Inventing new bizarre Instrument

 Hello everyone.

This week in counting the beat, e are focusing on unusual instruments. These instruments might be a combination of both instruments or make a different kind of sounds from different genres. 

My instrument are from the string and the percussion family. I was inspired by a guitar. It is sometimes used in a percussion way by slamming on the body of the guitar. I decided to do a string instrument with another percussion instrument. I decided to do a harp because it makes a really light and harmonic sound. Though it was difficult for me to think of a light sounded percussion instrument. Then I though of a xylophone it has a pitch sound that can merge with the harp and make a beautiful noise. 

My instrument is called a Xyloharp. I decided to name it this because the instrument is base on wood which is what 'xylo' meant. Xylophones are originally made from wood so I decided to keep its originality. The harp is portable so its not that big. The xylophone is attached to the side and play by your ring and pinkie finger. On those fingers a little xylophone stick is attached on. I also added my cultural pattern on the harp to resemble the creator (Me). 

The instrument will be used for light music as it makes quite relaxing sounds from both instruments.  

Here is a picture of my instrument:

Thank you for reading this blog post.

What instruments would you have merged together?

Invention Poster

Good day everyone.

For this week on inventions we have been making posters about Kiwi inventions. I did a poster about 'woman voting'. It shows when, where, how it was invented. Woman voting was a movement/invention that was made by New Zealanders and mainly women. I decided to make a poster about women voting since 'International Woman's day was only weeks ago. 

Here is my poster:

Thank you for reading this blog post.

What kiwi invention do you know?

What do you think of the women right movement?

Kiwi Inventions

 Hello everyone.

For the past few week in Hurumanu 3 we have been learning about kiwi inventors/inventions. We had to research more about kiwi inventions and choose 3 inventions and do activities that were required. The three slides that I chose were, the spring free trampoline, woman voting and the electric fence. 

The invention that I was more curious about was the electric fence. I never knew that New Zealand created the electric fence. After reading info about the kiwi inventor and their invention we had to do an activity that was tasked on each slide. For the electric fence I had to make a video/ad that supports the electric fence I 'designed'. 

Here are some electric fence facts:

- Bill Gallagher was the one who invented the electric fence

- The electricity runs on a current and travels through each line making a negative energy and will shock the animal.

- Bill Gallagher was inspired by his horse's problem with its itchy back.

Here is my slide:

Thank you for reading this blog post.

Do you more inventions from New Zealand?

Drama Perfomances

 Hello everyone.

This week on drama we have been organising our performances with masks. We could choose any kind of scenes that we were going to act out. Our group decided to act a scene about a family watching a movie. The problem was that the little sister was having tantrum but later on solved throughout the act. 

We had a little bit of problems behind the scenes for example finding prop or costumes. We also had a little bit of problem with planing out our act and all agreeing to the same thing.

Here is the video:

 

Thank you for reading this blog post.

Have you performed in drama before? If so then what kind of act did you perform?

Believer STOMP project

 Bonjour, everyone.

This week on counting the beat we have been learning about percussion music and what it is. Percussion music is about hitting an object with/against another with a degree of force. There are many instruments that can be used as percussion music, such as drums, gongs, bells, cymbals etc.

We also have been learning about body percussion. Body percussion is an art of striking the body and many different ways and it makes a various of sound. 

We then have to get into a group and choose a song to add beats in it. Our group's instruments are unique compared to others. Thanks to our wonderful classmate who brought kitchen supplies for our group to make various sounds. The music we decided to add beats to was, 'Believer'. There were many different tools we used for making music. Some of them were an abacus, a long stick, a wooden spoon and our feet.

Here are some videos showing percussion music.

Here is the link for our video performance:

The video link

Thank you for reading this blog post.

What instruments would you have chosen as an example of percussion music?

Email to my Hero

 Hello everyone,

This week in hurumanu1 we have been focusing on writing an email. The email is only pretend because you don't want to disturb your "hero" or they might already passed. Of course when writing to our heroes we don't want to be embarrassed about your writing because of you mistakes. So we had to know what we needed to get better at for writing. We had a little bit of practice by working on a narrative task about a pretend hero. After knowing what we needed to work on for our email we then start to write a message to our hero. My email concluded many questions about their actions. 

Here is the email and the narrative task:

Thank you for reading this blog post.

What would you ask your 'hero'?

Bird Masks

Hello everyone. 

In drama we have been making bird masks and acting like birds. We are also starting to make our movement plan. Our movement plan is where our group chooses a movement that we all are comfortable with and the movement has to be bird related.

For our movement plan we decided to choose to do our own birds. For the music we haven't figure it out yet. My group include 4 members, Jordan, Hollie, Amanda and me. Jordan picked a penguin while Hollie chose to mimic a Kiwi bird. Amanda chose a bird that has been believed as a myth which is a phoenix. I chose to mimic a Barn owl because I think they are pretty cool and their colours are stunning. 

We made our masks already which are the birds that we chose to mimic. All I need to do for my mask is to  attach an elastic string on it. 

The mask i have been making look a little bit weird. My mask has holographic glitter near the eye holes and inside the mask I decided to add some fabric to make it more comfortable for me. I have been researching how barn owls move and have been succeeding on mimicking a barn owl. The rest of my group has also been doing an amazing job acting like their birds.

Here are some photos of my mask making:

Thank you for reading this blog post.

What do you think about my ask.

🎶Violins 🎻

 Hello everyone. 

This week in Counting the Beat we have been learning about violins. There are a lot of different types of violins and string instruments that might be similar to violins. Believe it or not there are actually electric violins.The string instruments that look similar to violins are a viola, a cello and a double bass. Others might see this instruments as violins that are just different with size but they are actually played differently and they sound different.

Like a ukulele and a guitar a violin also has a body and a neck. Though ukuleles and violins are kind of similar, ukuleles don't have a chin rest and a tuning hole as a violin. The tuning hole of a violin has a really odd shape, it is shape as the letter 'f'. Unlike ukuleles violins have a bow to play the violin. You might be able to strum the violin but its not played like this occasionally.

We also listened to some of Vilvadi concertos. I think the songs that Vivaldi composed were really interesting. They say that by listening to one of his songs can help you calm your mind and hopefully be ready for learning. I agree with this comment because I felt kind of relaxed even though the song wasn't very calm-like. I think the song kind of represents what you are feeling and that's why it makes me feel relieved.

Here is a photo of what a violin might look like:

Thank you for reading this blog post.

I hope you have learnt some interesting facts.

Would you play a violin?

Orchestra

 Hello everyone.

This week in Counting the Beat we have been learning about orchestras. Orchestras are a large amount of instruments that are. There are four types of instruments that are commonly played in an orchestra, woodwind, brass, percussion and string.

Woodwind is an instrument where you blow into or across it. It is called woodwind because the old types of instruments that were woodwind were made out of wood. 

A Brass instrument is an instruments that build up vibrating sound that travels through the tubes of the brass instrument and end up making a pleasing noise. 

A percussion instrument is when a sound is made by being hit, shaken or scraped. The percussion instruments are usually the instruments that are not tuned. 

String instruments make sounds by the vibrating strings that are attached on it. That is why it is called a string instrument. Though each string has different variety of sounds you can adjust these sound by tuning the strings.

This is an orchestra performance I enjoyed.

Have you ever seen an orchestra before?

Thank you for reading this blog post.

Automobiles 🚗

 Hello everyone. 

For the past few weeks in Hurumanu 3 we have been learning about automobiles. We created a timeline and research about the differences of the cars before and the cars today. We learnt quite a lot of info about cars by doing a timeline. E.g: the first considered car was made in 1885.

Here is my timeline:

We also have been researching how cars evolved throughout the year. Our group focused on fuel. On our piece of paper we wrote down some fuel facts like what it is made of. We mostly focused on fossil fuel. Our group also thought about how it was made and types of fuel are there. 

We also made a statement about how some types of fuels can damage the nature. Some fuel are naturally produced underground. Digging up for our fuel can damage environments that animals live on and can cause a massive problem. Gas that is coming out of some cars are releasing nasty air pollution that might cause climate change.

What would you do to change the way of how our cars work? I hope this will maybe change your mind when your driving in a car next time. Walking once in awhile might help the environment. Though it is up to you to decide whether to go in a car or travel by a bike or walking.