Students mesmerized by Pianafiddle show

April 30, 2009|By HEATHER KEELS

HAGERSTOWN -- More than 1,000 local elementary school students got to join in on a song by the musical duo Pianafiddle at The Maryland Theatre Thursday morning as part of a lesson on musical improvisation.

"What we do is we take a piece of music that you recognize, and then we change it up," violinist Adam DeGraff told the children. "It's like decorating something."

So while the students sang the traditional melody of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," DeGraff and pianist Lynn Wright transformed the tune into a catchy, upbeat song with improvised melodic variations.

Their performance, filled with minimusic lessons from DeGraff, mesmerized the students, many of whom clapped along with the faster songs and wiggled to the music in their seats.

Theater and school officials got their own lesson in improvisation when they realized the concert field trip accidentally had been overbooked.

The Hagerstown Community Concert Association, which organized the concert, invited public and private school schools to send their students, but the person who invited the private schools did not know the concert was for grades kindergarten through three, association President Margaret Wagner said.

The result was a packed house, with every balcony and box seat filled and some children left standing, until St. Mary School took its sixth- through eighth-graders back to class.

The public school students included classes from 16 Washington County elementary schools.

Musical lessons incorporated into the show included the difference between melody, rhythm and harmony, and the ways musicians can improvise with each component.

The students also learned the definition of a waltz rhythm and how to count time with emphasis on different beats for waltz, rock and Southern gospel beats.

The concert association tries to coordinate at least two educational outreach events for area students each year, Wagner said.

"We feel it's just so important that they have the experience of live performance of good music," she said.

This fall, the association plans to send a group of brass musicians to educate middle and high school students in Boonsboro.

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