Musical Experts Visit the Classroom

Today we had four musicians visit our classroom.  The most wonderful part about it was that they were all alumni of our school, CCNS.  They were able to come back to the classroom where they spent their four year old year to share their musical expertise with other students.  

I'm proud to say two of them were my own children. I am the proud mom of the baritone horn player, 

and the saxophone player.  

We also had a percussionist who plays in an orchestra, band and a  jazz ensemble.  He showed us his marimba, several drums and an incredible mallet set.  

Our last expert played the cello, bass guitar and French horn.  During their visit each musician told us a little about their various instruments and answered the questions that the class had come up in expectation of their visit. 

On the list were questions such as what is an amp?

What is a percussionist?

How much does your instrument cost?

What is that thing you pull across the strings?

What is a reed?

They had formed these questions based on some of our reading and in talking about what our experts would be bringing to show us.  

The musicians each played scales so we could hear the sound of each instrument.  Then each of them played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star so we had a familiar frame of reference to compare how different the tones were when each played.  Finally they put their playing together to get an incredible version of this well know piece.  

Then the musicians stayed during our open play time so the children could get up close to each instrument, touch it and try it out by pressing keys, valves, moving a bow across strings or pounding some mallets.  

The children also remembered our conducting lesson from a few weeks ago and asked the musicians to let them conduct as they played.  Our experts were terrific sports with this playing faster or slower based on how my students waved their "batons".

They knew my daughter was in a marching band based on the memory I shared while doing our memory drawing last week, so they asked her to teach them how to march.  She showed them the different foot positions for forward, backwards and sideways marching and they had a little parade.  

Before the musicians had to leave, our researchers did some sketching of the different instruments around the room.  

It was an incredible day of in depth musical instrument research as we sought out answers to our wonderings by consulting an expert, doing field sketches, and playing!!

If you need experts to help you with your next project.  Seek out some alumni members of your program.  They are usually more than happy to help, love to visit their beloved school and are fantastic with the children.  

This blog post is dedicated to these four special CCNS alum who learned early just how important it is to 

PLAY!!!!  Thank you.