Now that you can finally get on my blog.

I understand that people were unable to access my blog, Br. Tom has cleared-up that problem You will now be able to access ollmusicroom2 to find out what's happening.

The Fourth Grade students who wish to learn an instrument have begun taking lessons during their lunchtime recess. Mondays are saxophone. Tuesdays are trumpet. Wednesdays are clarinet and flute. Thursdays are percussion. Fridays are trombone. Students should bring $6.75 to the office to pay for their books. Reeds are free for the woodwind players. Oil is free for the brass players. Students who are woodwind players or brass players are expected to bring in baked goods when we do lunchtime bake sales to pay for the free reeds and oil. Rental contracts for the School Owned Instruments will go home sometime next week. Please sign the contract and make the check payable to the school.

Students who are learing to play an instrument should be spending at least 20 minutes each day practicing. The lessons are free and I do them during my lunchbreak. Please encourage your child to be prepared for lessons so they don't waste my lunchbreak. This particular group of fourth graders has done an exceptional job at the keyboards so I am expecting that they will do very well in band.

We will begin learning about Edvard Grieg in the Elementary Music Classes during February. Students will learn information about Mr. Grieg and listen to some of his music. Grades 1,2,3, and 4 are back at the keyboards fulltime. Kindergarten has been a great group. They are learning new songs, and as a group doing some basic melodic dictation (figuring out how music would look written on the staff and then we write it together.)

Mid-February we will begin getting ready for the Spring Program. I hope to be doing mini-musicals with the elementary grades. The Junior High Choir is preparing some Disney Songs to perform for the younger school children along with the material for the Spring Program. The Band is also preparing material for the Spring Program. Some of the songs are pieces chosen by the older band students and some pieces were chosen by me. The difficulty level of the pieces vary from Beginning Band to Middle-School Band level.