Serenading Santa

I  met Santa at the Monument in O Connell St when he visited Ennis last week and of course I took the opportunity to tell him that the boys and girls at Swinging Strings have been very good indeed. He was sorry to have missed the concert but I played him a tune

Swinging Strings Debut performance at Ennis NS Hall

4th class perform Foxtrot from Little Suite by Peter Martin  at debut concert .  Director Cathy Desmond  Backing Track prepared by Michael Hennessy

Photos Swinging Strings debut

Review Debut Swinging Strings at Ennis NS Hall

SWINGING STRINGS’ CONCERT

Thursday, 16 December 2010 01:41

THE ‘SWINGING STRINGS’ CONCERT The Fourth Class students of Ennis N.S. packed the School Hall to capacity to put on a show-stopping ‘Swinging Strings’ Concert on Wednesday, December 15th. Parents and grandparents alike clapped loudly in admiration for the many melodious musical moments during a wonderful performance under the able and enthusiastic conductor/director Cathy Desmond.  This memorable production showed that it had been worth the arduous practices over the past number of weeks. It was more like being invited to a performance at the National Concert Hall in Dublin or -closer to home- at the University Concert Hall in Limerick. The best part of all is that everyone can do it - given the opportunity. The teachers and parents feel very proud of the musical achievements of our Fourth Class students. The School Band accompanied the 'Swinging String' musicians to support the show. If you can spot an adult or two performing with the students, you are not seeing things! Yes, there were one or two teachers or teaching assistants ‘swinging strings’ also! Two very young star performers were spotted in Wednesday’s Concert. The talented sisters pictured below stole the show with their percussion instruments and perfect rhythm. Well done. It was a momentous occasion for all. Thanks to Cathy Desmond, her students, the School Band, all the teachers involved and especially to co-ordinator Mrs de Buitléir.

 

Swinging Strings Debut performance at Ennis National School Hall

The Swinging Strings Violin Ensemble                

The 4^th classes at Ennis National School   in their inaugural performance at

             12 pm Wednesday 15^th December.

With director Cathy Desmond  and Ennis National School Band, director Mrs De Buitleir  and  class teachers Mr Dara Blake, Eamonn Corry and Ms. Elizabeth Spring

Programme         

Mr Corry’s Class    O Come All Ye Faithful

                                Away In A Manger   

                                Rudolph Retakes  featuring Frank on Bass

                                Leader Leah

                                 **********************************

Ms Springs Class    Toreadors March    Bizet   

                                We Will Rock You Queen  

                                Fox Trot 

                                Leader Naomi                

                              ************************************

Mr Blake’s Class     Good King Wenceslas   (quavers on  G and G’)

                                Crescendo and decrescendo tremolo

                                Finale Jingle Bells (Down Up Bells )    featuring Patrick on bass                 

                                Leader Raphael

                               *****************************************♫

The Swinging Strings programme; The aim of this project is to deliver an inclusive group music making experience through whole class participation in an instrumental music programme. It aims to widen access to the Ennis National School Band and enhance our effective delivery of the Primary School Arts Curriculum Over 80 students and their teachers are participating.

Check out the project’s dedicated website www.swingingstrings.blogspot.com which contains some great photos, regular updates  on the programme and  videos clips etc.

For further information  email;   cdstringschool@gmail.com

Acknowledgements:  Thanks to the Clare County Council Arts Office for its   support from the Artist in Residence Scheme  and to those who donated instruments including the Flanagan, McEnnis and Hobbs families, and Custy’s Music  Shop in Ennis

Well done 4th classes and Ms Spring, Mr Blake and MrCorry . Great concert today!  The house band were brilliant . Congrats to director, MsDe Buitléir 

The Swinging Strings Violin Ensemble   

Over 100 students were involved in today's performance

Swinging Strings Debut Performance

Invitation

Family and Friends are invited to the debut performance of the
 Swinging Strings Violin Project . It will showcase the skills 90 students and teachers of 4th class

Guest artists  The Ennis National School House Band

Time   12.00      Date Wednesday 15th December

Venue   Ennis National School Hall 

Final rehearsals at Ennis NS

Santa would have a job getting this down the chimney

All set to rehearse



The splendid Ennis NS crib . Well done Ger Philpott



 







Bass Player





Violin Line Waiting to play

Well done everyone,  the final rehearsal in the hall although organised at short notice went very well .  See last weeks post for draft programme . We will practice spoken links next Wednesday before the concert .  I am really looking forward to our first performance  after  ten weeks of lessons. You have made great progress! I called to see Mr. Corry's class yesterday to practice the Rudolph Retakes and rehearse the double bass solo .  It's looking good !

Farewell to 3 model students

Last lesson for Mr Darmody  Mr. Corbett, Mr Moloney

Father Liam pops in for a listen

Checking Out Anything Goes Orchestra & Music





Some of the pupils check out the music and the ochestra pit at Colaiste Muire's school show Anything Goes.

A 

Preparing to put on a show

Our  Project Manager, Ms De Buitleir  had arranged for the group to rehearse in the hall and  Mr Corry's  and Mr Blakes's classes rehearsed their programme with the house band.  Raphael and Leah were leaders today; Patrick and Frank played bass . Everything went very smoothly and we are well on the way to being ready for our debut .

Draft programme: Mr Corry   O Come All Ye Faithful   Pizz open string G,
                                             Away in a Manger broken chords,
                                             Rudolph Retakes  Retakes on D and A    accompanied by House Band

Mr Blake     Tremelo Prelude to When a Child is Born
                     Jingle Bells   Down Up Bells
                    Good King Wenceslas     quavers on G Boys on 3rd finger on D

Ms Spring     We Will Rock You 
                     Toredors 
                     Fox Trot       

Anything Goes, a musical by Cole Porter. continues at Danlann, Colaiste Muire . Check out the clip. What other clip features music by this composer? . Where was he from?
check out http://www.classicsforkids.com/  for more information about this songwriter
                                       

Learn all about the Orchestra at National Concert Hall

Click on the link on the right to to learn all about the orchestra on this super website from the  Learn and Explore Team at  National Concert Hall in Dublin. Can you spot anyone from Clare in the Hall of Fame ?  Try out the Guess the Instrument game.  I am looking forward to playing there on Sunday night.

Today we revised our repertoire* to get ready for a concert in two weeks time.  Thanks to the players from the school band who played their band parts for us.   Here is what we worked on

O Come All ye Faithful .   Vivaldi G riff
Foxtrot                               with side step and dip
Jingle Bells                        Down Up Sh     chord two groups D and G

Rock You                                    "        
Rudolph                             Rudolph Retakes / Circle Bows  changing form D to A
Tremelo Bond                     D1 first finger on D string

we learned what a chord is  (2 or more notes played together) .

Thanks to our leaders Cadhla , Sarah, and Patrick today

What was the name of the group who recorded We Will Rock You 


* all the things you can play

Bond with a Classical Twist

We started today  with finger warm ups , some Left Hand  pizzicato and strumming .
After some revision of open string tunes , it was on to first finger down on D string to revise  new note E . Ms Spring's class and Mr Blake's class went on to put 1  23  down on  D string . We had some fun with Old MacDonald .  We split into Blue and Brown squares and took turns to play and sing .
Mr Corry's class took the next step in bowing , non stop quavers .  No stopping ye now!
We played a game with  musical  cards . Here is a sample of four . Tempo;  Arco : Pizz. : Waltz
( Play with bow)  (Speed of music  )  (Pluck string ) (Dance  in 3 time)

Well done to our  leaders  today Maeve,  Leah and Patrick  who lead our ensembles today.     Ms Spring's students   Cadhla  and Sarah  were highly  commended for effort today. A special thank you to  Shauna , Aoife and Leah  for acting as practice mentors this week.  Great. Well done girls .  Ye did a great job!
Check out our two new clips. Vladimir Jablokov  who sends his best wishes to Swinging Strings  following his brilliant gig at Dolan's Limerick plays his  Bond/Mozart mix  on the LateLate Show and  a clip from the movie  by composer James Barry

Quiz next week on the website clips .
 Some questions

1 In one word describe  how Vladimir Jablokov is using his bow at the opening. 

 What instrument from the wind family also features in the clip?

2 Now You Has Jazz Clip 1 How many instruments can you identify  in the clip ?

3. Complete  the sentence  The Jaws theme is based on a   S_  __ _  _ _ _ _

4 What is a Toreador . The Toreadors song come from the opera    __ _ _ _ _ _

5 In The   Kerry Dances with fiddle players Stephane Grapelli and Frankie Gavin ;
  Describe how the tempo changes when the second fiddle  player Frankie Gavin  joins in .  _____________________________________________________
    _ _ _ _ _______ _____________________________________

Swinging Strings Ennis Trad Festival week

Ms Desmond and assistants  in  her Custy's T Shirt

Week 7 : Well done everyone , the class filed in and took their places very quickly and after our bow we practiced placing our violins in playing and rest position quickly without making a sound .  The class are really good at this now.   We raced through some of our repertoire from the last few weeks . We practised Vivaldi in G and used the same rhythm  for O Come All Ye Faithful.  It worked really well. 

We did two new things today .We did some left hand strumming playing all four strings like a guitar with our left finger 3 .   We jazzed things up with a new backing track for This is E putting our first fingers down firmly on our D strings.   Remember you have to press firmly to get a good sound . We finished with our down up Down Up  Rock You riff  to Jingle Bells .   

Thanks to Custy's Music shop for their donation to our instrument bank and for their designer teeshirt which I wore today .

Check out our youtube clip of trad fiddler Frankie Gavin  and jazz fiddler Stephane Grapelli?

 Can you remember what instruments used in traditional music were on my tee shirt ?

Is new note  low  E on a line or a space  ?  Counting from the bottom , which one?

Can you name all 4 members of the string family . Which member is found  in jazz bands . ( Hint : there is a picture in your music book of a jazz band)

Which one features most in Irish traditional music ?


Mentors and students dont forget Friday is official  practice day

Jazz & Jaws

This week we learned what a semitone sounds like and I played a solo violin version of one of the scariest movie themes ever that featuring a certain well known shark and,  as it was Halloween,  the jig the Lilting Banshee.

We learned what a # sign does to a  note .
We  worked on our hushed tremelo for a prelude to  When a Child is Born       (G )
We adapted our Rock you riff to Jingle Bells (Down Up Bells )    G or D
We played pizzicato on our new open string E  in our accompaniment to Away in a Manger 
Composer Corner featured  a piece by 20 century American Composer Cole Porter  Now You Has Jazz  featuring a jazz band .  COOL ! We took a close up look at a clarinet. Check out jazz legend Louis |Armstrong on our Video Clip
A  special thank you  to Shauna Kearney  who worked very hard  to have everything ready for start of classes.   Friday is practice day.

Swinging Strings at Ennis National School

Photo John Kelly

photo courtesy of St Agnes Music Crumlin

Swinging Strings at Ennis National school Week 5

Swinging Strings Lesson 5
Class Blog 20th October

It was a very busy day today as all classes prepared to run a performance of the repertoire to date. We began by playing pizzicato quavers to Old MacDonald. Next we practised Foxtrot, Toreadors March and Vivaldi on G. We had some fun playing a really scary tremolo which had Mr Glynn quaking when he heard it before we calmed him down with a favourite of his We Will Rock You. A special thank you to Shauna Kearney who helped tune the violins . Our leaders today were Leah, Naomi and Raphael who directed the class ensembles very well indeed.

Very good progress has been made and we are ready to progress on to the next stage of learning some more notes. So get ready boys and girls to get those left hand fingers flying when we begin again after the break!

Swinging Strings at Ennis NS Week 4

Swinging Strings Class Blog 13th Oct 2010Week 4

Things really went with a swing today! All classes sidestepped and played pizzicato to our specially commissioned backing track to Foxtrot., prepared specially for us by ace piano player Michael Hennessy. Not quite perfect yet but we are getting there. Mr Corry was lightest on his feet of the teachers. We worked on our stirring Toreadors March and we learned how to read low string G on the stave. The we played along with some Vivaldi for cellos. We worked on our bow grip, we did some shadow bowing to Queen’s We Will Rock You before the final step of putting our bows on the A string. We listened to the famous waltz by Strauss, The Blue Danube . Thanks to Shauna and Chris for helping to set up and Leah for rosining the bows. Frank and Patrick added some depth on double bass.

Swinging Strings at Ennis National School Week 3

Swinging Strings at Ennis National School Week 3
It was a very important day today as we learned how to hold our bows. We played shadow bowing to Down Up to Queen’s We Will Rock You

We listened to the March of the Toreadors from the opera Carmen by Bizet and the we played along to the music using our D and A strings. We learned how to play pizzicato quavers to Old Mac Donald

Mr McInerney popped in to hear Mr Blake’s class and said they sounded terrific.

Bravo tutti!