Norwell High School Music Department

The long weekend has afforded me the opportunity to rearrange some things and post some new material to the website.  Be sure to check out the new Who we Are tab at the top of the page, for starters.  I’ll also shortly be adding the choral staff to their own tab up there at the top and putting up some photos that Kari took at the Thanksgiving Day game.

-John O’Briant

Thanks to Maria Tsekeris for getting a whole bunch of great pictures of students before a football game.  Here are two of the better ones:

Above: Revenge of Stephanie and the sophomores

Above:  Brett throws up der hornen while Drs. Smith and Cadman look on

Musical news out of the Vatican is eerily reminiscent of a conversation we had last week in Music Appreciation about the Council of Trent.  You remember the Council of Trent, don’t you?  The ecumenical council convened from 1545-1563 to address corruption in the Catholic Church and the rising power of Protestantism?  Well, what the Council of Trent had to say about church music was that it had gotten too complicated and too tainted by secularism–much the same complaint that Pope Benedict is making now.

Funny how these things have a way of working in cycles, no?

I’d like to thank everybody who made it out to Hanover HS for the game today, which was a pretty positive experience for everyone all around!  Hanover director Paul Ketchen and I are both hoping that this will be the beginning of a positive educational relationship between our two school music programs.  Also, Kari took some great pictures that we’ll hopefully have up on the site soon.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all, thank you for being a wonderful group of students, and see you after the long weekend!

Cheers,

John O’Briant

Yup, we’re still on.

It looks like there are going to be scattered showers overnight, clearing up in the morning.  We’re still on–meet at Hanover HS, with warm clothes, music, lyre and instrument, at 9:15am SHARP tomorrow.   See you there!

1)  We are on for the AWAY game AT HANOVER tomorrow morning.  Kickoff is at 10am, which means you should report to Hanover HS at 9:15am.

2) We’re being given space to collect ourselves, leave our cases and warm up indoors, so gather at the side doors that lead in to the auditorium/gymnasium area.  I’ll be there early.

3) Please take anything you need for the game home with you on Wednesday after school.  If you’ve forgotten anything, however, the school will be open in the morning.  The only available entrance is the doors behind the cafeteria near the dumpsters.

4) We need as many people as possible!  Bundle up, get your spirit on and come on out to make some noise!

5) If there are to be any changes in plans, you’ll find out here.   I’ll be posting periodically, especially regarding weather.

Thanks!

-John O’Briant

Seven intrepid NHS students trekked out to King Philip Regional MS this past Saturday for the Massachusetts Music Educators’ Association (MMEA) Southeastern District Honor Ensemble Auditions.  I have the pleasure of reporting that three of the seven were accepted into district ensembles!  Congratulations to:

Kelly Fanning ‘08 (bassoon)

Maggie Hynes ‘09 (cello)

Stephanie Sousa ‘09 (flute)

Congratulations and many thanks to all of the students who auditioned, as well.  The experience one gets from preparing an audition piece, both from standpoint of the technical/artistic challenge and the chance to perform in a solo capacity in front of experts on your instrument, is invaluable.  I hope to see more students come out for SEMSBA and District auditions in the future!  Good luck also to the freshmen and middle school students who will be auditioning at Furnace Brook MS in Marshfield on December 1!

I’m always looking for new tools and resources for our students, so they can have deeper access to the world of music. And since Massachusetts is sort of the NPR Capital of the World, I thought it’d be fitting to mention a new website they’ve launched: NPR Music. It’s a compilation of stories, interviews, recorded concerts, reviews and more from the worlds of popular and classical music. I’m leaving a link to it over in the toolbar, and I highly recommend giving it a look when you get a chance!

With the changeover from the fall concert season to the winter, and from one unit to the next in music appreciation, I’ve been rather lax in updating the site.  Since I have some scant free time, however, here’s a brief update on what’s going on in my music classes:

Symphonic Band:  We’ve begun work on music for the winter concert–four selections this time, each of which are of high quality and are forcing us to learn some new techniques and sensitivities.  It looks like it’s going to be a fun program on December 20th.  The pep band season is also wrapping up, with a game Friday November 9th and our final outing on Thanksgiving day at Hanover.

Jazz Workshop:  We’ve started new music in Jazz as well, and are going to spend some more time developing a sense of the language and narrative structure of improvisation.  I’m already seeing some great improvements over the fall!

Music Theory: We’re chugging ahead as usual, using our newfound understanding of triads, 7th chords and inversions to help us with basic harmonic analysis of Bach chorales.  The next step will be to learn the basics of harmony and voice leading, so we can begin writing our own music!

Music Appreciation: We’ve just wrapped up a unit on music of the Middle Ages.  Students did very well on the quiz at the end of the unit; I was very impressed!  Next, we begin work on our second round of oral presentations (this round’s theme: Music Without Words) and begin our unit on the Renaissance.  So many exciting things to talk about coming up.

Thanks to all of you music students for your hard work and perseverance!

-John O’Briant