Theory Olympics Scores Big!

The Fall Quarter Theory Olympics entertained and enlightened an enthusiastic group of Music Arts students. The most popular activity still seems to be the Visit With The Orchestra. Conductor of the Oak Ridge Community Orchestra, Stacy Taylor, led students in a conducting class, learning about the motions a conductor makes, and how they affect the music. Sarah Chisholm and James Hayden, students of Jean Box and Warren Clark, respectively, were chosen to actually lead the orchestra.

Another very popular activity was Music Jeopardy, led by voice instructor Lisa Griggs. Some students were so quick to get their hands up that they exceeded the five-question maximum!

Another informative activity was pairing scale sections (tetrachords) to build scales, as students swarmed around the room trying to find matches to complete scales of all keys. This was preceded by an exercise in recognizing enharmonics (notes that sound the same but are written differently), which eventually allowed students to see how the circle of fifths is put together.

Least popular, as usual, was the written dictation, in which students were asked to fill in some notes on staff paper, completing well-known tunes. For some it can be a painful chore, but this is the kind of activity students need to become capable musicians, and it’s not the kind of instruction they’re likely to get in their weekly lessons.

A giant floor keyboard completed the list of games, as students learned more about intervals.

Top scorers for the day were Joy Arcangeli (student of Nemeth), Bobby Rutkowski (student of Griggs) and Breony Moyers (student of Nemeth).

Reviewer’s Corner

I thought the Theory Olympics at Music Arts was fun, only it focused too much on the piano and I play the violin.

You wouldn’t have known about the notes and everything at all if you weren’t a pianist, if they hadn’t adequately explained it to me. But luckily they did! I think they did a pretty good job of explaining the games. The games were fun. There was one game with tetrachords, where we each got big cards with notes and letters on them and we had to find other people with the same notes and then we all stood in a row because it all added up together.

The food was good. We had cookies and brownies and some diet coke.

There was “musical chairs” and that was fun! And Stacy taught some conducting. Stacy told us the conductor can change what you’re playing - however soft or loud - and what notes you’re playing. I want to be a conductor but it would be hard to learn all those notes!.

-Sietske Henrietta Barnes, age 10