Teacher Plans

February 13th - 17th

Review

It's been a great session so far.

We're at the half-way point with fifteen songs in various stages of construction. Many of them only need minor additional parts and they will be as ready as they are going to be.

The atmosphere in the group has been excellent. The students are marching through the required work at each of the stations and are almost all in excellent shape in terms of meeting all the required project goals by the end of next week at all the stations.

The students are increasingly comfortable and gaining experience as they cycle in to the Recording Studio Station: the quality of the lyrics, the instrumental and vocal performances, the team preparation are all improving in leaps and bounds. In the after-school groups, we have been successful each day in adding one, or even two, new pieces of music to the list.

There have been lots of magical moments from the vocalists: Jayne's brilliant and lovely performance creating 'Someone told me', her own poignant and powerful song, Mia's stunning vocal performance on 'It's OK', the wild exuberance of Ben and Jack on 'Push me around', Ryleigh's magical performance on 'Mean People', the crazy, manic screeching of Kevin, Mikey P, and Derek on the 'End of the world - part 3', the excellent unison singing of Emma, Emily and Francesca on 'The Dentist', the banshee wailing of Ben, Jack and Nathan on the almost-lost-but-partially-recovered-and rebuilt Zombie Song, the rock and roll energy of Isabella and Miranda on 'Rock and Roll Song', the almost B52's feel of Mia's performance on 'Fish on a Dish' and the moment when Jayne successfully found a vocal harmony on that same song.

In addition to the amazing vocal moments have been the amazing instrumental performances by the students. The aim on this project is for me to play as little as possible on the group songs. Thanks to the sterling efforts of Harrison and Maddie on guitar, Jack and Katrina on Keyboards, Dan (brilliant bass playing performances), Mikey P, Michael O and others on the bass guitar, Isabella, Francesca and others on the Korg R3, the students can justifiably claim primary ownership of almost all the project:

They have created all the lyrics, almost all of the melodies, many of the chord sequences, many of the instrumental performances and all of the vocal performances.

A special mention needs to be made for Harrison and Jack. Their talents and skills have been called on repeatedly throughout the project so far, and they have not disappointed.

When you listen to our work at the end of next week – I'm aiming to publish the work as mp3s to the website by next Saturday afternoon - pay special attention to the songs that were created and recorded without any of my involvement.

When you listen to the lyrics and hear the lovely melodies – none of that comes from me. When you hear these songs, some of them as light as a feather; songs about Duct Tape and Fish; many of them deeply serious and sombre – songs about loneliness, sadness and the end of the world - remember that I had no involvement whatsoever in the lyric-writing for these songs.

You are getting a window into the secret world inside the eleven-year old mind.

Enjoy and laugh along with with what you will discover there – but also be prepared for some chilling and frightening moments as well as some 'goosebump' moments that will move your heart to tears!

Probably the oddest moment of the session so far for us has to be Thursday morning. Emma had just finished re-recording her violin part in the Ghostly swag song, when the door opened to the classroom and in walked the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts along with the Mayor, The Superintendent, The Principal, the Director of Elementary Education, half the School Committee and a camera crew and announcer from Channel 5!

Of course, I firstly played them all the part that Emma had just recorded. Talk about embarrassed – poor Emma looked like she was going to melt! As for the rest of us, I next threw Harrison under the bus at the writing station, where he had to spontaneously explain what was happening at the station to the Lieutenant Governor. Jack then explained the Colonies station work and got into a minor spat with the Lieutenant Governor, about where America began (Jack was right, by the way!). Isabella explained beautifully the work at the Science station. Finally, Maddie explained all about the Shelter project noting that the fact of the structure she was holding being one inch too big, 'didn't matter' (she was right, too). After our minor brush with celebrity and the media, we dusted ourselves off at recess and got straight back to work.

It's been a memorable and so far charmed session.

I'm loving the whole thing, and the majority of the students are too.

As for you: you only have one week to wait until you can sample the work for yourself!

This week

This week is the final week of the Recording Studio project.

We will continue to write, compose, play and record original music to be published on this site over the vacation.

The nature of the project involves a 'multi-station' approach to the week – it's a little like being back in Kindergarten! The students are organized into groups of five or six students. Each group will spend roughly forty-five minutes at each 'station', then move on to the next one.

Each station should be visited three times during the week by each group – roughly two hours at each collection of tasks, subject of course to the vagaries of reality: timetables, weather and schools!

Station 1: Recording studio - work with me to record a musical piece.

Station 2: Writing station

Station 3: Design Station

Station 4: Light and Sound Station

Station 5: Colonies Station

Light and Sound Links

I will be inviting interested students to stay after school to work on these projects until 4:00pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Parents need not send in notes, etc, however, each student needs to have prearranged with their parents whether they're staying after school, or not.

I cannot make last minute phone calls, etc. The students should be picked up at the usual spot. I will be out there no later than 4:05pm, I promise!

If your child attends the Brooks After-School program, you will need to provide a note to Ms. Ciavatti if you want them to work with me during this project. Such students will be deposited at the After-school program at 4:00pm.

The timetable for each day roughly looks like this:

8:45 – 9:45 – Math class.

10:00 – 10:45 – First 'cycle'

10:45 – 11:15 – Recess

11:15 – 12:00 – Second 'cycle' (Tuesday- Friday)

12:00 – 12:30 – Lunch

12:30 – 1:15 – Third 'cycle' (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday)

1:15 – 2:00 – Fourth 'cycle' (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday)

2:00 - 2:30 – Meet, Decompress, Clean-up

2:30 – 3:00 – Break

3:00 – 4:00 – Let's Rock!

But this is an idealistic and approximate plan only.

The nature of the project requires a certain flexibility from students – by the end of the project, teams will have all spent roughly the same amount of time at each station – but it may take the whole two weeks before that becomes true!