Category: Music Therapy

Music Therapy

Music With Emmeline – Monday 23rd March

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Hello everyone

The aim for the next while is to bring you two musical videos each day.  These will feature a daily extract from a Makaton song, building up to the entire song by the end of the week as well as musical games, soundscapes, interactive musical stories and activities.

Here are today’s videos.

Vocal Warm Up:  The Little Man

Each Monday we will be sharing a different vocal warm up for you to use throughout the week.  Today is the story of the Little Man.

The little man goes for a walk and he comes to a lift.  He presses the button and goes up in the lift.  Once he is at the top of the building, he puts on his parachute and jumps off the building!  Luckily there is a trampoline on the ground which he lands on…

Can you think of anything else to add to the story?

Donald Far’s Yer Troosers: Part 1 – Chorus

This term the Makaton Choir have been learning a variety of Scottish songs to sing and sign initiated by our Burns Night celebrations.  Now it is time for our pupils to refresh theses songs and teach their parents, carers and family.  Today we are learning the chorus.

Let the winds blow high

Let the winds blow low

Down the street in my kilt I go

All the lassies say hello

Donald far’s yer troosers?

Making Music In Room 3

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The pupils from Room 3 have been enjoying making music both at music therapy and in class. The pupils have all been exploring music in ways specific to them. This has involved playing hand-held percussion instruments, singing, playing the piano and also walking on the floor piano! The pupils have been engaging in a variety of pupil led and specific ways in music therapy and these have been reiterated in class during a variety of activities! Emmeline is looking forward to continuing making music with Room 3!

 

Using Figure Notes In Music Therapy

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Some of our pupils have been learning to play piano with our music therapist Emmeline using the Drake Music programme ‘Figure Notes’.

Figure notes uses colours and shapes to help facilitate people to learn music in a different way. Our pupils have experienced a wonderful sense of pride learning to play; ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, ‘Frere Jacque’ and ‘Ode to Joy’.

 

Orchard Brae Christmas Fair

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A huge Thank You to all those who attended the Fair, Stallholders, Raffle ticket purchasers, bakers and those that manned the stalls, made cheese toasties, cups of tea and coffee or wrapped presents.

Also a big Thank You to Emmeline and our amazing Makaton Choir who wonderfully entertained the crowd with their Christmas songs. They were obviously all enjoying themselves.

It was wonderful to see so many people there and the Friends of Orchard Brae are delighted to announce that the grand total of £4,200 has been raised. We hope the Fair started off everyone’s Christmas celebrations and some presents were purchased or raffles won.

Makaton At Orchard Brae

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Following on from our successful launch of the Makaton Taster Session for Santa’s, Aberdeen City Health And Social Care Partnership, released this wonderful video.

It contains interviews with our music therapist, Emmeline as well as our colleagues in Speech Therapy and of course, footage of our amazing Makaton Minis and Makaton Choir.

 

 

Tuesday Music Group – Cancelled

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Unfortunately there will be no Tuesday Night Music Group at Orchard Brae Tonight.

Apologies for the inconvenience and we look forward to seeing you all next week.

Creative Learning Award for the Makaton Choir

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We were delighted to be invited to the Aberdeen City Council Children and Young People’s Services Awards today which were held at the Beach Ballroom.

Arriving at the Beach Ballroom

The Makaton Choir, led by Emmeline, our Music Therapist, had been nominated for the Creative Learning Award. There was tough competition with two other schools nominated so we were delighted when Orchard Brae were announced as the winners.

Our Makaton Choir delegation with the Lord Provost

Well done to our senior pupils for representing the school today. It was wonderful to be present at the Ceremony, celebrating learning and achievements from across the City. Congratulations to everyone that was nominated!

The obligatory Awards Selfie

Our Certificate and Award

Our Musical Activities Week

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At the end of term, we had our annual activities week, which was kindly organised by Emmeline, our Music Therapist.  The week had the focus of exploring our right to access different genres of music, and what an exciting week it was!

On Monday, we were joined by Amy Strachan, a soprano singer and the B Naturals choir.  Both completely captivated us with their amazing vocal talents and many pupils continued to explore the operatic genre throughout the week in their classes.

On Tuesday morning there was lots of fun as we played and danced along with the Aberdeen Strathspey And Reel Society, listening to a range of traditional Scottish tunes and dancing a few reels too!  In the afternoon we were joined by the Confucius Institute who performed some popular Chinese songs as well as one from a Chinese opera as well.  Both of these groups allowed us to investigate and have a go at playing their instruments and well all loved the Chinese harp and flute as well as the fiddle and accordion.  It was a fantastic day allowing us to explore music from two very distinct and different cultures.

On Wednesday, we were entertained by Duncan and Bill who performed a range of folk music for us.  The hall was full to the brim and everyone had a brilliant time listening to Duncan and Bill’s wide variety of music.

On Thursday, we had hoped to have a picnic in the park but unfortunately the Scottish weather had other ideas!  Instead we had an improvised fourth of July picnic in the hall with musical accompaniments from the Fyvie Folk Club.  The Folk Club played a wide variety of music and their leader Bernie had even written us a specific song and poem in the spot!

On Friday we rounded off our musical activities week with a Makaton sing-a-long in the morning and a disco in the afternoon.

It was a truly magical and musical week which gave all the students (and staff!) the opportunity to experience a wide range of music genres and we all discovered something new and exciting.  A huge thank you to all of our special guests and performers and thank you to Emmeline for organising such an amazing experience for us.