John Henry

Listen to it here!

The story of John Henry is an American Tall Tale about a railroad worker. His job was to cut through solid rock and make the ground ready for the railroad tracks. When a steam drill came that threatened to replace the men who worked on the railroad, John Henry challenged the new steam drill to see who was more important, man or machine. Legend says that John Henry won, but died of exhaustion.

Lyrics:

Verse 1: When John Henry was a little baby sitting on his pappy’s knee,

He grabbed a hammer and a little piece of steel, said “This hammer’ll be the death of me, O Lord,

This hammer’ll be the death of me.”

Verse 2: John Henry said to his captain, “A man ain’t nothin’ but a man;

but before I’ll let your steam drill beat me down, I’ll die with my hammer in my hand! O Lord!

Die with a hammer in my hand!”

Bridge John Henry got his thirty pound hammer, and by that steam drill he did stand.

And he beat that steam drill three inches down, then he died with his hammer in his hand! O Lord!

Died with his hammer in his hand!

Verse 3: They carried John Henry to the graveyard and they buried him underneath the sand.

And every locomotive goes a roaring by says “There lies a steel driving man! O Lord!

There lies a steel driving man!”

Repeated Section: Hammer in hand, he’s a steel driving man. The legend of John Henry!

Mighty and strong, he could work all day long. The legend of John Henry!

Coda

Casey Jones

Listen to the song here!

Jonathan Luther “John” “Casey” Jones was a railroad conductor who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad. On   April 30, 1900, he was killed when his passenger train, the Cannonball Express, collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi, on a foggy and rainy night. He died while trying to stall the train and save the lives of his passengers, which made him a hero. He was immortalized in a popular ballad sung by his friend Wallace Saunders, an African-American engine wiper for the IC.

Lyrics

Verse 1: Come all you rounders that want to hear the story of a brave engineer.

Casey Jones was the rounder’s name, on a sixty-eight wheeler he won his fame.

Verse 2: The called Casey at half-past four, he kissed his wife at the station door.

He mounted to the cabin with the orders in his hand, and he took his farewell trip to the promised land.

Chorus: Casey Jones, mounted to his cabin,

Casey Jones, with his orders in his hand,

Casey Jones, mounted to his cabin and he took his farewell trip to the promised land.

Hear that train a comin? “Whoo-hoo!” X2

Verse 3:Casey, he rounded the corner that day, he didn’t know another train was bound that way.

The two trains collided with an awful roar and the sixty-eight wheeler, it would run no more.

Chorus

Verse 4: Now Casey Jones is lookin’ down from up above, he sees the trains and friends and family that he loved.

He wouldn’t trade the way he lived or that last ride, Casey loved to drive a train until the day he died!

Chorus and Coda

Solfege

In music class this year we will rely heavily on the use of solfege, a teaching technique developed by Kodaly for understanding musical notes and their relationship to each other. The solfege scale is made up of different syllables which correspond to a note on the major scale.

The scale from bottom to top is as follows. Try singing and matching the syllables with the hand signs.

Do    Re    Mi     Fa    So    La    Ti    Do

For your use, I have included a chart and a video to help you learn the solfege notes!

Welcome!

Welcome to 2nd grade music!
Are you ready for an exciting new year of discovery and adventure?

In 2nd grade music class this year we will be learning many new things about music, building off of everything we learned in 1st grade last year. We will learn how to read music by understanding notes, rests, musical punctuation, and the solfege scale. We will learn to recognize the instruments of the orchestra by sight and by sound. We will listen to many beautiful works of music throughout history and we will learn about the composers who wrote those works. We will also have the opportunity to perform in concert with the Kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 3rd graders at the end of the semester. This blog will help keep you updated on what we are learning in music class and will have some materials to help reinforce what we have learned.

Musical Movies List

In class we have the opportunity to listen to great works of the classical tradition. Several of these great works have been set to animation and/or captured on video. I would like to show our students these video recordings in an effort to enrich their experience and understanding of those great works. The works that we will be viewing in class are as follows.

• "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" by J.S. Bach from Disney's Fantasia
• "Pastoral Symphony" by Ludwig von Beethoven from Disney's Fantasia
• “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas from Disney’s Fantasia
• “Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saens from Disney’s Fantasia 2000
• “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin from Disney’s Fantasia 2000
• “Peter and the Wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev from Disney’s Make Mine Music
• The Magic Flute an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, selections
• The Marriage of Figaro an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, selections
• Hansel und Gretel an opera by Engelbert Humperdinck
• The Nutcracker a ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographed by George Balanchine
• Swan Lake a ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

I will send home a permission slip for all of the students that I would like signed before I show them these works. If you have an objection to any of the works, please let me know so that I may exempt them from watching that selection