Watts New

Byrd Elementary School is proud to sponsor another school wide talent show! The show will be held on Friday, May 25th. The talent show will begin at 1:00 PM, and will be held in the BES cafeteria.

Auditions for the talent show will be held during music class on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, April 18th, 19th, and 20th, and also April 25th, 26th, and 27th.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that we have more talent than time to show it, some acts may need to be eliminated. Please know that this elimination process will be handled in the most sensitive way possible.

All acts should be appropriate for school, and should be no longer than 2 minutes in length. If your child is interested in participating, please fill out this form and return it to school to the attention of Ms. Watts. Students will be responsible to bring their own instruments, music, etc. for the audition (Piano, CD player, gymnastic mats, and music stand will be provided)

Thank you for sharing your children, and their talents with us here at BES! We are looking forward to a great show!

JOIN US FOR GOOCHLAND ELEMENTARY LANDSCAPING DAY!!

Friday, April 20th 3pm – 7pm
Saturday, April 21st 8am-7pm come when you can!
http://ges-sc-pta.blogspot.com/

To celebrate EARTH DAY, the PTA is accepting donations of your favorite plant, shrub or tree.
OUR GES STUDENTS LOVE HELPING AND GETTING DIRTY AT THESE EVENTS!

The talent show will be held on Thursday, April 26th, and will begin at 6:30 PM, in the school cafeteria. I would like all talent show participants to meet in the music room at 6:10 pm, before the show begins.

We are planning to have one after school practice on Monday, April 23rd. The practice will be held in the school cafeteria from 3:00 – 4:30 pm. This will give the students a chance to practice on the stage and understand the layout of the program!

Goochland Elementary School is proud to sponsor another school wide talent show! The show will be held on Thursday, April 26th. The talent show will begin at 6:30 PM, and will be held in the GES cafeteria.

Auditions for the talent show will be held during music class on Monday, March 19th, and also on Tuesday, March 20th. (If your child has music on Wednesday, they will be auditioned on Tuesday March 20th. These students will be auditioned first so they can return to their regularly scheduled encore class.)

Make up auditions will be held the week of March 26th. Make up auditions will be held at a specified time at the discretion of Ms. Watts. Unfortunately, due to the fact that we have more talent than time to show it, some acts may need to be eliminated. Please know that this elimination process will be handled in the most sensitive way possible.

All acts should be appropriate for school, and should be no longer than 2 minutes in length. Students will be responsible to bring their own instruments, music, etc. for the audition (Piano, CD player, gymnastic mats, and music stand swill be provided)

Thank you for sharing your children, and their talents with us here at GES! We are looking forward to a great show!

At this time the Nominating Committee is accepting nominations for the 2012-2013 PTA Board. Nominations for President, Vice President (2), Secretary, and Treasurer will be accepted until April 23rd. Please send your nominations to one of the members of the Nominating Committee below:

Shannon Edwards-shannon.edwards@unos.org
Elizabeth Dowdy-efdteach@verizon.net
Shannon Allen-shanmallen@gmail.com
Tina McCay-tmccay@glnd.k12.va.us

“The Leprechauns are Marching”

The Leprechauns are marching,

They’re marching down the hall,

They’re marching on the ceiling,

They’re marching on the wall.

They’re marching two by two,

And now it’s four by four,

You say you still can’t see them?

Move back! Here come some more!
The leprechauns are marching,

I think it’s three by three.

Just close your eyes and try now

To visualize with me.

Their merry little feet

Will never miss a beat.

They’re very tricky fellows.

Look out! They’re under the sheet!

“St. Patrick’s Day”

St. Patrick came from Ireland

A country trimmed with green

It has the shamrocks and the pipes

Those leprechauns you’ve seen

Those leprechauns will trip you

You’ll fall flat on your face

They’ll tickle your nose and sour the milk

Then find a hiding place!

February is a wonderful month to celebrate many African American musicians who have contributed so much to our music culture. Here are just a few of the artists we will be celebrating this month in music class:

Aretha Franklin
ARETHA FRANKLIN, if you really don’t know, is the Queen of Soul. Under the auspices of Jerry Wexler, she sang fierce, frantic hits like “I Never Loved a Man,” “Respect,” “Natural Woman,” and “Chain of Fools.” In 1968, she made the cover of Time. In 1980, she did a cameo performance in The Blues Brothers. Her 1985 album, Who’s Zoomin’ Who, racked up her biggest sales yet. A 1989 gospel album, inspired by her father’s coma and death (he was shot by a burglar) in 1984, earned another Grammy for her crowded shelf. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
Tina Turner
American rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer, whose career has spanned four decades of hit songs. Influenced by gospel music, Turner is known for her passionate and emotional style of singing. In 1985 Turner’s song What’s Love Got to Do With It” won two Grammy Awards, helping make her a superstar at the age of 46. She followed in 1989 when she won a Grammy Award for her album Tina Live in Europe (1988). Her 1985 biography, I, Tina, was released as a motion picture, What’s Love Got to Do With It, in 1993. In 1991 Tina and Ike Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
B.B.King
Throughout the 1990’s as well as the 1980’s, 1970’s, 1960’s and 1950’s, there has been only one King of the Blues – Riley B. King, affectionately known as B.B. King. Since B.B. started recording in the late 1940’s, he has released over 5O albums — many of them considered blues classics, like 1965’s definitive live blues album “Live At The Regal,” and 1976’s collaboration with Bobby “Blue” Bland, “Together for The First Time.”
Sam Cooke
* Songwriter and performer Sam Cooke merged gospel music and secular themes and provided the early foundation of soul music. Cooke’s pure, clear vocals were widely imitated, and his suave, sophisticated image set the style of soul crooners for the next decades.

Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye was born Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. on April 2, 1939 in Washington DC. The son of an apostolic minister, he grew up learning “the essential joy of music,” as he called it, by playing the organ and singing in his father’s church. Sixteen years later, Marvin joined his first band, the DC based group, Rainbows which included Billy Stewart and Don Covay. From 1964 to 1967, he became known as the master of make believe with songs like, “Ain’t no mountain high enough”,”Your Precious Love,” “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You,” and “You’re All I Need To Get By.”
Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole, American pianist and singer, one of the most advanced jazz pianists of the 1940s and a leading popular singer of the 1950s and 1960s. Born Nathaniel Adams Coles in Montgomery, Alabama, he grew up in Chicago.” In 1946 Cole’s recording of singer Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song” became a hit, and in 1948 Cole achieved even greater success with “Nature Boy,” which sold more than a million copies soon after its release. His other hits include “Route 66” (1946), “Unforgettable” (1950), and “Mona Lisa” (1950), which won an Academy Award in 1950 as the theme song for the movie Captain Carey, U.S.A.
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday remains (four decades after her death) the most famous of all jazz singers. “Lady Day” (as she was named by Lester Young) had a small voice and did not scat but her innovative behind-the-beat phrasing made her quite influential. The emotional intensity that she put into the words she sang (particularly in later years) was very memorable and sometimes almost scary; she often really did live the words she sang.
Ray Charles
RAY CHARLES taught himself piano at age three. When he lost his sight at the age of seven, he entered the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he learned classical piano and how to compose scores in Braille. This sound would become known as “soul” due to the emotional intensity invested into each lyric. He played in concerts and on TV around the world, and in the seventies he created his own label (Crossover). By the eighties, with over seventy top singles, he was a living legend: everyone from the Beatles to Billy Joel (who named his daughter Alexa Ray in honor of Charles) had claimed him as an influence. He has won both the Kennedy Center and National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Lifetime Achievement Awards. Charles’ classic “I’ve Got a Woman” is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; so is he.
Harry Belafonte
An actor, humanitarian and the acknowledged “King of Calypso,” Harry Belafonte ranked among the most seminal performers of the postwar era. One of the most successful African-American pop stars in history, Belafonte’s staggering talent, good looks and masterful assimilation of folk, jazz and worldbeat rhythms allowed him to achieve a level of mainstream eminence and crossover popularity virtually unparalleled in the days before the advent of the civil rights movement — a cultural uprising which he himself helped spearhead.
Louis Armstrong
Most historians agree; when it comes to influential musicians in this century, one name stands above the rest. Not Gershwin or Porter, Lennon or Presley. It is, indeed, Louis Armstrong who blasted the music of the world out of a tired tradition of classic orchestra and mundane Tin Pan Alley pop into the exciting era of hot jazz and swing. Not single-handedly, admittedly; but Armstrong set standards of originality and spontaneity that are yet to be surpassed.
Duke Ellington
Ironically, Ellington’s own name covers an even greater spectrum of sounds: his approximately 1,500 compositions encompass all moods from the revelry of a “Saturday Night Function” to reverence “Come Sunday” and the blues when it’s “Monday Every Day.” They fit into all forms from three minute pop songs to hour-long symphonies, ballets and musical comedies. They embrace all tonal colors from the highs and lows of black and white Americans to exotic sounds from Africa and the Far East. It’s no coincidence that two of Ellington’s most important albums of the ’60s were collaborations that found the maestro fitting in equally well with major musicians who had each incorporated some of Ellington’s principles to a great degree in their own music. They were John Coltrane and Frank Sinatra, who would normally never even get into a sentence together, yet had in common their Ellington influence and experience.
Ella Fitzgerald
From Harlem to Hamburg, Fitzgerald thrilled her audiences with a crystal clear voice, gliding effortlessly from low notes to high, from be-bop to ballads.Born in Virginia and raised in New York, Fitzgerald began her professional career at the age of 16. She intended to dance at amateur night at the Harlem Opera House, but she lost her nerve when she got on stage. Over the years, Fitzgerald won dozens of awards. She dominated the early Grammy ceremonies, winning best female vocal performance three years in a row. In all, she won 13 Grammy awards — more than any other jazz musician. But she maintained always an aura of graciousness — she was at a loss for words when the Society of Singers named an award after her.
“I don’t want to say the wrong thing, which I always do,” she said. “I think I do better when I sing.”

All County Chorus will be held on Thursday, March 8th, in the Goochland High School auditorium. The program will begin at 7:00 PM. All County Chorus is an evening of musical performances by Randolph, Byrd and Goochland Elementary School chorus groups.
All County Chorus offers the students a chance to watch other Elementary Schools as they perform on stage, as well as give each Chorus a chance to perform for their peers. It is a wonderful evening of inspiration and fun.
Come out and join us for a wonderful musical evening…and you may want to bring along your dancing shoes! See you there!

Kindergarten
Objectives: The students will move to music as they listen to Hip Hop A-potomus, Jumping Jacks and also Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. The students will move to the music together and a student will be chosen to be the class leader.

Review: The students will discuss movement in music, which leads to dance. The students will also discuss what types of dance are associated with modern music.

Focus: When the students enter the classroom they will be gathered onto the carpet and we will sing songs together. All of the sings will have movements for the students to follow. After we have finished singing we will spread out across the room and move to the CD songs listed above and below.

Songs:
The Green Grass Grew All Around (Motions)
The Crocodile (Motions)
The Little Skunk Song (Motions)
CD songs: Hip Hop A –potomus, Jumping Jacks, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Grade 1
Objectives: The students will understand rhythms using quarter notes and quarter rests. The students will understand that they play on the quarter notes, and do not play on the quarter rests.

Review: The students will review the terms quarter rest, quarter note, measure, time signature, and rhythm instrument.

Focus: The students will be given rhythm instruments and will be introduced to quarter notes on the white board. The students will play the rhythms together in time. The students will also be introduced to quarter rests, and will understand that they do not play on the quarter beat, but that they must count the beat. The students will be able to create new patterns in each measure on the board, and then play them together.
If time allows at the end of class, we will play the freeze dance game.

Sol’s : 1.1, 1.3, 1.11, 1.12

Grade 2
Objective: The students will listen and understand the story of the orchestra. Through listening, the students will be exposed to the world of classical music. The students will also be introduced to some of the greatest composers of the world.

Review: The students will review the terms, classical music, orchestra, and composers before the lesson begins.

Focus: Using the book, “The Story of The Orchestra”, the students will be introduced to three of the most famous classical pieces. The students will listen to music after a brief introduction and description of the piece. Students will be encouraged to listen and share their feelings after each piece is played.
Songs:
Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier

Sol’s : 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, 2.10, 2.11

Grade 3
Objectives: The students will stand and sing The Star Spangled Banner. The students will learn how to create a grand staff, and what purpose the grand staff has in music writing and playing.
Review: The students will review the lines and spaces on the treble clef staff. Using the phrases, every good boy does fine, and FACE. The students will also listen to the piano as every line is played.
Focus: The students will be introduced to the Bass clef staff. The phrases good boys do fine always, and All Cows eat grass, the students will learn the names of the lines and spaces. The two staffs will be drawn on the white board, and the students will name the lines and spaces in order as we build the grand staff together. Once the two staffs are drawn, the students will be able to see how the two staffs are related.
Songs:
The Star Spangled Banner (GES / BES)
Sol’s: 3.2, 3.3, 3.8, 3.12, 3.13

Grade 4
Objectives: The student’s will understand how to hold a recorder, and will be introduced to the B and A -fingerings. The student’s will also be able to play the recorders together matching pitch and using good tone quality.

Review: The student’s will review the following musical terms and symbols – staff lines and spaces, bar-line, measure, repeat sign, double bar line, treble clef, whole note, half note, quarter note, rests, and rhythm patterns.

Focus: Once the students understand how to hold the recorders, they will be allowed to experiment for a few minutes. We will learn our first fingering for the A note. Students will be asked to play together as well as alone so I may assess their ability.
The students will play pages 5 – 9 in the recorder books. We will review note patterns using the A note on the recorder as we play.

Songs:
Let’s Play Our First Note
Moving On To A
Recorder Mission (With CD)

Sol’s
4.3 4.5 4.6 4.11 4.12 4.13

Grade 5
Objectives: The students will understand how to notate rhythm patterns on staff paper, and will be able to read rhythm patterns from staff paper.

Review: the students will review musical notation, and symbols together on the white board. The students will then be divided into 5 groups. Each group will create a rhythm pattern and write it on the staff paper, which will be provided. The students will be allowed to clap, tap, or use rhythm instruments.
The students will practice their patterns and will have a few minutes to create and write their patterns.

Focus: Once the rhythm patterns are written, the students will write their patterns on the board for their classmates to play. Each pattern will be written on the board. Finally, each group will use the same rhythm instrument as they play all of the patterns together as a whole. A student will be chosen to lead the class through the patterns.
The students will understand how rhythm patterns become the foundation for songs.

Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday season! Looking forward to a wonderful musical 2012! Be safe, have fun, and Happy New Year!