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Music Newsletter

Lowell Elementary

MusicNewsletter Lowell Elementary
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Welcome to the Lowell Music Program!

Hello Lowell Community. If we haven't met, I'm Anthony Spano and I've taught music here at Lowell for over 16 years. I hope to be preparing these newsletters on a regular basis to update you on what we've done, are doing, and will be doing in your child's music classes. Please feel free to email me with any questions or comments:


anthony.spano@watertown.k12.ma.us

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Bandarama!

Next Wednesday night, March the 15th at 7pm, will mark the reboot of our traditional Bandarama concert. This event will take place in the Watertown High School gymnasium and will involve all band instrument students in grades 4-12. All are welcome to attend. If you have a 4th or 5th grade child participating in the concert, see the attached letter below for more information.
2023 Bandarama Letter.docx

2023 Bandarama Letter.docx

Watertown Public Schools and the Fine, Applied, and Performing Arts Department present... BAND-A-RAMA Dear Watertown Elementary Band Students and Families, Our annual Bandarama Rehearsals and Concert are coming up in March. All band instrument students in grades 4-12 will be performing in a ...

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MusicFest!

We are also rebooting our annual MusicFest, an annual fundraiser whose proceeds go to support the Fine and Performing Arts programs in our schools. Any members of our community are welcome to participate, attend, and/or perform. This includes teachers, students, parents, local musicians, etc. Click below for more information.
2023 General Flyer Color Supt Sig Big QR Final.pdf

2023 General Flyer Color Supt Sig Big QR Final.pdf

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Musician of the Month

This month, our musician(s) of the month is the band Arcade Fire. They are a Grammy winning indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada.


Click below for information and music from this band.

Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire Canadian Indie Rock band from Montreal, Quebec, founded in 2001 Fronted by husband and wife duo, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne

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Ranky Tanky / Black History Month

Ranky Tanky / Black History Month

Ranky Tanky American band featuring vocals, guitar, bass, trumpet, and percussion Jazz and Gullah music Started in 2016 in South Carolina, USA

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Wu Tong

Wu Tong

Wu Tong (b.1971) Chinese Sheng Player, Bawu Player, Singer and Composer Chinese Traditional Music, Western Classical Music, and Rock & Roll

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Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda (b.1980) Puerto-Rican American composer, actor, playwright, filmmaker

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Tash Sultana

Tash Sultana

Tash Sultana (b.1995) Maltese-Australian Singer-Songwriter Alternative rock, Alternative/Indie, Blues, Psychedelic rock, Lo-fi music, Reggae rock

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Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder (b.1950) American Singer, Songwriter, Producer, and Multi-Instrumentalist R&B, Soul Music

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Sheila E

Sheila E

Musician of the Month Sheila E (b. 1957) American Percussionist/Singer Funk, Jazz, R&B, Pop, Rock, Salsa

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Basic Guitar

This month, students in grades 3, 4, and 5 resumed learning or reviewing basic guitar techniques and simple songs. Students are learning appropriate posture, guitar mechanics, basic picking techniques, depressing the frets to change notes, and reading tablature notation to figure out simple melodies.


View or download our guitar song packet we use in class.

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Piano/Keyboard

Students grades 2-5 have been studying the piano in class. The piano makes a great vehicle to teach basic musicianship, theory, and note reading.



In grade 2, we're only just beginning. Over the next few weeks, we'll be using a simpler finger-number notation system to play familiar melodies.


In our older grades (3-5), we've spent several weeks last autumn learning to play the C-major scale using the traditional "thumb-under" technique. From there, we extended the lesson to include more difficult scales that include sharps and flats. This month, we're starting to read and play simple melodies and exercises in both the treble clef (right hand) and bass clef (left hand). Click below for printouts of some of the resources we use in this unit.


Grade 3-5 Piano Packet

Grade 2 Piano Packet

White Key melodies - finger notation

White Key melodies - standard notation

Scales and Triads

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Songs we're Singing

Singing is central to our music curriculum at all age levels. As I tell the students, your voice is the "oldest instrument in the world" and we carry it around with us everywhere we go. Below are just a few of the songs we've been singing in class this school year:


Los Pollitos Dicen - traditional Latin American

A Tisket, A Tasket - Ella Fitzgerald

Rubber Blubber Whale - Si Kahn

Green Sally - Ranky Tanky

Mr. Sun - Raffi

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles

Canoe Song - traditional round

Frere Jacques - traditional round

If I Were a Tree - traditional

I Had a Little Rooster - traditional

Skin and Bones - traditional

Blackbird - The Beatles

Yellow Submarine - The Beatles

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Instrument Families

In Kindergarten and Grade 1, we've been studying instruments and instrument families. Over the last several weeks, our students have been seeing demonstrations from many of the instruments we have here at school and in some cases, are even getting to try and explore the instruments themselves.
instrument families

instrument families

Quaver: K.19.3

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Rhythm Reading

In music class, we begin, as early as Kindergarten, learning rhythm both aurally and visually through musical notation. In class, we often practice our rhythms in their most basic forms through body percussion or playing on rhythm sticks. Try some of the Rhythm Play Alongs below for review.
Rhythm playalongs

Rhythm playalongs

Rhythm Activities

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4th and 5th Grade Instruments

Our instrument program has been very successful thus far this year. We have excellent participation from many of our 4th and 5th grade students and we're hoping to have some creative performance opportunities later in the school year. If you have any questions regarding your child's instrument lessons, feel free to email their instrument teacher at any time:


Macullen Byham (strings)

Michael Frontz (strings)

Maxwell Thew (winds, percussion)

Anthony Spano (winds, percussion)

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