In this ever changing world, now, more than ever, we feel close to other cultures and peoples, so it is paramount that we learn not only to respect others but also learn how to appreciate and cherish other people’s identity and ways of life.
Music has always been a good window through which, we can see one another and understand the nature of a civilization.
We, as human beings, have been using music to express ourselves, to worship our gods, to go to battle, to celebrate life and death, to demonstrate hatred or love and even to help us connect with our inner selves.
In line with our IB philosophy, our music department uses music as a means to take our students through a discovery journey. Students learn about the music of the world and how it reflects a specific people and culture, and in doing so, they learn how we are all connected.
When learning about Samba and Latin music, they discover that African music has massively influenced these styles and they get fascinated with the fact Jazz, Blues and Rock have also been influenced by the rich African continent, and as a consequence, everything else they listen to nowadays.
Going through Asia, they discover that Thai Gamelan has many similarities with Chinese music and that the latter also has similarities in instruments and musical features with Japanese Music.
The IB profile BCB’s students carry, however, takes them even further investigating not only music but also current technologies pertinent to the modern world. They take a huge advantage of this knowledge by combining their musical discoveries with modern production techniques. They created top class Jingles for products they created, they composed music for film, using their musical knowledge and the technology they have at hand. As another example, Y8 students are now learning about Minimalistic music and composing a piece in the same style, using the cutting edge software Garageband.
In this virtual world we are living now, we risk finding ourselves further and further apart from each other, with less interactions and conversations, therefore, our music department promotes virtual interaction where students share with their classmates, songs that are meaningful to them, and as we are a proud international community, we get to listen to music from different perspectives.
Our department values cross-curricular activities, so Y7 students worked on a Samba project, which required them to create their own Samba instruments, in order to enable them to play at home.
Moving forward, as the world slowly begins to get back together, we are thankful that music always has and always will unite us.
Check these amazing Jingles created by our Y8
Y8 Jingles Project
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UuW6LKEnlgLHCxVhDJa92M-DIzd2OC1I/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N7c7XmjXfdb1p6s9lAKrdoccWdDkaV1f/view?usp=sharing
They used Garabend, mixing MIDI and Audio
Check out this amazing soundtrack created by Y9 students
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OD95NasdKAVFLGgaLf-1MJolZadWr_6F/view?usp=sharing
