Term 1 has been a very exciting term of growth within the music program from new staff, new students, new instruments being offered to a new building. This theme of ‘new’ has excited all the staff and students preparing for a big year ahead full of events, learning and musical enjoyment that is all building to a head towards the end of term 1.

We have expanded our team with the introduction of Terri McPhail specializing in woodwind teaching students a variety of instruments, Greenvale is lucky to have such an experienced specialist in instrumental music and are excited for the new range of instruments being offered at the college. We have had classroom demonstrations where Ms McPhail has come around to different classes playing songs and demonstrating various instruments on offer at the college, which excited the students and received many applications for students to expand their horizons to new and interesting musical instruments.

Greenvale Secondary College welcomed Yamaha Music to the school with more demonstrations of instruments on offer thanks to the Yamaha grant the school received. A group of professional musicians joined together to form a band and played for the schools Year 7 BBQ Welcome Evening. It was an exciting time for students who brought their parents to the school and had the opportunity to sit down with a professional musician from Yamaha and try out different instruments that they may be interested in pursuing. The school thanks Yamaha for coming down and building the instrumental music program alongside the college.

Mr Hammond has continued the fantastic work on stringed instruments with the guitar being a very popular instrument amongst year 7s and the violin taking off as a very popular instrument as well. Benjamin, Blake and Wez are continuing their hard work from last year with their small trio learning, practicing and performing together different songs from different genres expanding their musical vocabulary as they work together collaboratively to create some amazing pieces to soon be performed. Music captains Leyla Saylik and Madison Murray have contributed a lot to the program this year helping out setting up and packing down assemblies using their prior knowledge of music technology, they have helped to create an amazing culture within the program leading from the front in addition to their own private practice and lessons with Leyla being a prominent role of the musical theatre enhancement helping both year 7s and year 8s become better musicians, singers and actors.

Mr Rocek has continued to develop the instrumental and classroom music programs at the college with students in year 7 learning to play the piano in the classroom and developing their theoretical and practical music skills. In instrumental drum lessons students have been learning basic beats and rhythms and applying them to the drumkit using their hands and feet to play various rhythms and notes. Osman has excelled in his lessons with some of the songs he’s working on, Caught Up by Usher which features multiple polyrhythms between hands and feet as well as hits throughout the song. We are very excited about the future of the drum students and hope to continue the hard work so that students can develop their skills and play with other musicians in ensemble groups as they learn new songs to play for audiences.

The instrumental music program is moving forward at a rapid pace and we are so grateful for our teachers who put in so much effort and work. We always welcome new students into the program and always are looking for students on Brass and Woodwind instruments to further excel our program to make it the best program in the area. If you would like to join the program feel free to speak to any of the music staff for a sign form for instrumental music and we would love to have you join us. Thank you to all the parents for all your support in helping the students practice and realize their dreams.