One week later, Thursday the 15th of April at 8 o`clock we had to come together by the tram stop at the Marne, from there we would go to the Concert Building in Amsterdam with tram 51. After 20 minutes we took another tram, tram 5. After antother 2o minutes we entered the Concert Building, a building where I was too scared to touch anything because it all looked very expensive. We dropped our jackets and bags, and in the "pleinfoyer" we met our teachers for these two days, who were called Hannah, Jayne (she was my favourite teacher!), Jackie, Keith and Marga. Marga didn't teach us music; she was only there to see if we behaved us well. And of course we did! After Hannah introduced herself we introduced ourself as well., we had to say our names and had to show something that was really 'ours'; like wearing dirty shoes, chewing gum and having long dark hair. I wore lime-green pants, and my nickname was after that moment "Lime Kim". It was suprising to see how quickly Hannah learned our names! After that we learned a song with some movements, like clapping with your hands on your legs to make a certain melody. When we all knew that song we could make our own melody by clapping with your hands on your legs, and with 4 different melodies with the whole group, and later on we were split up again and we could make this music on instruments instead of our legs, because they started to hurt. When we all practised this we had some music theory, which was not so interested fo me because I don't know anything about tri-tones, Devil's intervals and all those things. Afterwards we had a break for an hour, we went to the Museumplein to rob the whole Albert Heijn and visit the P.C. Hoofdstraat, to check out all the expensive prizes! After the break we did some vocal work, first we sang, "My Bonnie is over the ocean" what was a quite cool song, but after that we had to sing melody with only "lalala" what was less interesting to sing. But, not everything at school has to be fun! Later that afternoon we had to make from a small music part with only four notes a bigger music part, with twelve notes. In fact, we had to 'unfold'the sheet with music on it so we could read more and more notes. At 3 o'clock we took the tram home where everybody went to their bed really early, because the next day we would have such a heavy day as well. . . .
The second day, Friday, was pretty much the same; we practised our music from yesterday, and also another play, the 'scary movie part'. In this music play we used 'scary' sounds what could be useful in a scary movie. In this music play we used 'footsteps', 'characters'(like a scary small man) and tri-tones. when we all could play this we sticked it on the other part from yesterday and we practised our vocal work again. After our break (when we went to the Albert Heijn again!) we practised it all once more and afterwards we recorded it, which was fun to do, but it was less fun that you had to be really silent, because everything you did (like moving on your chair) would be recorded. We recorded our part twice, afterwards we listened to it an it sounded pretty good, except for some whispering between it. Later on we got instructions about Monday that was D-day. We had a drink and took the tram back to Amstelveen...
Monday we first had our regular school schedule, and after the 2nd break we took trams to the Concert Building. There we took a drink and half an hour after we arrived there as a concert of the CBSO, a British Symphony. It was interesting to listen to this type of music; it's really different if you compare it to Eminem or Kylie Minogue! After the rehearsal of the CBSO, we rehearsed as well, but before we could do that everybody had to search for their instruments, which wasn't easy as it seemed to be because all the instruments were moved!
After the final rehearsal other children from different music schools practised, and at 5:30 the final play was there: people were watching us: like parents, brothers and sisters, teachers from school and our rector, Mr. Liefaard. Our play went really well, and afterwards a steward gave us a big red rose, which was for me the best of our play! After us the children of the music schools played, and we realised that their level was 'a little bit'higher than ours. . .
Anyway, I didn't expect a lot of "making music in the Concert Building", but I had a nice time, and a lot of fun and maybe now I know a little more about music than before! Thanks to everybody who made this possible, especially our music teachers at school, and Hannah, Jaynie, Keith and Jackie. Thanks!!!!!
Kim Holla klas 2B