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