Captivate Strings Workshop – 2013

On Saturday 4th May, about 40 members of the Captivate String Orchestra gathered at St Andrew’s Catholic Primary School, Marayong. We also had 6 members of our Captivate strings team including 2 new specialist teachers, Miss Grace Vassallo and Miss Andrea Young as well as a new classroom teacher, Mr Brad Carroll. We also had 2 of our support teachers there to help with supervision, unlocking and locking the hall and audiovisual support; Mr Adam Fletcher and Miss Lauren Spencer-Salt, both teachers at St Andrew’s Primary School.

The workshop is to rehearse and prepare for the Captivate Strings Showcase on Thursday 20th June also at St Andrew’s Catholic Primary School, Breakfast Road Marayong. Some of the exciting repertoire performed by the Captivate String Ensemble will be: Winter from the 4 seasons 1st Movement by Vivaldi, Mama Mia, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Vivaldi Double Violin Concerto.

The Captivate Strings Showcase is a performance highlight of the year demonstrating the teaching and learning in the String Things Program across 14 Catholic Primary Schools in the Diocese of Parramatta – Western Sydney. There will also be some chamber music by our Captivate Staff Chamber Orchestra. The Staff Chamber Orchestra is made up of our highly professional specialist and classroom teachers in the String Things Program.

The Captivate String Orchestra is comprised of students from 7 Catholic primary schools and 4 Catholic Secondary Schools in the Diocese of Parramatta. Nearly all of the students in the orchestra have come through our String Things Classroom program across 14 Catholic Primary Schools. This program has been running for just over 3 years now. The Captivate String Orchestra was only established 2 years ago. Most of the students in the Captivate String Orchestra have only been learning an instrument for just on 2 years. This year at the Captivate Strings Showcase, on June 20th 2013, the orchestra will perform the 1st Movement from Winter amongst other repertoire. What a long way we have come in just two years!

Vale Maestro Tommy Tycho

I was very saddened to hear this morning of the passing of Maestro Tommy Tycho. Tommy Tycho was not only a great composer, orchestrator and conductor, he also made a great contribution to Music Education and the encouragement of young musicians in Australia.

Here is an interview I conducted with the Maestro about 3 years ago.

Meet the Captivate Strings Team: Chapter 1, The Life of Brian………Strong. Cellist and Music Educator

This is the 1^st of a series of Blog Posts I will publish each month profiling our very dedicated and talented teachers in the Captivate String Things Program in Catholic Schools, Western Sydney. Each of our 15 Classroom & Specialist teachers has a story to tell and great skills and experience that they bring to our schools.

The first teacher I would like to introduce you to, is our lower strings specialist (Cello & Double Bass) for Catholic Schools in the Blacktown region; Brian Strong. I have known Brian for over 30 years and he in fact taught me at The Scots College (Sydney) back in 1981 and ’82. I believe that Brian’s story is extraordinary and a great inspiration to young musicians. Please take the time to read this story. Brian most certainly didn’t have his music education handed to him on a plate. His love of music shines through and he has great humility in the way he shares his learning with others.I was very humbled when I visited Brian in his home last week to interview him for this profile and he introduced me to his grandson as ‘his boss’. I cannot for a moment think of myself as Brian’s ‘boss’ with his great performance experience and passion for sharing his love of music with so many students. The Bennelong Players played to nearly one million school children in Australia in the 1970s and ‘80s! How many children discovered a love of music through those performances we will never know but Brian’s contribution to music education and original music performance in this country is largely uncounted. I remember very well his mentorship and kindness to me as a young musician, far from home.

Let us start the story at the very beginning of Brian’s first musical experiences:

Phil: So Brian, what was the first musical experience that you can remember?

Brian: Well, my sister was a very good pianist and I remember her performing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto in No. 1 in Bb with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goosens. I thought this was pretty great, so I decided to try and teach myself piano but that did not work out. So then I decided I would like to learn the oboe, but then I thought I’d prefer Cello. Fortunately we had a great cellist in Sydney at the time by the name of John Kennedy, so I would go to see chamber concerts with John playing Brahms etc. John Kennedy was my first teacher at Sydney Conservatorium and then I also studied with Hans George.

Phil: How old were you then?

Brian: I was about 15 or 16 years old. I didn’t start early at all. So then I decided I would play the cello and take lessons, but I was a bit old starting, so I took a job as an apprentice pharmacist for a while to pay for lessons. After about a year, the head pharmacist took me aside and said: “I know where your interests are and it’s not pharmacy, is it?” So I said no, and went off to study full time at the Conservatorium.

Phil: So you became a full time student at the Conservatorium in Sydney?

Brian: Except that I had to get jobs now and then to pay fees and for lessons. I never did the full course at the Con. I played in the orchestra. Everything I wanted to do was in performance, so I played in Chamber groups and the Orchestra. I played for the Operas and Ballets under Eugene Goosens, but I didn’t do any of the theoretical stuff, so later on I had to catch up on the theory. When I studied for my Lmus A (Licentiate Diploma) my sister came back from England and said that I had to get some qualifications, so she taught me theory and I went and did my 6^th grade theory exam because I needed that to get my Licentiate Diploma. Anyway….that’s all a bit by the by and that’s how I got started. But I think I was very lucky because I started to play professionally almost straight away in theatre and with some very good conductors. Sadler’s Wells Company came out from England and I played with some of their very good conductors in shows such as “The Merry Widow” starring June Bronhill. One of the very big exciting shows to come out at the time was ‘West Side Story’. The film hadn’t been released at that time and everyone was trying to get hold of the record. Suddenly a new Bernstein Musical was coming out with great Jazz etc and we had a company come out to Australia to produce the show from America and Dobbs Franks chosen by Bernstein to conduct and direct the music for the show and that was on at the Tivoli for about 3 or 4 months and so I played in the pit for “West Side Story” under Dobbs Franks. Every night was very exciting.

Phil: So at that time, were you working full time as a musician?

Brian: At that time, I was working during the day as a clerk in the public service. I had a friend who used to play the matinees for me and I would play every night…and I would take a bit of ‘sick’ leave when rehearsals were on and then I would ‘recover’ when the show started and play every night in the theatre.

Phil: Yes….the Public Service was a great supporter of the Arts at that time.

Brian: (laughs) So much so that when my son was very little and people asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up replied: “I’m going to be a fireman during the day and I’m going to be a musician at night”. Then one day, one of the players who did lots of sessions had double booked himself and there was a show on at “Checkers” Nightclub. Tony Martin was a famous American singer who had been in lots of films and these performers had great arrangements to accompany them and needed fairly large orchestras and so he hired me. But I said; “Look, I’m playing down at the Tivoli”. He replied: “But it’s only a block away. Look Brian….all you need to do is come and play for the early show which finishes at quarter to eight and you don’t start at the Tivoli until 8 o’clock. You don’t even need to pack up your cello. Just pick it up under your arm and run down the hill to the Tivoli and you’ll be in the orchestra pit to start the show there…..when you come back, the late show here is not until half past 11, so you’ll have time for a cup of coffee before you start to play again here.”

So that worked quite well and then I started to play a lot of the night-club shows for singers such as Tom Jones etc. We were paid quite well because a lot of these shows were televised and we would get a television fee as well as a fee for playing in the theatre.

Phil: About what time was this when you were playing all these clubs and you gave up the public service job to become a full time musician?

Brian: It was about the late 1960’s that I gave up the day job and I was doing really well. And then a TV show on Channel 9 called “Sound of Music” wanted a cellist, so that was a once a week job well paid. I also worked for Tommy Leonetti at Channel 7 – it was a sort of “Tonight Show”. He was also an American singer. The TV stations would always bring in well known Americans to give it a bit of an extra overseas flavour and they would hire in very good orchestras with very good arrangements.

About that time, I wanted to build up my teaching and I started to think: “How do I get known as a teacher to get some pupils?” A lot of school children don’t even know what a cello looks like?”, so I got together a trio initially with violin but later flute, cello and piano. We used to go around to the high schools and arrange and perform concerts. Afterwards I’d go to the side of the hall and sign kids up to learn cello. I’d do a couple of showy bits on the cello to get their interest such as La Cinquantaine composed by Gabriel Marie. Also, the Jazz clarinettist, Benny Goodman did a version known as ‘The Golden Wedding’.

That was all working very well, then one day, we went to do a show in a school and there was an inspector there (Lindsay Aked) and he came up to us after the show: “You know, you should do this in every primary school and also a lot of high schools in NSW and I’ll back you if you want to do that.”

Phil: About when did this occur?

Brian: That was in 1969 we started doing that. I had to promote it myself and contact the principals and talk them into hiring us. We would charge the kids something like 50 cents each. The teachers would collect the money and then hand us big bags of coins.

Phil:  I remember those days and those shows – I would have been in Kindergarten

Brian: Then the Arts Council took over about that stage and we worked for about 3 – 4 years with the Arts Council playing shows around schools. That was better because they would organise the concerts, collect the money and we didn’t even have to drive because there would be a driver-manager to take us around the schools.

Anyway, that (The Arts Council) started to fold  and I went to meet with Donald McDonald who was the head of Musica Viva at that time and said: “If you want to have audiences of the future, you need to introduce them to Chamber Music now.” At that stage, we had started our residency at the Bennelong Restaurant and we replaced the piano with classical guitar. The pianos in the schools were quite bad. Sometimes, the flautist would have to pull the head joint out so far that the flute would fall apart half way through the concert. Guitar worked much better. Out of Musica Viva came a pilot scheme and they hired other ensembles including Jazz groups to go around and do school concerts.

At that stage, we were doing a concert one day at The Scots College in the Junior School and afterwards, the Head of Music, Bill Clark came up to me and said “How would you like to stay in one place for awhile and see if you could give 2 good lessons?”. I said “What do you mean?”. He replied “well you’ve just delivered one good lesson, but if I give you a job here, you’d find out if you can deliver 2 good lessons.”

Annie (Brian’s wife – married in 1958) thought it would be good for me to settle down in one place “You can’t be a troubadour all your life”. At that stage, we did a lot of touring for Musica Viva all around Australia. We used to go to the Northern Territory to do concerts once a year.

Phil: You had made some recordings about that time as well hadn’t you?Brian: Yes. We had made 2 LP’s (Long playing records) for EMI. At that stage (1973) we had also started to play at the Bennelong Restaurant every night. The trio then was flautist, Nick Negerevich and guitarist, Peter Draper. We were there for 12 months. But then they started to pay less money and we wanted more money, so we parted company and we didn’t go back there until 1980 and they said “Come and play for a couple of nights and we’ll take a survey from the customers and see what they’d like”. And so they liked us and we were there every night for the next 10 years – though I didn’t want to play every night, so we’d get a solo guitarist to play Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The trio would play Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Phil: It was about this time that you left The Scots College to take up a position at the Emmanuel School in Randwick wasn’t it?

Brian: Yes. Mr Newman was the Head of Maths at TSC and he got the job as the new Headmaster at The Emmanuel School. He rang me up and said we need a new music teacher. So I said I’d give it a go and I became the Head of Music at The Emmanuel School.

Phil:  About what year was that?

Brian: I was at Scots College until 1989, so from ’89 until ’94, so for 5 years I was Head of Music at The Emmanuel School. After I left the Emmanuel School, I was at Fort Street High and was in charge of the Instrumental Program for another 2 years and then when we moved to Baulkham Hills, I taught strings at The Hills Grammar School and had quite a good string orchestra for quite awhile. I was there for 9 or 10 years.

Then I wasn’t doing anything at all for awhile and enjoying retirement when a ‘young man’ rang me up (Phil Rooke) and said “You used to teach me at The Scots College” and said I have a strings program in Catholic Schools – Western Sydney and he persuaded me to come and teach in the Catholic System…… Actually, first of all, it was St Paul’s Grammar wasn’t it? You got me to teach at St Paul’s at first.

Phil:  That’s right..we had a very sudden opening for a cello teacher at St Paul’s Grammar where I was Director of Ensembles at the time and I said to the Head of Music: “If we’re lucky, Brian might recommend  one of his students” but we were fortunate enough to get you to come along and teach cello and bass.

Interview ends

Brian is currently teaching cello and double bass at St Michael’s Catholic Primary School, South Blacktown and also at St Andrew’s Catholic Primary School, Marayong. He also leads the cello sectionals for our Captivate String Orchestra Workshops and supports our fortnightly Captivate Orchestra Rehearsals. Brian continues to make a great contribution to music in Catholic Schools, Diocese of Parramatta.

Other highlights of Brian’s musical & teaching career:

• From 1951, studied cello at Sydney Conservatorium – first with John Kennedy, then with Hans George.
• Won the Musica Viva prize at Sydney Eisteddfod playing in a piano trio with violinist June Berglass and pianist, Margaret Huthwaite.
• 1956, joined the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and played there for 6 months – after arriving back in Sydney, also did a week’s casual in the Queensland Symphony.
• 1958, married Annie Luks and started playing at the Tivoli Theatre in “The Merry Widow”.
• 1964, played in the Billy Burton Band at Chequers Night Club – also for Channel 7 and Channel 9 shows.
• Performed with artists such as: Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Liza Minelli, Tony Bennet, Dusty Springfield, Jose Feliciano and Jerry Lewis.
• 1970 played in the orchestra for the first Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Capitol Theatre.
• 1980, received a grant from the Australia Council and with the help of the British Council, toured the UK studying group teaching methods and educational concerts for children in places such as Bristol, Chester, Manchester and Devon.
• 1984, joined the staff of The Scots College (Sydney) as full time classroom music teacher, having taught cello and double bass there for the previous 10 years. Also conducted the College String Orchestra.
• In 15 years, the Bennelong Players performed to nearly 1,000,000 school children.
• Also, during the ’80s, Brian made frequent appearances on the Midday Show with the Bennelong Players. Ray Martin once referred to the Bennelong Players as “his favourite “Classical Gastronaughts”.

Engaging Parents as Learning Partners

One of the biggest challenges that I believe we face as educators is to make teaching and learning in the school environment relevant and connected to the home environment and indeed students’ social environment. As music educators, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. In my earlier blog post “5 Tips to Motivate Your Music Students”, I made the suggestion to have a conversation with your students and get to know their musical tastes.

In this post, I would like to explore the connectedness of the home and social environments and find ways that we can involve parents in the teaching & learning. In the past, one of the few connections between teacher and parent was the report sent home at half-year and end of year. So often, the teacher sees this as a necessary chore and dare I say it; parents have often viewed it as either a definitive document encapsulating the whole of their child’s teaching and learning or at the other extreme, an irrelevant document containing mystical figures and education double speak.

However, this blog post is not intended as a critique of assessment and reporting procedures.  I will leave that conversation to my colleagues that are more knowledgeable and better equipped than I to explore that field. What I will do is offer some insights of first hand experience and also strategies that have connected teaching & learning in music and performing arts to the home and social environments.

Before I offer some point-form tips and comments, let us ask the question; why do we need to connect teaching and learning to the home and social environments? A quick Google search on “Teaching & Learning, connecting with parents” immediately brought up some great resources and sites. The NSW Department of Education and Training website has a support document as a downloadable PDF: “Positively Engaging Parents”.  This document offers some insightful rationale and strategies to connecting parents with Teaching & Learning:

“Research on improving educational outcomes supports the cooperation of those who have the greatest influence on them, namely parents and teachers. There is unequivocal evidence that parental involvement makes a significant difference to educational achievement. When schools and parents are able to work together in constructive and meaningful ways, much can be achieved.”

So often, I have been in conversation with parents about their child’s music learning and the parents have revealed their own experiences of music education when they were at school. Sadly, many of their own stories were not positive ones. These parents had musical interests and ambitions but too often they were not recognised or encouraged. I believe that many schools and school systems 20 years ago had the aim in performing arts of identifying the “talented ones” and just offering courses and lessons for only those students. I do not necessarily apportion blame or criticism on any individual or school. I believe it was a reflection of how we viewed “Talent” in society – that you either: “Had it, or you didn’t”. I would hope that all of our schools and teachers have moved on from this elitist view of fostering musical performance and achievement in our schools and that we (parents and teachers) all have a more inclusive philosophy of Music Education with shared values and outcomes. In an earlier Blog Post, I explored the definition of success: “Defining Success in a Motivational Music Education Program”.

In the recent celebration of Catholic Schooling in Catholic Schools Week, the slogan for Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Parramatta was: “Every Child Counts”. This is very much in alignment with what the String Things classroom program is about; that every child in year 3 or 4 or 5 in each of the 14 Catholic Primary Schools that has implemented the String Things Program, is offered the opportunity to learn a stringed instrument in a supportive and motivational classroom environment and then offered pathways to extended learning in co-curricular lessons and performance in school and combined ensembles.

We have often discovered students with great aptitude and motivation through this program that otherwise would never have realised their capacity for music making. Perhaps I might relate some of these wonderful and ongoing learning stories in another blog. In all of those cases, the amazing aptitude and capacity for music making was also a wonderful discovery and celebration for the parents as well which then opened the doorway for other learning conversations and collaboration with those parents across other learning areas; if their son/daughter has this newly found capacity for music making, then perhaps there are other learning areas to develop or augment. There is a new optimism and bright future for learning in these households.

So, what do we hope to achieve by connecting parents with the Teaching & Learning in our music and performing arts programs:

• Increased intrinsic motivation in students through understanding and recognition of achievement by parents.
• Improved academic and artistic achievement for each child. (Within our previously mentioned definition of success and emphasis that “Every Child Counts”)
• Increased support for programs by parents and a sense of connectedness and community.

Strategies to achieve these aims:

• Invite parents to lunchtime and after school concerts. This might sound like a lot of extra work for teachers and school leadership but I can name one Catholic Primary School where we have only had an orchestra for just on a year now. The students are highly motivated and stay back to rehearse for an hour one afternoon a week. At the end of the rehearsal, parents come to pick children up and I always make a point to have some chairs at the back of the room and we present a short performance of what we have worked on. It doesn’t matter if it is not fully prepared. We present a ‘work in progress’. The parents feel a sense of pride and ownership in the learning and it is also an opportunity to let parents know what needs to be practised at home. Informal lunchtime concerts can also be presented to the rest of the school community. Some parents might have flexible work timetables or be working from home and would love to come to a lunchtime concert.
• Community social events: I visit a lot of schools each week – usually about 8 primary and secondary schools but one school I feel very involved with and connected with is St Joseph’s Primary School in Kingswood. A couple of times a year the school has a bush-dance, usually held on a Friday night. I always like to go and play fiddle. Other teachers and parents are involved by playing guitar or calling and teaching the dances. The P & F provide a BBQ sausage sizzle. The point is not to make money – often the school leadership will even subsidize the event. It is a great time where we enjoy each others company outside of the classroom. I usually have some great conversations with parents and this alone is worthwhile to get feedback on how the music program is working for their child and how we might improve – much better feedback than you would get from a school parent survey. I look to the day when we will involve students in playing in the band as well.
• Use of technology to extend music learning into the home. As I type this, I am uploading detailed instructional video for each of the instrumental parts for our current Captivate String Orchestra repertoire. The links to the videos will be emailed to string orchestra parents along with download links for each of the parts – eg Winter 1^st Movt violin 1, Winter 1^st Movt violin 2 etc. Plus download links for the high quality MP3 backing and listening tracks. This way, parents are able to download and listen to the arrangement played by a string orchestra and view a tutorial video of how the part supposed to be played and practised. In addition, to improve online access, each part is printed with a QR code so that the instructional video for each part & instrument can be easily viewed on a smartphone or iPad. Parents are able to participate directly in the learning and they understand the process of effective practice techniques.

I hope this post has been useful to show how parents can be engaged in the learning process, especially in music learning. It is not too big a leap to transfer some of these ideas and strategies to work across other learning areas and also to building learning communities that includes parents and caregivers.

Music Making is an Adventure best shared.

Thought I would share the Introduction with you from the “String Things Level 2″ This is the teaching method used in the classroom and small groups across 14 Catholic Primary Schools in the Diocese of Parramatta, Western Sydney. Authored by Phil Rooke:

“Learning music should be an adventure; a discovery of history and culture, as well as learning new and exciting skills and feeling a great sense of achievement. Learning to play a musical instrument is also about learning self-discipline and enjoying music-making together in ensembles; whether it is with a friend as a duet, with some friends on guitar, piano & drums playing Jazz or Folk music or with a whole string orchestra at your school, it is an exciting adventure that is always best when it is a shared experience.” Excerpt from the Introduction of “The String Things Method Level 2″

More on Active Listening – Unpacking Winter 1st Movt in the Classroom

This is a follow up post to the previous post on Modeling the Learning – Winter 1st Movt.

Those of you reading this post that know little about the Captivate Strings Program across 12 Catholic Primary Schools in Western Sydney might not realise the connections that we make from a concert such as the end of year Strings Concert at St Finbar’s Catholic Church, to the learning in our ensembles. But we even make connections from the performances in the concert (both staff & student performances) to make links to musical concepts and skills in the classroom. Better yet, is the motivational effect of showing this video to a year 3 class. It gives them a ‘can do’ attitude to see their teachers and their peers in other schools performing and realising that they too can achieve this level of performance. (Click here to read my previous post on Captivate Strings – Reflecting on Our Beginnings & Where to From Here?)

When I showed this video of our Captivate Staff Chamber Orchestra to year 3 music classes in one of our schools on the following Wednesday, there were some amazing responses from the students. Let me add here that there is nothing quite so exciting as a live performance. To really get that spark of excitement, there needs to be communication and instantaneous feedback between performers and audience, but that is the topic of an upcoming blog post.

What was really exciting was the attention and focus that each class demonstrated and the amazing questions. These were year 3 classes that had no prior learning in playing a stringed instrument and the only previous experience they had of orchestral performance of any kind was what I showed them on Youtube. I have given the Class Teachers CD’s to play in class each day.

Here are some samples of the kinds of questions and a summary of the best answers I could muster on the spot – my answers are not important. What is important here is the hunger for understanding from students with very little prior learning or understanding in music. These students are now demonstrating much higher levels of Active Listening (Click Here to read my previous post: Activate Your Listening) than when the program first began in this school – it would be interesting to see what evidence we have of Active Listening translating to other learning areas  – both in the classroom and at home.

Year 3 Girl: “Why did you perform this piece of music in a Church?” Me: “2 reasons – 1st being that this particular church has great acoustics – without microphones on the instruments, the music really reflects all around and sounds great. Note the stone walls and stone floor and you can’t see the beautiful timber paneling but that also reflects the sound” I also likened the acoustics to “singing in the shower” and asked the students who sang in the shower? and Why they sang in the shower. The 2nd reason I gave for us performing in a church opened a door to mention a bit about Vivaldi and that he was in fact a Catholic Priest but taught music and composed music for the Church. In fact many composers and musicians worked for the Church and much music was Composed for the church. I was also able to mention a bit about the Cathedrals and the marvelous acoustics and massive size – so there was a bit of European history and Church history as well. Everyone listened with great intent and we were able to unpack so much from such a simple question as “Why did you perform in a Church?”.

Year 3 Boy: “How many times did the Staff Orchestra Practise before performing?” This question was such a gift. This boy was seeking to understand how musicians – students or teachers – attained a high level of performance. I answered this question by using the analogy of team sports as this school has a strong sporting background. I asked them who played soccer and many hands shot up – both boys and girls. I asked them what they would do if they had a big match coming up. The answers came back as I expected – 1. practise ball skills at home or in the park. 2. a couple of training sessions per week 3. The BIG match. Some of the children in the class have taken up the co-curricular lessons with our specialist teacher and have their own instrument, so this was an opportunity to make the comparison between practising ball skills individually for the big match and practising each day on their instrument to improve skill level. The class was amazed when I told them that our Staff Chamber Orchestra had only run through the piece once together before the concert (myself included) but this was possible because of the individual practice that they did in the weeks leading up to the concert ? and that they are all professional musicians and often required to just look at music and play it – but even sight-reading music is a skill that comes with much practice.

Now – all of the questions asked by these students were just great and lead us into deeper learning and understanding BUT here is the golden one – and I make this point that teachers (myself included) need to always be on the alert to their own “active listening”. This boy asked the question in a very small and timid voice: “Is this music similar to other music?” Well….. I very nearly dismissed this as a silly question (And that is what I mean by always making certain that we are listening actively to our students) when the girl next to him translated for me “I think he means, is this piece by Vivaldi similar to other pieces by Vivaldi?” WOW!! So this boy was actually asking me about musical similarities by the same composer. This boy just didn’t have the language to say what he meant but thankfully, his friend sitting next to him had more understanding of his meaning than I did.

This wonderful question gave me the opportunity to first of all pick up my violin and play our simple version of “Eine Kleine Nachtmusic” (This piece is in String Things Level 1 and the class had already learned the open strings version) They shook their heads and said “No, we don’t know that one”. So I said: “Well, we’ve listened to music enough today. Let’s play”. So I worked them through their first couple of pieces and then launched them into their own version of Eine Kleine – The lightbulb came on!!! They immediately recognized it. So I asked them who composed it. They could not remember BUT when I asked if it was by Vivaldi, I got a definite NO – then scrolled down so they could see the title and we revised a bit about Mozart and Classical Music.

Lastly – we had actually been learning the melody part for the Theme from Autumn in the String Things Book 1 that we use as our classroom method

We were also able to basically play on open strings the main rhythmic motif of the 1st movement of Winter – I then  played them the opening bars of octaves from Summer and then we played as a class ensemble our simple arrangement of Autumn – All this in a class of 30 year 3 students with little previous musical learning.

This week, the door is open for a wonderful lesson of comparing “Contrast & Unity” by the one composer and comparing with other composers – all the material is in the String Things Level 1 Books  but more experienced classes – even into secondary, could have such a musicological discovery lesson in the String Things Level 2 books as well.

“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys of learning” Plato

Modeling the Learning – Winter 1st Movement

On the 25th , November 2012 – last Sunday – we concluded the year for the Captivate String Orchestra with a very exciting concert at St Finbar’s Catholic Church in Glenbrook. (Lower Blue Mountains) This concert was a great celebration of what we have achieved this year with the Captivate String Orchestra and also with some of our solo performers. We enjoyed listening again to “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the St Anthony Chorale by the Captivate String Orchestra but also enjoyed again the Haydn Violin Concerto in G Major, 1st Movement (Click here to listen to my own orchestration and recording) performed by Daniel of Delany College and also the wonderful Vivaldi Guitar Concerto in D Major, 2nd Movt by one of our students from Patrician Brothers College. (Click here to listen to my own arrangement and recording)

But more than just a celebration of what we have achieved since the establishment of the Captivate String Orchestra in May, 2011 – just 18 months ago, this concert was also about looking forward to new repertoire for 2013; raising the bar yet again and modelling the learning for our students in the 12 Catholic Primary Schools with the Strings Things Program (Click here for a short summary of the Strings Things Program in Catholic Schools) and also students in the Captivate String Orchestra.

I have said this many times before, but I am confident that our team of classroom and specialist teachers are among the best in Sydney and I say this with qualified confidence from seeing them at work with our students first hand and seeing the evidence of intrinsic motivation and deep musical understanding – students who want to learn – not just saying to them: “Here is what you must practise at least 7 times a week”.

How do we best model what the students need to understand and practise at home? Better yet, how do we ensure that they have deep understanding as well as practical skills? The answer is to show them what the end performance might look like and then make the music and the modeling of that performance easily accessible to them. To this end, we formed the Captivate Staff Chamber Orchestra and they performed the 1st Movement from Winter – the 4 Seasons at the Concert to the students and parents. I should point out that this is my own arrangement of the 1st Movement of Winter – I have dropped it down from the original F minor to E minor and also slightly altered some of the inner parts, rhythmic difficulties and also some of the passages in the Violin Principale Part.

Here is the performance by the Captivate Staff Chamber Orchestra – I might add that because these teachers are busy out in the schools all week teaching, they have the parts to practise at home and the video score that I produce to score read and check at home BUT we only had the luxury of ONE run through just before the concert.

Additionally, I also edited the score of this arrangement and put it into the format of a video with the recording of our staff orchestra performing it. This will enable students from the Captivate String Orchestra to score read and hear the performance again and again. They can practise their parts with the recording over and over again plus also score read and see how their own part fits in with the overall musical structure.

In my previous post on eLearning to Enable Music Practice & Performance, I outlined how we were using online instructional video and also video scores to improve motivation to practise (ensuring that the instruction is concise, clear and accessible) and also to improve musical understanding as well as performance skills. After some of my colleagues read this post, some interesting conversations followed. I hadn’t realised what a can of worms I had opened up with this topic. The assumption was that I wished to replace face to face instruction with this type of online instruction.

My intentions are quite the opposite. Educators outside of our system of schools in the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta – Western Sydney, may be completely unaware that we are most definitely breaking new ground in opening up opportunities in music learning for our students. Even some of our leadership teams, teachers and school communities within the Diocese may be unaware of the potential opportunities for their students/children and communities. I won’t launch into the full history of the program here again – click here to read more about the String Things Program in detail.

Whereas I was the only teacher teaching this program in 2 of our Blacktown area schools in 2009, we now have about 5 – 6 teachers in the classroom teaching the program in an inclusive structure and then about 10 specialist strings teachers teaching in small groups across 12 Catholic Primary Schools in Western Sydney and ensembles/orchestras established in most of those schools as well as our combined schools Captivate String Orchestra. We do this with our own published String Things Teaching Method.

The quality of Face to Face teaching is not in doubt, but we want to move onwards and upwards in motivating students to extend thier learning and understanding beyond the classroom – indeed, beyond the school orchestra or cocurricular group lesson. The performance by our Staff Chamber Orchestra of the 1st Movement of Winter and also the video score of the arrangement, is not just to demonstrate that we have outstanding teachers and performers teaching the program to our students, but that students in the Captivate String Orchestra can also work through the Summer School Holidays towards greater musical understanding of this work by Vivaldi and to use the new Level 2 String Things books and media to improve their skill level. Next year after the 2013 Captivate Strings Showcase, I expect to be posting an outstanding performance of Winter, 1st Movement by the Captivate String Orchestra.

Kids – Keep practising and striving towards your best performance Have a happy, safe and musical holiday, Mr Rooke

Captivate Orchestra Workshop – Term 4, 2012

On Saturday October 27th, 2012 about 40 students and some of our leading teachers from the Captivate Strings Program gathered for an exciting workshop to prepare for our upcoming concert at St Finbar’s Catholic Church on November 25th with the Captivate String Orchestra and also some solo performances by some of our students with the Captivate Staff Chamber Orchestra – Violin Concerto in G Major, 1st Movement by Joseph Haydn and also the Guitar Concerto in D Major, 2nd Movt by Antonio Vivaldi.
Here is just a bit of the exciting preparation by our Captivate String Orchestra and teachers

Motivating Practice using Innovative Media – It’s in the Book

At our recent Captivate Orchestra Workshop – Saturday 27th October, I showed the students and parents this video that I edited up just before the workshop – the point is to show that our recently authored/published String Things Level 2 books contain innovative media to support and motivate student learning beyond the music lesson with a DVD of instructional videos and a quality CD with full orchestral backing tracks. But even when students have had the books for sometime, they seemed to be unaware of the treasures contained within – At the back of the book!!!

eLearning to Enable Music Practice & Performance

A challenge that we face with the Strings program in Catholic Schools in Western Sydney is coordinating 10 specialist teachers and 5 – 6 classroom teachers across 10 Catholic Primary Schools (and soon growing to 12 primary schools and a few secondary schools) Our combined Captivate String Orchestra has approximately 50 members – about 25 mainly primary students that rehearse in one of our Penrith Schools for the Penrith/Mountains area and another 25 primary & secondary students that rehearse in one of our Blacktown area schools for the Blacktown/Parramatta/Hills district schools.

This is a good challenge to have, as it demonstrates a flourishing program and enthusiastic teaching & learning. In our recent 2012 Captivate Strings Showcase, we featured 2 solo performers accompanied by our highly professional 10 member Staff Chamber Orchestra. Our first performer was a year 8 Classical Guitarist from Blacktown playing the 2nd Movement of the Vivaldi Guitar Concerto in D Major – quite a feat for a year 8 student. First of all, I had to do the arrangement, as I was not able to find a published arrangement. Then I had to edit a score and in my studio, perform all the parts on Guitar, Harpsichord, Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.

Once I have the full score and a quality recording, then I produce a video of the score and email the parts to the staff orchestra as well as a link to the video so they can score read the piece and also practice their part with the recording. The student gets a copy of his/her solo part plus a CD of the full orchestra and recording as well as a backing track with REAL instruments as it will sound in the performance. The same process applied to a year 10 student from one of our Parramatta Area Schools who performed the 1st movement of the Violin Concerto in G Major by Joseph Haydn. These students were able to perform a movement of a solo concerto with the backing of a chamber orchestra and our staff are spread across a wide geographic area with no possibility for regular rehearsals leading up to the event. The first and final rehearsal for both performances was on the afternoon of the concert and both performances were very confident and competent by both staff and students.

This is an example of how online resources can be used to enable a high level of music performance across a system of schools. The same concept can be applied to a range of musical genres, such as Rock or Jazz – or to better enable an ensemble to practice their parts where participants are spread across a wide geographic area and even possibly other performing art forms such as Dance or Drama.

Here is the video score for the Haydn G Major Violin Concerto, 1st movt – arranged, performed and produced by me in my own production studio but for the purpose of enabling a performance with staff and students across a system of schools.

 

The video score and recording for the Guitar Concerto in D Major, 2nd Movt by Antonio Vivaldi – also arranged and produced by me in my own studio but sounding pretty much the same as this version in the live performance.

The Strings Things Level 2 books for violin, viola, cello and double bass (The Teacher’s Handbook contains the complete teaching program and conductors scores) are now available in our schools. These books each come with an Audio CD with full orchestral backing tracks with REAL instruments such as those above in the video scores along with a DVD with instructional video. These videos will be available to our students online through our Learning Exchange website for extended learning and extension at home at weekends and during school holidays.

The Expressive Study showing both the left hand position and bow technique – from the Strings Things Violin Level 2 book – exclusive to the Captivate Performing Arts program – Catholic Education, Diocese of Parramatta

I hope this has been an interesting post for music educators – indeed, all educators – to utilize online media to motivate and extend learning beyond the classroom.