08/03/2011 Music assessment

Today started off with the usual attendance. Then Mr. John gave us time to practice for awhile before performing. When the assessment started, Mr. John decided that the violin students should go first because Mr. Sadrakh was conveniently in the music room. Mr. Sadrakh chose me to perform first. I was quite nervous because I was the first one in class performing. I played Can-can which is quite fast. When I played the violin, I made it sound a little squeaky and the violin was not synced completely with the piano accompaniment. After the violin were the guitar students, piano students and then the woodwind students. While everyone was performing, Mr. John took pictures and recorded them. After each of us played, we were given an assessment booklet and we were told to finish it.

07/03/2011

Today started with the usual attendance. Then Mr. John gave us our scores for the writing assessment about the different music eras. I got 7.4/8 but in the report card it would be noted as 7/8. Its a pretty good score but I wanted a higher score than 7. I wanted to get full marks. Mr. John said that i was lacking information and that I didn't fill in the whole page. After that we had our instrument class. Ms. Marie was absent that day so Mr. Sadrakh was in charge of the class. Mr. Sadrakh said that we an play Can-can so I picked Can-can because I am more familiar with the song and I memorized the song.

01/03/2011

Today started with the usual attendance. Then Mr. John wanted us all to practice infront of everybody for the music assessment for next week. The first to play were the violin students which also included me. When I was playing the violin, I played "My favorite things". I think i got a few mistakes because when I played, it sounded a bit squeaky. After the violin, the piano students played, then the flute and then the guitars if I'm not mistaken.

28/02/2011

Today started off with the usual attendance. Then Mr. John introduced us to the F cleff. I recognized the F cleff from other music sheets. I just didn't know what they were called until Mr. John drew it on the board. That was when I was sure that the symbols i saw in other music sheets were the F cleff. It was quite easy understanding the F cleff. Easier than the sharps and flats. After that, Mr. John wanted the students who play guitar to play infront by pair so they can practice for the music assessment.

22/02/2011

Today was not a good day. It started off with the usual attendance and Mr. John came in and briefly taught us about the scales and what not. Then Mr. Sadrakh came in and he started giving a pop quiz. He would ask a student to answer a question about the scales (both sharps and flats) and if they got the wrong answer, they would be asked to stand up. I was one of them who couldn't answer but in the end I answered correctly and finally sat down. After that we went to instrument class. I don't remember what i did exactly in instrument class.

21/02/2011

Today started off with the usual attendance. Then some students began asking Mr. John if they received their emails or not. Some students were also confused about the blog. All this took up almost an entire music theory session. Mr. John thought that it was unfair that one session was wasted because of something so trivial so he decided to use the session that was for instrument class. Some students were disappointed though. Then we learned until the 4 major scale.

14/02/2011 Writing assessment

Today we started off with the usual attendance. Then Mr. John announced something that shook the entire class. He said that today was the day to do our assessment. He never mentioned about the date of the assessment last week so the class argued a bit but then Mr. John showed that in the assessment booklet that he gave us, there were already the dates that says which assessment is due. He gave us one session to read the handout about the history about music and one session to do the assessment. All we need to do is write an essay about the history of music. The problem that I encountered is that I can't memorize everything in just 20-40 minutes but I tried my best to memorize the eras, years and some developments that occurred. I didn't really remember the last part so I blanked out a bit but I managed to finish the essay nevertheless.

08/02/2011

Today's music class started with the usual attendance checking. Then Mr. John briefly explained about the sharp major scales i think. Then he asked us about the flat major scale. No one really understood it in the beginning although some students who were in Binus since gr. 6 already knew because we were already thought about the topic. So Mr. John explained about it to the whole class. After the explanation, some people were still confused and some of us understood about it. Then we went to instrument class. In instrument class, we didn't really practice or talk about the assessment, instead, we did some hand exercises which help us relax our hands in order to play the violin perfectly.

07/02/2011

Today started off with the usual attendance. Then Mr. John gave us a handout which is about the history about music. Mr. John said that our next assessment will be about the handout concerning the history of music. After that, I think Mr. John asked some students to read some of the passages out loud.