. I can then even email it to you! We'll be using more and doing recordings that I'll email more in the coming weeks. I have a teacher's subscription to the service (it's a web-based program), but there are students subscriptions you could purchase if you feel like your child would really like using it. Click HERE for more information.

There are still a handful or more of students who need to purchase a book. The book is called "Measures of Success" and your child would need Book 1 for whatever instrument they are playing. If you call Quinlan & Fabish (847-253-5592) they can deliver it to the school next week when my rep comes for her weekly visit. Let me know if you have any questions.

One more thing! Since we've all started note reading this week, I've customized some games to help the kids practice. These games actually go over the first 5 notes. This is two more notes than most of the students have learned, but the extra two are going to be learned at next weeks lesson anyways, so it will give the students a little jumpstart.

Click HERE for Flutes and Percussion
Click HERE for Clarinets and Trumpets
Click HERE for Trombones and Baritones

There's also a really cool website with other games called The Music Interactive. All of these games, however must be downloaded onto your computer. There are some that cost money, but other really cool games that are free! I really like Staff Wars and Krank and Lucy. There are others, though, that let the kids make recordings and loop and do some electronic composing. So cool!!!

That's all from me. Have a great week and as always, please let me know if you need anything!

Mrs. Storer
678-6726

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