Mrs. Hamilton's and Mr. Galvez's Classes -- "T'zena, T'zena"

Hi again fifth graders -- as mentioned our last song will be "T'zena, T'zena" an Israeli folk tune made famous by the Weavers. You guys already sing this very well, but I didn't see any harm in posting some audio practice clips especially since I had a very good recording by a children's group from England. I am also posting a pronunciation clip. Work on the Hebrew words and remember that we are going to make a canon out of the English verse.

Mrs. Hamilton's and Mr. Galvez's Classes -- "A Change Is Gonna Come"

Hi Fifth Grade Home School -- "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cook is not usually thought of as a holiday tune, but the rule with music celebrating Kwanzaa is that any African or African-American song will do, and this is one of the all time great songs from civil right era.

We will be singing this in two parts, but since I have not decided which class will be doing which, please familiarize yourself with both.

Mr. Earl's and Mr. Oasay's Classes - "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"

Hi again, fifth grade -- since our first song presents so many challenges, I wanted to do something a little less complicated for our other number. That doesn't mean "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" won't take a little work to sing well. Pay particular attention to the sustained notes. Just like in instrumental music you need to maintain a steady flow of air in order to stay on pitch. There are also some cool examples of chromaticism (half steps) to test how well you hear those intervals. We'll work on all of it in class, but in the meantime practice will only make you sound better.

One small correction -- the sheet music has the line "from now on our troubles will be far away" so that's what would up in the recording. Please substitute the line "our troubles will be miles away" as it appears below.

Mr. Earl's and Mr. Oasay's Classes - "Huron Carol"

Hi Fifth Grade Magnet -- after a long delay (for which I apologize) here at least is the practice material for "Huron Carol," the famous Canadian Carol written by Jean de Brébeuf for the Huron Indians. You will find two audio files below the lyric sheet -- the upper one will take you through the pronunciation of the Wendat and French verses and the other is recording to the entire carol with the drone. We still have drums, xylophones and possibly recorders to add to our arrangement so please get to work on these vocals.

Mr. Austin's and Ms. Brier's Class -- "Zemir Atik"

Hi fourth grade home school -- by now you should have checked out the ukulele videos for Little Moses which were posted last week (and can still be found if you check the November archive to the left). Our other song, Zemir Atik (sometimes called Nigun Atik,) is one of the world's oldest songs. The name, fittingly, means "ancient melody."

The song uses the Egyptian scale and is in Hebrew, so you have your work cut out for you. Below are two audio files, one dedicated to the pronunciation of the words and the other to singing the melody. We will work on the instrumental accompaniment in class.

Ms. McLeod's and Ms. Zarakowski's Classes - "Peace Train"

Here's is our other song -- "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens. Remember that the key here is going to be to sing along with the Son Clave beat.

Ms. McLeod's and Ms. Zarakowski's Classes - "Pojdzmy Wszyscy Do Stajenki"

Hi Second Grade students -- our first of two tunes for the Holiday show is a Polish carol entitled "Pojdzmy Wszyscy Do Stajenki." There are many beautiful holiday songs that come from Poland, as does Ms. Zarakowski, but it is a challenging language to speak and to sing, so I've added a pronunciation track for you to practice with. I have a feeling you will recognize the instructors voice pretty quickly.

And below is the verse in Polish sung at normal speed. I have only included the Polish verse and the English verses are sun to the same melody and should give you no trouble. Note that I have also included the glockenspiel part.