Category: MTMS Blog Posts

Enjoy your time off. See you next week (starting July 10).

This week is classes and lessons as usual. Next week, for the 4th of July, we will take the week off. Feel free to practice or play and just have fun with the music. Our occasional breaks are a great excuse to take a break from the regular routine and focus on something enjoyable.

In honor of Juneteenth, please check out the link and see the roots of African American music. With so many limits on those who were taken in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, music was one of the outlets that remained open to create. I find it so interesting that songs changed not just singer to singer but also day to day, making the music for whatever suited the specific circumstances. Happy Juneteenth!

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/african-american-music/roots-of-african-american-music

Ready for a change in the music curriculum? It’s summer and a perfect time to try something a little different.

Some fun ideas to add to your repertoire: pop songs or movie/video game music, challenging songs like longer, more advanced classical pieces, or even just a piece of music you’ve always wanted to try. A few resources to guide you along the way are musicnotes and musescore. Google is also a great resource for finding items like Minecraft theme songs, Taylor swift sheet music for easy violin, and more. If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, ask your teacher.

Below is an example of a song my son likes from Roblox, and he learns to play percussion with this and other similar pieces.

Every month MTMS has one theme for the lab portion of the lessons. For June the theme will be Beethoven’s Orchestral Music. Beethoven’s composition style bridged the gap between the Baroque era and the Classical era. There is also a focus on his Fifth symphony (also known as the world’s most famous symphony), the first one he did in a minor key. Listen in, and ask your students about what they’ve learned from it. Thanks, Stephanie (our lab lead), for the cool theme this month!