HANDMADE INSTRUMENTS GIVE KIDS MUSICAL TOUCH.Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer Hundreds of students from throughout the county shared a newfound appreciation for musical instruments and their curious assortment of sounds by playing in a premier orchestra of handmade ``drumpets.'' Joining a long cardboard tube to the rounded plastic lid usually used to top a semi-frozen soft drink, 8-year-old Michael Rubio blew into a trumpet for the first time Wednesday morning. Attached with a bright blue strip of tape, a thin plastic fold-up container serving as a drum helped Rubio keep time with each beat of his drumstick drumstick /drum·stick/ (-stik) a nuclear lobule attached by a slender strand to the nucleus of some polymorphonuclear leukocytes of normal females but not of normal males. (a thick red straw). ``It's two instruments in one. And at the end, we got to play it all together,'' said Rubio, one of the more than 300 children who gathered at the Civic Arts Plaza Forum Theater on Wednesday morning as Craig Woodson guided them on an adventure of musical instruments around the world and ultimately to a full 160-person orchestra of drumpets. Telling kids that there are different families of musical instruments - string, air, drum and self sounds - is not enough, said Woodson, a professional instrument maker, educator and musician who earned his doctorate in ethnomusicology ethnomusicology Scholarly study of the world's musics from various perspectives. Although it had antecedents in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the field expanded with the development of recording technologies in the late 19th century. from the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. . ``The bottom line is that the kids learn to be creative with music and realize that this whole business education - science and history - can actually be a lot of fun,'' said Woodson, a La Canada Flintridge native who has offered traveling shows around the country for more than 20 years. ``I want the kids to realize that science and learning are about messing and guessing - it's not just what's in the books,'' said Woodson, In his presentation called ``A World Orchestra You Can Build,'' Woodson said he hopes to bring alive the science and history behind music and musical instruments by putting the tools needed to make them into the hands of kids. Attaching a bright orange funnel to a looped 12-inch section of garden hose, Woodson invited 7-year-old Christie Fudurich onto the stage to blow into a homemade horn. Using a coat hanger, some tape, a few tacks, a few pieces of dental floss dental floss n. A waxed or unwaxed thread used to remove food particles and plaque from the teeth. and a funnel to amplify the sound, he showed 7-year-old Scott Freeman Scott John Freeman (June 9, 1954 – July 23, 2004) was an American economist. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1983. how to play an African kani harp. ``The strings can make so many different sounds. I didn't know that,'' said Freeman, a second-grade Madera Elementary School elementary school: see school. student. From the Asian piri double reed double reed n. 1. A pair of joined reeds that vibrate together to produce sound in certain wind instruments, such as bassoons and oboes. 2. An instrument in which sound is produced by a pair of joined reeds. to the South American cuica friction drum A friction drum is a musical instrument found in various forms in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. In Europe it emerged in the 16th century and was associated with specific religious and ceremonious occasions. , Woodson combined everything from coffee tins to plastic straws into a global orchestra of instruments to pique the students' interest in music. For teacher Queta Beltran-Bannon's third-grade class, Wednesday morning's presentation followed several weeks of lessons about symphonic orchestras and classical music. Last week, she said her class joined thousands of students throughout the county to participate in the Amgen 10,000 Symphonic Adventures Series at the Civic Arts Plaza. The program, which focused on the life and music of Beethoven, introduced many children to the sounds of a full orchestra. ``This gave the kids a chance to get the principles behind each instrument and how everything - tension, air, the materials used to make an instrument - work together to create the sound,'' she said. Wooden's presentation is the second in a yearlong Science Education Series sponsored by the Ventura County Discovery Center. Last May, the series kicked off with the Brainiacs, an interactive improvisational theater group of educators and actors from University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. Commonly referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley and Cal that dramatized how the brain works. ``We look for programs that are interesting to the children, educational and, of course, hands-on because that holds with our basic philosophy of learning,'' said Cathy Fudurich, vice president of marketing for the Discovery Center. Currently a touring museum of interactive children's science exhibits, the Discovery Center is in the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?" midmost of a fund-raising campaign Noun 1. fund-raising campaign - a campaign to raise money for some cause fund-raising drive, fund-raising effort crusade, campaign, cause, drive, effort, movement - a series of actions advancing a principle or tending toward a particular end; "he supported for a $6 million science and technology center and children's museum expected to break ground in the year 2000 in a building adjacent to the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza The Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza is a performing arts and administrative center located in Thousand Oaks, California. It was built in 1994 on the former site of "Jungleland" at a cost of $63.8 million. . CAPTION(S): 2 Photos PHOTO (1--Color) Craig Woodson plays a simple horn made of a piece of rubber hose and a funnel during an educational show for kids the Civic Arts Plaza Forum Theater. (2--Color) (Color in Conejo only) Ventura County students attending the ``A World Orchestra You Can Build'' show Wednesday partake in a jam with homemade instruments. Myung J. Chun / Daily News |
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