St. Patrick’s Day

In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, we are had an event celebrating Traditional Irish music!

First, the teachers and guest professional Irish musician played a set of Irish tunes. Next, there were a few performances featuring Irish dancers! One was a dancer who performed with the teachers, and the second performance was a student who brought an Irish dancing friend to perform with! The remainder of the performances were a combination of students performing solo, or performing Irish tunes they learned to play with the band! The tunes were arranged at a level appropriate to each student.

After all the performances were finished, we ate green snacks.

Then, the student who does Irish dance taught an introductory dance lesson to everyone interested in trying it out! It was very fun, and some of the kids seemed like they might want to register for Irish dance in the future!

For most of these students, they have never had the opportunity to play with other musicians before. Ensemble skills are extremely valuable and can open doors for students in the future if they want to make music with others. Practicing and performing collaboratively, students learn how to maintain the pulse, jump back in if they lose their spot, listen to the other musicians and try to respond to what the other musicians are doing, etc. Traditional folk music is very different from Classical music in that it is primarily taught aurally. As the students grow and develop, they will be encouraged to learn the tunes by ear, improvise around the tune, come up with their own accompaniments and learn more about playing folk music authentically. However, this first exposure to Irish music was mostly meant to introduce the students to the style, so they did use sheet music this time.