This Week in Music Class – November 4

This week we’re wrapping up our piano skills, and getting ready to start the guitars!! Students will be playing the song “Skip to my Lou” with the melody in the right hand and the chords in the left hand… both together at the same time!! Exciting!!

We’re listening this week to Peter Maxwell Davies Symphony #1. Peter Maxwell Davies is a composer from the UK who was born in 1934.

CLICK HERE for more information about the Symphony that we’re listening to this week.

This week’s Middle School Word of the Week is “Perspective.”

per·spec·tive
pərˈspektiv/
noun
noun: perspective
  1. 1.
    the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point.
  2. 2.
    a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.

A great example of perspective would be the first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.”

See the full article here…. In May 1913, Igor Stravinsky debuted his ballet The Rite of Spring. Though it is one of Stravinsky’s most famous works, his creation was first met with harsh criticism, negative reviews, and yes – a riot.

So, from the composer’s perspective, he thought he was writing a ballet that was ground breaking, original and wonderful… While the audience was so horrified and insulted by what they saw that they quite literally started a riot in the opera house!!