The Week Ahead | September 12-16

Mira Mesa orchestra students will be wrapping up the basic theory review this week. Obviously the Period 2 class (Symphony Orchestra) is responsible for more material than students in Periods 3&4 (Concert Orchestra). Additionally, the three basic forms are due by Friday. Again, the forms are the Course Syllabus Signature Page, the Media & Communication Form, and the Medical Form. No student will be issued an instrument until these forms are returned and checked in. These forms also count as the first quiz grade of the semester. All of these documents are available here. 

The music theory quiz on Friday will cover note and rest durations, reading clefs (treble, alto, and bass), dynamics, time signatures, and some other basic terminology. All material will have been covered previously in the worksheets that were completed and reviewed in class - please use the worksheets to guide your preparation.

In order to give students some more practice, here are some exercises I customized to meet our needs:

• Period 2 - Practice reading treble, alto, and bass clefs here.
• Periods 3 & 4 - Practice reading the three clefs here.

For some extra review and practice, here are some very nice online lessons on The Staff & Clefs, Note Duration, Rest Duration, and Time Signatures.

Finally, we need to settle our instrumentation. If you have a school instrument that you borrowed over the summer, please make sure that it is returned to school so we can get an accurate inventory accounting for this year's instrumental loans.