Welcome to the Red Creek Central Schools' Music Dept.!
On this website, you will find Red Creek Music news, performance/fundraiser calendars, and resources for choir/band/NYSSMA. This website is for students, families, and the Red Creek Central Schools to keep up-to-date with all music activities. We encourage you to contact us with any questions, concerns, or just to say hello!
There are so many exciting things happening in the Music Department. Photos are coming soon!
Email Update 3/20
We've made it through week one of distance learning! I hope you're all well and finding ways to take care of yourselves. I wanted to answer a few frequently asked questions, give suggestions, and give shout-outs for the week. Before I do, I have some thoughts about music during this strange time. (TLDR: Take care of yourselves via the arts!)
I know everyone has priorities other than music; even during normal school years. The Regents exams aren't going to disappear, COVID-19 isn't going away quickly, and concerns over college are now even more complicated. The reason I encourage you to continue making music isn't because I think chorus is the best way to pass your tests; it's because music is one amazing way to find peace and joy. Right now, everyone is going to feel more anxious, tense, isolated, listless, and scared than maybe ever before. We need ways to keep ourselves healthy- not just physically. When you feel this way, I encourage you to take a break from your ever-present priorities and take time for YOU. Listen to music that makes you feel something, watch live/recorded performances, draw and paint, bake and cook, hum a tune while you take a walk, sing for your siblings, make a musical tiktok, turn up your music and just sing your heart out, learn a new song on an instrument, just do SOMETHING that actively brings you joy. Watching TV or scrolling through Insta may calm you down too, but remember that sitting still for a long time will enhance exhaustion and negativity. That's why I've given you so many assignment options- not because I expect you to pretend like we're still having chorus class or because I want to force you to memorize music, but because I want you to have options when you need a break from Algebra or English or everything/everyone else. Use music and the arts to stay YOU. I care for you all so much and wish only the best for you & your families.
Please reach out to me ANY time you have a question, concern, or just want someone to talk to. It won't be a bother at all- most of my social interactions are with my students, and without seeing my students, I too have limited social contact now! I'd love to chat with you, host a voice/piano lesson, or give you new songs to look up!
With love, Ms. White
KUDOS 1) Shout-out to Lilliana Holmes for being the FIRST person to submit a flipgrid video! 2) Shout-out to Tyler Bogart for submitting the most chorus work this week! (2 practice logs, 1 sight reading, 1 eval) 3) Shout-out to Middle School Chorus for doing the most work out of the choruses this week!
FAQs 1) What theory packet are you talking about? Most of you didn't get the packet- on Tuesday it sounds like in the chaos, no one put my box of theory booklets with the main packet in the chorus room. This is also available on my Choir Resources page, or you can learn basically the same things on musictheory.net. If you don't have internet or a lot of data, try a different optional activity.
2) How do I know if I got the sight reading right? I send you feedback via Flipgrid.com that goes to your email. My main suggestions are: Warm up by singing a solfege scale first. Pick a Do that works in your voice. Practice the jumps first. ALSO: use the code f3zztt to get a student account on Sightreadingfactory.com. This lets you actually listen to the sight singing as you practice!!
3) I'm really overwhelmed right now, do I have to do chorus work this week? No. If doing chorus work will make you more stressed, you can put it off for next week. All I really ask is you practice and find enjoyment in singing ABOUT twice a week. I would really love you to do all the work I assigned, but again, I understand the circumstances- do what you can.
4) What happens if I do ALL the work you assigned us? You get full participation points, extra credit (up to 100%), and if you do literally ALL the assignments, I'll get you a prize! It may be a cake, candy, giftcard, supplies (anyone need toilet paper?), etc. which I'll give you if/when I see you again, or via mail.
SUGGESTIONS!! 1) Warm up with a SCALE and familiar warm ups first- these will help you stay in tune because they're so stuck in your head by now. Make sure you stretch too!
2) Practice songs with the links on my website. It's hard to stay in tune, and hard to find your pitches if you don't have the melody, when you're guesstimating a cappella. You can hit play on just your part OR the whole song for pretty much all the chorus songs at redcreekmusic.weebly.com/choir-resources.html
3) Record at least 1 minute (preferably 3-5m) for Flipgrid songs- this helps you work on transitions between stuff you know and stuff you're improving.
4) Give yourself a break- if you listen to yourself and aren't satisfied, remember your circumstances and that you are singing alone without me playing/singing with you. It's okay to be imperfect! When we get back together, we'll be ready to rock & roll!
If you read this far, YOU'RE THE BEST!!!!!!!!!! I love you all so much, truly. I'm tearing up just writing this for you guys because I miss you so much. Stay sane and healthy, everyone!! <3 Ms. White
Message from Dean Karl Paulnack of Ithaca College
A letter to my faculty, and perhaps to any of you who carry music. My dear fellow musicians, This is a fable, a myth, a story about a junior composition major at a conservatory in the 1920’s. Let’s call him “Oliver.” Oliver had a composition teacher who was very wise, because not only was she a great musician and teacher, she was also psychic. She could see things before they happened. Here's a piece of the script from that movie: Oliver: I have the idea for my senior capstone project! It is a great orchestral piece, with organ, and carillon, and a chorus, a magnificent work! [pause] Teacher: Actually your senior capstone project will be for only four instruments. [full stop] Oliver: Really. Which four? Teacher: You won’t know until you get to the performance venue. Oliver: Really. How big is the stage? Teacher: There won’t be a stage. It’s outdoors. Oliver: I see. Is there a piano? Teacher: Yes, but not all the keys work. Oliver: Really. Which ones don’t work? Teacher: It changes day by day. You won’t actually know until the performance. Oh, and none of the other instruments will be fully functional either, but we don’t know how yet. Oliver: I see. This sounds really attractive so far. Anything else I should know? Teacher: Yes. You will be surrounded by people who are dying, hundreds every day. There won’t be any sense of “fair”, no basic human rights, no privileges, no “normal.” You won’t be able to expect food, for example. You might find it hard to focus. It will be distracting to work. [full stop] Oliver: I cannot do my work under those circumstances. It’s impossible for me to create anything worthwhile with those restrictions. I have standards. Teacher: Actually, it will only be possible for you to create this work under those circumstances. The restrictions are by design. Oliver: I won’t compromise. Music must be of a certain quality. I can’t and won’t compromise my art. I’m not interested in creating trash. Teacher: Actually, this piece will be one of the greatest pieces of music ever composed in all of history. It will be revered! Oliver: HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? Teacher: It’s not possible! That’s why the whole thing works!
This movie, Before the End of Time, is of course the “prequel” to a true story, a story in which young Oliver is played by the actor Olivier Messiaen and the “capstone project” is the Quartet for the End of Time. The “concert hall” is a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Germany. You and I are on the eve of a great battle, an event that will change our world. Unlike Oliver’s teacher, I am not psychic, and I cannot see the future. Like you, however, I am the holder of 50,000 years of shared practice, and there are certain things that are about to happen, and we already know what those are. What has always been normal, ordinary, will become in many cases impossible. The most ordinary things—picking up frozen peas at Wegmans—have become impossible. When the ordinary becomes impossible, what was previously impossible manifests. Disruption produces transformation. The impossible suddenly becomes practical. I, like you, have been up many nights this week struggling with the reality that some things we do, we might continue to do, but many will become impossible. The limitations will be significant. Some things I can’t even imagine, yet. I feel like young Oliver might have felt. But because we have 50,000 years of experience at this, there are a few things we can stand on. If you carry your practice, your practice will carry you. If you hold music, it will hold you. There is no circumstance in which this is not true. It is true at the moment of our birth and the moment of our death, and true at every point in between. It was true ten hours after the buildings fell on 9/11. It was true when Haiti earthquake survivors were found singing in the rubble by first responders who came to dig them out in the hours before dawn. It was true when our students in Boston, knocked out by the blast of a bomb and waking up next to an amputated limb, made a music video 24 hours later to hold their experience. It is true today for Italians in quarantine, dying in record numbers, singing together with their neighbors from their open windows. Some things we ordinarily do will indeed be impossible. No one expects you to do the impossible, certainly not me. When something you ordinarily do becomes impossible, let it go! But let it go with open arms so that the impossible can find its way in. Like Messiaen, you might suddenly find yourself bringing the impossible to life. FEMA will not bring music. (I’m not entirely certain what FEMA plans to bring, but I am entirely certain it will not be music.) In all of the circumstances I describe above, music arrived before FEMA did. Within hours. In some cases music held survivors until help arrived, and I have no doubt this will be the case now. In dire cases, music may be the only form of help that arrives. Carry your practice. That which is ordinary may no longer be possible. That which was previously impossible will become real. You carry 50,000 years of group practice, embedded in you by your teacher and your teachers’ teacher. I am no psychic, but we have done this thing before many, many times before, and this will not be our last. Carry this practice, and this practice will carry you. Help people carry music. There is no question of “If” there will be music in the next 8 weeks. There is only the question of where, how, and by whom. May it be us. Carry your practice! With tremendous reverence and great affection, Karl Karl Paulnack Dean School of Music Ithaca College"
COVID-19 Update
Due to recent health concerns, our district will be closed from 3/18-4/13. All Ms. White's classes will use a physical packet and/or this website while we are out of school. Please click on CHOIR, CHOIR RESOURCES, or GENERAL MUSIC to find details about your assignments.
Additionally, PLEASE JOIN REMIND!!!! MS Chorus: Text @h9gkfa to the phone number 81010 HS Chorus: Text @ke74h2 to the phone number 81010 Select Choir: Text @k3kah to the phone number 81010