Guest Post by Hannah and Michael: Piano Performance

Hannah
In the video below, I played two pieces, one is a Sonata by Beethoven and the second is an Invention by Bach.

Beethoven composed during the Classical and Romantic period. .He was born on December 16,1770 in Germany and was gifted in music as a child. He played both piano and violin which he learned from his father. A few years later he started losing his hearing. And then they noticed he was completely deaf,  but he still was able to compose music. 

 Bach was a German composer and was born in Eisenach, Germany on March 21, 1685. Bach's parents died before Bach was 10. Then he went to live with his older brother. His older brother taught Bach to play the clavichord and harpsichord. He wrote music during the baroque period.  Bach studied music. Bach wrote 30 inventions which are exercises for students. In the video below, I played Invention No 13.  I really like pieces by Bach and Beethoven






Michael

I played 2 songs Musette in D Major by Bach and and Etude by Nikolayev. Bach wrote Musette as a gift for his second wife, Anna Magdalena.  In 1722 and 1725, he gave his wife two notebooks, and this piece was part of the second notebook as a gift to celebrate a special occasion like a birthday.


Etude is usually a short piece that is written as an exercise for the piano.This is a fun exercise to help my fingers play faster.

A school trip to Astrocamp

Hiking through the forests

A few weeks ago, I went to Astrocamp located in Idyllwild. We drove for three and a half hours to get to camp, but luckily we were on a comfortable bus meant for driving to faraway places.  We stayed at Astrocamp for three amazing days and experimented with gases, launched rockets, rock climbed, swam, and dropped water balloons from the balcony. Some of my teachers were our counselors, such as Ms. Dickinson, Mrs. Duncan, and Mrs. Bostrom, and they spent a lot of time making sure everyone had an incredible camp experience.

My cabin group

On the afternoon of the first day, we had two evening classes learning about gases and  gravity. During our gasses lab, someone was holding a fire stick and another person was holding two balloons. They lit the fire stick, and touched it to the balloon, and suddenly a loud boom filled the room. Everyone jumped out of there seat, after the explosion. Our gravity lab was done in the pool, where we had to try to build a cube without touching our feet to the ground. This was how astronauts trained before going into space. It was difficult to communicate with students within our group because of a  no talking rule, and therefore we used hand signals and signs to communicate.

Chemistry lab

The next morning, we went rock climbing. We learned about mars, and then had to tell one of the counselors what we learned. After, we were attached to a safety rope, we were allowed to climb. The counselors let us choose a climbing path of easy, medium, or hard. I climbed the hard path three times and made it to the top every time. This was my favorite activity.  After climbing, we went to a room to make our rockets. We brought a two liter empty bottle with us on our trip, and designed the bottles how we wanted our rocket to appear. Then we went to the launch site and launched our rockets. When it was my turn, I filled my bottle with air and water, and then pressed a button to launch it. It soared through the air before it hit the roof and fell. This was my favorite school trip, and I look forward to going to Catalina next year. 

My friend and I taking a selfie

My rocket is the second one on the left.

Getting ready to go swimming

What interesting school trips have you been to?