LIVE Music Rocks!

Never under estimate the power of LIVE music!  My friend Joy brought her bassoon to my homeschool music class today and I think I could have sat down and watched her conduct the entire thing!  The kids LOVED it!  I almost hated to pull them away so that we could do the rest of the activities for the day!

Joy started out by taking her bassoon out of the bag piece by piece explaining what each piece was called and showing the kids how to put it all together.  She talked about the reed and how it vibrated and after playing silly things on the reed only, she played them the bassoon part from the Sorceror's Apprentice!

The kids loved it so much that I asked her to play it again!  Talk about a way to captivate!

From there, Joy talked about how an orchestra tunes to the oboe.  As a fun way to help the kids visualize this, we had a tuner handy.  We asked one of the kids to hold it facing everyone and as Joy played a note, the kids had to use their arms to point left or right to let her know if she was playing sharp or flat!

They really loved this and watched those red/green lights carefullly!  After that, she played them the part of the grandfather from Peter and the Wolf and then we showed them a portion of the cartoon on YouTube.  They wanted to watch the entire video but due to time constraints that wasn't possible.  I gave the link to their parents at the end of class so they could watch it at home. 

At this point, it was hard to convince them that we had "other" fun things to do!  Joy did a great job and I could tell they were all itching to try a bassoon.

I realize that I'm a piano teacher, but I also strongly believe my role is to foster a love for all types of music - even if it means teaching them to love bassoon!