Monday, November 19, 2012

Greetings, scholars!

N.C. Wyeth is an American painter who illustrated Pilgrims, a book by Robert San Souci, that tells the story of the first Thanksgiving. Perhaps you have this book in your home library? If not, you can buy it for a penny!



Listen to more beautiful autumn music here. This composition for piano is by Russian composer, Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky, and is called November - Troika from The Seasons. The colorful painting in the video is called A Troika. A troika is a Russian sleigh pulled by three horses. Such an adventure would be quite exciting! Have you ever been on a sleigh ride?

A Troika by Nikolai Samokish (c. 1930)



 Read a bit more about Mozart as a young boy here and listen to 
Allegri's Misere again here. (I spy with my little eye Gothic architecture: thin walls, sharp spires, stained glass windows, and flying buttresses!) Do you think you would have been able to copy this piece after listening only once, as Mozart did when he was 14? His full name has one more syllable than hippomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (fear of long words)!

 Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
 (nicknamed Wolfie) 

Psssst: Young Wolfie trained his pet starling to sing!


~ Inchworm Lyrics ~
(Practice carefully three times a day!)

2 and 2 are 4.
4 and 4 are 8.
8 and 8 are 16. 
16 and 16 are 32.

Inchworm, inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds;
You and your arithmetic  -
You'll probably go far.

Inchworm, inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds;
Seems to me you'd stop and see 
How beautiful they are!

Composed by Frank Loesser,
from the movie, Hans Christian Anderson


Homework: Draw a Thanksgiving scene and hide an inchworm in it! Bring your artwork to share with your classmates for our next class on December 1. We will be building triad snowmen!




Sunday, November 4, 2012

Greetings, scholars! 

The great Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak, loved his family, homeland, and music; He also loved trains! Remember our train words for quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes? Toot, Toot, Chugga, Chugga, Locomotive, Locomotive! For half notes, we say SLOW and for whole notes, we say LONG!




Path to the Moon (by Eric Thiman) lyrics:
I long to sail a path to the moon
On a deep, blue night when the wind is cool.
A glist'ning path that runs out to sea;
Silver the sails to carry me.
To carry, carry, carry me over the sea.

So will I sail on a starry night,
On a path to the moon, a seabird's flight.
Skimming the waves where the fishes play;
Traveling on for many a day.
Silver the sails to carry me.
To carry, carry, carry me over the sea.



   Antonio Vivaldi


Antonio Vivaldi, nicknamed the Red Priest (There is red hair under that powdered wig!), enjoyed writing sonnets (14-line poems) that would allow him to compose beautiful music with fascinating effects. Here is the sonnet we read and listened to in class last week:

Autumn – Concerto in F Major - from The Four Seasons
Allegro
The peasant celebrates with song and dance the harvest safely
gathered in.
The cup of Bacchus (fermented cider?) flows freely, and many find their relief
in deep slumber.

Adagio molto
The singing and the dancing die away
as cooling breezes fan the pleasant air,
inviting all to sleep
without a care.

Allegro
The hunters emerge at dawn,
ready for the chase,
with horns and dogs and cries.
Their quarry flees while they give chase.
Terrified and wounded, the prey struggles on,
but, harried, dies.

Here is a recording of Vivaldi's Autumn


Autumn Leaves by Sir John Everett Millais

 

Make a drawing of autumn or a moonlight sail and bring it to share with your classmates next Saturday!

 Alas, please remember to bring a spiral-bound sketch pad and spiral-bound staff paper notebook to class every Saturday with colored pencils for drawing and a sharpened black pencil for music notation.

15th century German manuscript on vellum (animal skin) for the musical instructions of nuns and their students 

I'll say good-bye as I wave the Guidonian hand!

Thank you,
Mrs. Dike