How to Practice at Home

Looking to prepare for the Winter Concert?

Well, after Santa leaves, why not go to the Mather Orchestra Soundcloud page and practice along with the recordings.

I just put up a new recording of Slavonic Legend.

Here's a new one of Pachelbel Canon

How about Sad Violin from Final Fantasy X

Viol Boogie is here

Practice Hallelujah at home!

Happy Practicing!!!

Convert your cellphone video into something that is more useful

If you have an Android phone (like me) you may have been surprised to learn that the format in which your phone makes a video is not recognized by Windows Movie Maker. My video ended up in a .gp format. I needed it in as an .mp4. Here's how to convert it....

 

Get your video off of your phone

Here is how to get your video off of your phone and on to your computer for the Mather Orchestra Video Project...

 

That Guitar Hero type violin thing....

Here is one of those videos that I showed in class the other day. There are a million more from this guy. It's Hallelujah from Shrek.

 

New Fiddle Tune

If you are trying to figure out the latest fiddle tune that the advanced orchestra learned by ear... here's some help

 

I WANT A VIOLIN

So you want to buy an instrument... As you probably know, you can spend as little as 100 bucks on an instrument and as much as a million. Literally. There are instruments which are valued upwards of a million dollars.

Here is a beginner violin outfit from a reputable online music company that you can look at.

Violn at Shar.com

I have used the website to purchase some of the instruments that we have at school. When you buy an instrument from a company, or an individual for that matter, you want to make sure that it says OUTFIT. Outfit means that the instrument comes with a bow and a case. Otherwise, you are just buying the instrument itself.

If you are going to buy an instrument, please come and talk to me first. Often, when people just buy the cheapest instrument that they can find, it is very unsatisfying for them beacuse they get an instrument that sounds crappy, is hard to play and doesn't last very long. Sometimes spending just a little bit more is much better in the long run.

From the Advanced Google PD

Here is a refresher about how to use Google Forms to create quizzes and the cool Floobaroo addon to grade them...