Instruments

With Mr. Clinton, we learn to play many instruments:

In General Music class we have many opportunities to learn to play many different instruments. Our classroom instruments begin with rhythm instruments, and continue to instruments capable of procuding melody and harmony. We play mostly in groups with some chances to play by ourselves. In Orchestra, which begins in Fifth Grade, we have the oportunity to learn one of three bowed stringed instruments: the violin, viola, and cello. In High School, once we have grown big enough, there is the oportunity to lean to play the Double Bass!

Classroom Instruments:

We have all sorts of instruments in our music classroom. We play rhythm sticks, wood blocks, tamborines, triangles, jingle bells, cymbals, cow bells, claves, giros, frame drums, sound shapes, melody bells, boom whackers, cajons, bongo cajons, xylophones, and many others.

Recorders:

In Third and Fourth Grades we learn to play recorders. We learn to read some notes and the fingerings for them, and we read and play songs together.

Ukuleles:

Thanks to several Grants that Mr. Clinton wrote from the Wyalusing Friends of the Arts and the Wyalusing Education Foundation in 2014, we now have a classroom set of Ukuleles. We begin Ukuleles in Fourth Grade, and revisit them again in Fifth Grade. We learn how to hold, strum and pluck the instruments, as well as how to play several basic chords, and melodies.

Instruments in the Wyalusing Orchestra

In Fifth Grade we begin dedicated instruction on Orchestral Stringed Instruments. Students can choose to learn to play the Violin, Viola, or Cello in group lessons, with a weekly ensemble rehearsal. Students take their previous musical learning from General Music Class and apply it to reading music for their instrument and begin studying the techniques and skills necessary to make music on their new chosen instrument. It is essential to success that each student have their own instrument to play, that they take it back and forth between home and school, and that they apply the practicing stratagies taught in class. Students not only learn the skills to play the instrument, but even more important they learn the skills and strategies of personal problem solving, methods of making hard things easy, and the importance of personal responsibility and its interconnectedness to team work in an ensemble.

Violin:

Violin is the highest sounding of the orchestral stringed instruments, and students can choose to learn to play it starting in Fifth Grade.

Viola:

Viola is lower sounding than the violin, but is played in the same way; held on the shoulder. Students can also decide to play the viola beginning in Fifth Grade.

Cello:

Cello, its full name actually being "Violoncello", is the biggest and lowest of the instruments that Elementary School Students can play in Orchestra. Cello is much lower sounding than the violin or the viola, and is played while sitting, with the instrument resting on the floor on a long endpin.

Bass:

The Orchestral Bass, or "Double Bass", is the lowest of the orchestral stringed instruments. Since the instrument stands around six feet tall, students must wait until they are in High
School before they are able to play the Double Bass. The Double Bass is played while standing.

Wyamusic

Music For All,

All For Music