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These are the Portuguese results for the "Does your country 'fit' in a piece of music?" challenge.

 75 Portuguese students answered this challenge. As you can see the best known music is from Spain. But, surprise, surprise, Portuguese students could NOT recognize the music from their OWN country! 

I knew this was an extremely difficult challenge, but I was sure my students would know the music from Spain and from Portugal. It seems I was wrong... at least about Portugal. 

A special Thank You to all my wonderful partners and students that willingly made this challenge. The conclusions I picked up from these results will be very helpful for my future projects. Thanks again.

Manuela

 THE SIX COUNTRY MUSIC CHALLENGE

Aim : This activity was designed to improve both pupils´ classic music listening skills and to build their awareness of partner schools national culture.

Procedure : We started it with a short explanation about what everyone in the target group of 10 pupils of  1st secondary class was expected to do. Namely, to get full recognition of the country and composer´name of the pieces.

Then, all of them were played at ramdom - first as a whole and later in fragments. As soon as a piece was finished, pupils would have to note down their choice. Later a volunteer pointed to a map of Europe the country which the listened music belong to and/or write it down on the whiteboard. 

Results : All the pupils who sit the exam but two succeeded in recognizing both composer´s name and the country he was from. Only two failed with the Portuguese part. Most of them found it hard to make out Norway and Czech music.

Comment & Bottomline : On the whole, the good performance can be put down to pupils´motivation. To make feel themselves as responsible participants in this project has also played an important role in the final outcome.

Polish group listened to pieces from all countries participating in our project. I must admit that students had some problems. Or rather I should say: some students couldn't feel the countries' spirit in the pieces of music they listened to and some of them turned out to be more sensitive to national identity painted by music. The easiest pieces were the ones from Norway and Spain. Some students managed to recognize a piece by a Polish composer although they didn't recognize the author. I assume the results of the quiz mirror the lack of knowledge and sensitivity or imagination of the group as a whole. Individual results are more varied. Although the task was a challenge students liked it:-)  

 This is a very interesting example how people can be connected by music.

Video from KarmaTube

Video from KarmaTube

Alice Herz-Sommer was born in Prague (CZ). She is 108 years old and she is on Facebook!

 Listening to music from our countries

Our group tried to guess the music from Spain, Finland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Portugal and Poland. There were 11 students in the group. The most difficult was Portuguese music and the easiest was Spanish, becuase they heard  castanetes. They were not sure about Czech and Polish music, maybe because we are both Slovonic nations and the music was similar. In both examples there were dances. Finish music was calm and cool and the students said that the music reminded them Scandinavian cold environment.

We liked this activity very much and the music was interesting and beautiful.

 Flamenco is an artistic expression fusing song (cante), dance (baile) and musicianship (toque).

Andalusia is Southern Spain is the heartland of flamenco, although it also has roots in Murcia and Extremadura regions.

 Andrés Segovia, Narciso Yepes and Paco de Lucía are considered among the most inspired classic guitarrists ever. Here they´re performing well known pieces of the Spanish misical repertoire:

Arabic caprice, Memories of La Alhambra and Concert of Aranjuez respectively.

Hope you'll enjoy! At the beginning of our cooperation Manuela posted a movie presenting this group. Some time ago I attended their concert. They are really unique!

Music can really connect people! 

Watch this amazing video where 10000 people  sing and play Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

Here's a transcription of what is written on the Youtube page:

"The performance of "Daiku", "The Ninth", Beethoven's 9th Symphony with 10000 (amateur) chorus singers is a Japanese highlight every year in the end of December. Here is the last movement, recorded at the 2011 concert in Osaka, this year dedicated especially to the memory of the victims of the desastrous tsunami in March."

  The video is a bit long. If you just want to hear the Ode to Joy theme go to minute 6:26!

http://www.glogster.com/nadenka/poster-glog-by-nadenka/g-6llgd9jdgeggk13jphjfja0?s=imgglog

 It is easy and we can hear your voice. Try it.

 Anezka created a presentation about the Beatles  because the students think that this group has joined millions of people all over the world. In former Czechoslovakia the Beatles and other groups were banned. The government said that they spoiled young people. Today our students think they are like classical music. The Beatles are still very popular in the Czech Republic. Our school which is yellow and from the distance looks like a submarine has got a nickname Yellow Submarine and our students like to sing this song.