Let It Go-o-rama!!!

Our informances were FANTASTIC last week! So I thought I'd reward the kids with a game day. However, I wanted to sneak a little bit of teaching in, too. As I've mentioned before, I like to find videos of innovative and quality musicianship and show them to the kids to let them see what can be done with the foundation I lay here in music class. With the "Let it Go" craze going on everywhere, a friend of mine (thank you, Sara Lightbody) sent me a video of a very creative mash-up by The Piano Guys of Disney's "Let it Go" and Vivaldi's "Winter." Brilliante! I get to show the kids music they love but also introduce them to Antonio Vivaldi, Baroque "pop" music, and the importance of knowing how to write and read music (how else would we be able to hear a song written 300 years ago?)!

We began with watching the Sing along version of Disney's "Let it Go." We briefly discuss how this song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song this year. Then I mention that the story on which the movie is loosely based is Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, written in 1844. I told them that people have been fascinated with writing stories and songs about winter for a very long time and that, before Hans Christian Anderson was even born, a man named Antonio Vivaldi wrote a set of four violin concertos called The Four Seasons, one of which was, of course, "Winter." We discuss how it was his most famous work and that, even though he wrote it in 1723, before there were recording devices of any kind, we can still hear it performed today because he learned how to write music down and we know how to read it. We also talk about how his composition was sort of like the "pop music" of its day because there were no movies to go to or CD's to buy so people went to concerts for entertainment and this was the "current" music they listened to. Then we watch Julia Fischer's performance of "Winter, movement #1" at the National Botanical Gardens of Wales. I asked them to give me a thumbs up if they hear anything familiar. It was very interesting to see some classes had the majority of students recognizing it immediately while others only a handful knew the song. We talked about how some knew the music from video games, others from commercials, and one student said it was in one of his sister's Barbie movies.

Finally, I ask them if they remember the Piano Guys video I showed them earlier in the year. I tell them that these guys came up with a brilliant idea: combine the winter themes from Disney and Vivaldi, the popular music of 1724 and of 2014, in an instrumental mash-up of the two songs! I asked them if they remembered last year's ice castle at the Mall of America--many did--and explained that they chose to record their performance in a similar setting. As we watched the video, students were told to hold up their fingers in a sign-language "V" if they heard Vivaldi or  a "D" if they hear Disney's "Let it Go."

What a great way to make classical music relevant to kids! Thanks, Piano Guys!!

Once we were done watching these Videos, I showed them my website where I had not only posted these videos but also a bunch of covers or mash-ups people have done of "Let it Go" and let them choose if they wanted to spend the rest of the class watching how other's got creative with the song or if they wanted to play games. Most classes chose to watch the various videos. One fifth grade boy told me this was his favorite class ever!!

A Winter "Mash-up"

For those of you who are Crazy about Disney's Frozen and remember the Piano Guys, check this out. They took part of Vivaldi's Winter and mashed it with Let it Go from Disney's Frozen. See if you can hear when they go between each song.

• Let it Go from Disney's Frozen Sing Along
  http://safeshare.tv/w/RFBAdAiWPy
• The Original Vivaldi Winter played by prodigy Julia Fischer
  http://safeshare.tv/w/lmNCHquQyj
• The Piano Guys Frozen--a Mash-up
• http://safeshare.tv/w/PKxacvRymC

More spin-offs from Frozen

• Thanks to Peter S for telling me about this video from Late Night with Jimmy Falon, special guest Idina Menzelhttp://safeshare.tv/w/EHZCmpZQcu 
• Impressionist Brian Hull sings "Let it Go" while doing impressions of Disney/Pixar charactershttp://safeshare.tv/w/nBoPDOrYtm
• Let It Go - Frozen - 11 year old prodigy, Lexi Walker, sings an Africanized Tribal cover by Alex Boyé featuring One Voice Children's Choirhttp://safeshare.tv/w/tNLMYMJkke
• Another Mash-up from Sam Tsui: "Let it Go" (Frozen)/"Let Her Go" (Passenger)http://safeshare.tv/w/XfYPHQWtbG
• And yet another mash up. Katy Perry's "Unconditional" and "Let it Go" covered by Demi Lovato
  http://safeshare.tv/w/vMygPrTUBC 
• A Weatherman makes his own parody of "Let it go" from a traffic man's perspective
  http://youtu.be/jWw0WEtZJRQ

Note: All of these videos were found on YouTube then converted into SafeShareTV videos so that students wouldn't follow links to inappropriate videos. It is a free service and I love it!!

Informances are underway

We've spent the whole month prepping for informances. It's been at times stressful and at times a walk in the park. I've had a bit of anxiety about this year's informances being in March. Due to the rotating schedule, I've seen the kids almost half as much as I normally do at this time AND they are performing in March rather than May. Rather than getting eight days of practice this month (two practices a week), they've only had five. Will they be ready? Did I plan too much? They've completely forgotten some of the things we worked on a month ago. I've had some anxiety but it's also been freeing for me knowing that this rotation is only a pilot and so is doing informances earlier in the year. If they work out, great! If not, I won't try early informances again. I will say I was hoping that not competing with MCA's for their brain attention would mean that we wouldn't get the focus disintegration we usually have the closer we get to informances but I think that will just be a perennial part of informances no matter when they are. I am trying to cram so much into their memories or remind them of all the things they know and its a lot for them. Stress is an inherent part of performing. Plus, we are getting closer to spring break and struggling with the polar vortex, indoor recess, thawing spring-like weather, and returns of snow. Of course they are going a little stir crazy.

But, all that work, time, energy, patience, practice etc. has come to the culminating moment. Today we had our first three performances and they went FABULOUSLY! In fact, with each one, we had extra time left over! Unheard of! I think its because we didn't try to put on a mini-play and because our transitions were so smooth. I'm looking forward to the rest of the informances this week. Three down, twelve to go!

Stressful informance prep no matter the time of year

Wow! What a day. Three more practices for each class before our informances. I have always done these informal, informative performances in May which, as MCA testing has evolved, means we are prepping for a performance at the same time kids are taking high-stakes tests. Our schedules get messy, people are stressed, listening skills go out the window as does memory. On top of that, MAPs got added to the Spring.

So, this year I thought, why not circumvent that high stress situation by putting informances the week before the week before spring break? (No, that wasn't a typo, I do mean the penultimate week before break.) I thought it was a great idea and, yes, we are prepping informances with less frequency than usual (only seeing kids once a week now) which leads to less practice days (5 rather than 8--I always start prepping a month in advance knowing that it is a lot to ask kids to remember what we performed more than a month ago) but it has to be better that doing this on top of testing, right? It must be less stressful, right?

Apparently not.

This is what I've decided: Informances are stressful for me and kids no matter what. We want our presentations to be performance ready so we work really hard to make sure they are. This causes stress. We want to showcase our favorite and best material so we stuff the 50 minutes with as much as possible.  Students worry that they won't remember it all. This causes stress. We are either speeding through reviews and kids are being left behind or repeating something to make it really good which loses other kids who are ready to move on. This causes behavior issues. Stress coming out sideways. And at the end of it all, I wonder how much re-teaching I will be doing on the performance day despite all our hard work because, a) someone was gone the days we worked on this, b) they've crammed so much into their brains they forgot some of it, c) its been so long since we practiced some things they just don't remember it, d) they freeze once parents get into the room.

Maybe I need to take some stuff off the list.