Saturday, June 22, 2013

Gifted Music School: Music Camp

A couple of months ago, the Gifted Music School did a performance at my daughters' school. Michelle, in particular, was really impressed by the performance and she really wanted to sign up for the summer camp. So after looking into it, I signed her up. The camp is 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 2 weeks. Michelle has gone this week, and she has loved it. She is excited to go back next week. There are only 2 kids in her class (there are supposed to be 6, but so far only Michelle and a boy named Billy have come). There are 2 teachers. So talk about personal attention.

They have learned/reviewed music vocabulary, time signatures, how to conduct music (for 2/4 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures). They have learned to find the rhythm and the beat of a song, how to write the song down using notes, how to do solflege (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do) including the hand motions, singing in solflege and recording the song using solflege. They've learned about tempo. They've learned about Vivaldi, Bach and Handel. They've listened to classical music and found its rhythm. They've sung folk songs. They've played musical games. I am so impressed with all that Michelle has learned in just 5 days. Some of it she has been taught or introduced to before through piano, violin or music instruction at school. But I think she's grasping it better than she has before...the combination of the camp, her violin instruction and piano practice are wonderful! Her teachers at camp are wonderful (as are her violin and piano teachers) and getting 2 hours of intense teaching each day has been awesome. Ella has been listening in and learning quite a bit as well. Michelle has already said that she wants to do this again next summer. I think next summer we'll enroll both Michelle and Ella.

Since I'm sitting there, I've also learned a lot about music that I didn't know. Such a great experience!

No comments:

Post a Comment