Classes this week were exploring the music of American composer, George Gershwin. After listening to a terrific performance of his Rhapsody in Blue with Earl Wild and the Boston Pops, students viewed, via the Internet, several advertisements by United Air Lines in which they cleverly used the Rhapsody in Blue as the background music.
Moving on to Gershwin's I've Got Rhythm, I was able to show the students, via Virtuoso on the iPad, how to find the five notes (pentatonic scale) of that piece on the keyboard. They transferred those notes either to the xylophones - with the identical set up to a keyboard - or to the recorders (same notes on the staff).
It has been nice being able to switch back and forth from CDs to YouTube examples to hands-on performance of pieces to help students absorb and learn the music of some these terrific composers.
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