We have broken a record during November for Samplers! Thank you for making this possible. It’s an exciting time for MTMS as we get ready for our fifteenth anniversary.
We raised $1111.60 dollars for GRIN – we appreciate you helping us invest in our community. GRIN is important to us, and we offer other fundraising events to help our Gahanna neighbors. Look for our Winter Benefit Concert specifically for more information.
It’s an exciting time around MTMS. Don’t stop the music!
Percussion includes instruments that are struck, scraped, stirred, shaken, or spun. While the first thing that pops into my head is a drum, the above definition covers so many instruments I cannot name them all. Consider a xylophone, tambourine, maraca, as well as any style of drum.
Here is a cute quiz with several different percussion instruments. Plus there are more electronic beats on the opposite axis. Many percussion beats are made electronically these days.
Challenge for your student: look around the house and find your own percussion sounds. Actually, it’s so fun you might want to join in. My son told me tap dance is drumming with his feet – so let those beats come out.
MTMS has been investing in our community since we were established. It’s more than just music, though we do love music! Our charity of choice is GRIN – Gahanna Residents In Need.
We have two upcoming opportunities to help GRIN through MTMS. First, we have Lesson Samplers in November that will benefit GRIN. Second, we 0have our Winter Benefit Concert on February 1 where the entrance fee is one non-perishable food item for GRIN.
November Lesson Samplers are a great gift during the upcoming season. Give your loved ones a sampler and 50% goes to GRIN. Lesson Samplers are focused on a single instrument, a four-week course with one 40-minute lesson and lab session each week. A sampler is a great way to explore lessons for the first time or a new instrument. Bonus, if you continue lessons afterward we will waive the enrollment fee.
Another cool thing about a Lesson Sampler is that you can get it as a gift certificate for your favorite musician-in-training. The gift certificate can be redeemed on any instrument.
The Winter Benefit Concert will be held on 1 February. Students must sign up starting 2 January. All the non-perishable food items donated for attending the concert will be donated to GRIN. Earlier this year we donated 184.5 pounds of food! Plus it’s an amazing concert of our students showing off their skills and love of music.
Join us for both of these events and know we’re supporting our local community as well as our students’ music. We can’t wait to see you.
Every month, the music lab teachers select a theme for the Music Technology and Learning Lab. Students explore the theme in the Music History, Composition, and Listening Stations during their scheduled music lessons. The topic for the month of October is Jazz.
Jazz began with African American musicians in the early 1900s. Despite some less reputable beginnings, this mix of European, Latin, and African American musical styles led to many of the popular music genres today, like R&B and rock and roll. Jazz is an American classical music genre.
As you can hear, jazz music creates complicated melodies and rhythms. It’s difficult to define but you learn to know it when you hear it. It also has heavy lean into improvisation and syncopation, which leads to its unique sounds. Because of those two qualities, jazz isn’t meant to be read on a page of music but experienced live.
The ‘Roaring 20s,’ also known as the Jazz Age, are long past, but jazz is still very alive and very American. Below is the playlist for our students to learn more about jazz.
Michelle Tuesday Music School held its 2024 Beach Party Recitals the weekend of August 9-11. We encourage all students taking music lessons at Michelle Tuesday Music School to play in our recitals and other performance opportunities. We host concerts at least four times per year, and we never charge fees to join the events. Many of our events, like this one, are coupled with a party. That way, our musicians who aren’t ready to play in front of an audience yet can just watch and enjoy the party.
Our Friday night Teen & Adult Only concert featured performances by adult music students learning piano, voice, guitar and mallet percussion. Jane played “Amazing Grace” on guitar, her debut performance as a student taking adult guitar lessons, and she did great! The percussion teacher accompanied her glockenspiel student on the gorgeous new studio Boston grand piano for a rousing, jazzy rendition of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Disney’s Aladdin. Our audience took our teen & adult recital “rule” to heart, and they screamed, hooted and hollered before and after each performer, because it calms the nerves of the musicians, and it makes the event more fun for everyone.
Saturday and Sunday afternoons included contributions from our younger music students. The musicians featured are enrolled in music lessons on a variety of instruments. The student performers are taking:
Performers learning piano played their prepared pieces on our shiny new lobby grand piano. Our aspiring musicians delighted their audiences with well-known favorites: “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore” on violin; “Yankee Doodle” and “Old MacDonald” on piano; vocal performances of “Part of Your World” and “Candle on the Water”; and from our students learning guitar, a variety ranging from the classical “Spanish Waltz” to an improvisation on “The Wind Cries Mary” by Jimi Hendrix.
Perhaps the most unique performances of the weekend were offered by Felix, who played “Amazing Grace” on ocarina (of Nintendo’s Zelda fame), and Millie singing her original composition, “The Good Old Days,” from her work-in-progress two-act musical starring her dog, Gwinnie. Watch for the upcoming puppet show, Gwinnie, when Millie has completed her first, but certainly not last, magus opus. Millie tells us she has already begun work on the sequel!
After each 30-minute block of performers, the music students enjoyed the party activities outside, including beach bingo, a duck pond, and sidewalk chalk artwork around the perimeter of the music school, plus fabulous prizes to be had by all.
Thank you to all of the performers, parents, teachers and staff who made our Beach Party Recital a smashing success. Your teachers are very proud of you, and it’s always wonderful to see everyone having a great time.
Mark your calendars for our next performance opportunity. The annual MTMS Halloween Party Recitals have been our most popular concert each year for nearly a decade and a half. Sign-ups open October 14th!
