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

This year, we'll be featuring a different musician each month. Our musicians of the month will represent different time periods, cultures, and genres of music. Click below to see our current or previous presentations this year. This month, our musician is playwright, rapper, composer, and filmmaker Lin Manuel Miranda.

Thank you to all the families who attended our Winter Concert last Tuesday. It was the first winter concert we've had in 3 years and it was hugely successful. Our 4th and 5th grade musicians performed with artistry, pride, and confidence and we are all very proud of them. Our program remains strong and we couldn't do it without the support of our amazing community.

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)

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 recordings of just a few of the songs we've been singing in class over the past few weeks:

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

This month, students in grades 3, 4, and 5 began 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.