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.