Marimba Project School Assembly at Crawford Montessori

This fun and upbeat in-school assembly is designed to inspire students with music. Seven local professional musicians, music teachers and students, led by David Alderdice, will demonstrate the fun of playing in a music ensemble with a full funky world-beat marimba band. The program will include lively marimba ensemble music stemming mainly from South African and South American cultures. If you are not familiar with marimbas, think big (sometimes really big) beautiful sounding wooden xylophones. Our marimba ensemble consists of 2 sopranos, an alto, a tenor, a baritone, and a (really big) bass marimba providing a four and a half octave range. This style of marimba originated in Zimbabwe. We sometimes accompany our marimbas with tasty percussion or drumset. The musicians will demonstrate and discuss how music works, the necessity of working together as team, and the awareness of how all the parts interact with each other and together create the music. They will share information about the different roles within music (rhythm, melody, and harmony) and, time permitting, will talk about and/or demonstrate the different roles that music has taken historically (entertainment, healing, storytelling, ceremonial, expressive, intimidative, communicative, etc..) as well as answer related questions from the students.  The musicians will also share with the students information about other musical instruments (besides the marimbas), life as a musician, music as an occupation, and the opportunities we have here right now in the Valley for inspired students to learn, explore, and enjoy music.