Grier School has a rich tradition of academics, art and music due to the mixture of cultures the students bring with them from all over the world.
\nHead of the music department Barbara Lang is fortunate enough to work with a variety of students with different musical talents and abilities, from those who have never sang or played a musical instrument before to those who will be studying at internationally known colleges and universities after high school graduation.
\nAbout one-third of the students at Grier are involved in an aspect of the music program which includes: the large choir, rock band, instrumental ensemble, triple trio choir, private voice lessons and private instrumental lessons. Lang teaches voice, wood winds, drums and clarinet, while music teacher Kelly Howdyshell teaches guitar, piano, trumpet and violin. Part-time staff member Agatha Lang teaches flute and advanced piano while Darcy Wilson teaches voice lessons.
\nAll of the musical ensembles perform concerts throughout the school year either for the faculty and students at Grier School, or sometimes there are concerts open to the public. Also, the triple trio choir is a group of nine girls that travels to places outside of the school to sing, and they will be performing next at the Epworth Manor.
\nThe music teachers are flexible during their lessons since there is such a range of musical abilities amongst the students. However, there are some common chords, especially with voice lessons.
\n\u201cFor a voice lesson we do vocal warm-up exercises for the first part of the lesson to learn how to project tone and how to enunciate words and breathe correctly, the basic techniques of singing,\u201d said Lang. \u201cThe second part of the lesson we sing songs. I usually let them choose some that they like, and I choose some I think are good for them.\u201d
\nInstrumental lessons are different in a couple of ways. There are a variety of musical instruments that students are interested in playing from the piano to the guitar. Also, if a student is extremely advanced or if a student plays an instrument that one of the teachers is not familiar with, a teacher from outside of the school will be sought.
\nAnother aspect of the music program is musical theater, which is a long-running tradition at Grier School. Lang works in conjunction with the head of the art department, Laurie Cave to produce a children\u2019s musical in which the students of Grier perform the play to different elementary schools and at other events. This year\u2019s production is \u201cTom Sawyer.\u201d
\nLang feels there are many strong points to the music program at Grier School. However, the most important aspect is how the music seems to bring everyone together and how it gives the students a chance to feel good about something they are producing.
\n\u201cIt gives the students a chance to excel at something, especially the girls who don\u2019t speak English very well and who are thrown into these classrooms where they\u2019re struggling to understand the language,\u201d said Lang. \u201cThis is a common language. Music is a common language. For the girls who don\u2019t speak English, we can communicate with them through the music and give them an opportunity to do something well and feel good about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grier School has a rich tradition of academics, art and music due to the mixture of cultures the students bring with them from all over the world. Head of the music department Barbara Lang is fortunate enough to work with a variety of students with different musical talents and abilities, from those who have never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}