Following the end of year concert, orchestra students spent Tuesday and Wednesday writing out the notes from famous pop songs and singing them for a test. Students were put into groups and assigned songs before being left to figure out the music.

“I had “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink. That was like, my favorite song when I was little so doing this project was like a blast,” sophomore Nandika Chirala. “I listened to the song and I figured out some of the notes and then that’s what helped me decide what the key was. Based on that, since I knew what the key was, and you can figure out what the first note would be. From there, you can figure out the intervals and then that will give you the song.”

Orchestra’s final project came after students spent the last few weeks practicing their singing skills.

“We started singing at the beginning of every class to help develop students’ hearing ability,” assistant director Victoria Lien said. “It will also help them to recognize different intervals by ear.”

A big change from the violin, Chirala saw singing as a chance to further her understanding of music.

“It was interesting for me, because I kind of figured it out my violin,” Chirala said. “Interesting for me to take what I play on my violin and like the intervals from that and then try to match it from what I’m singing. Now it’s now I feel like it go the other way around, like if I could sing something that I can play. It was pretty bad because we actually, like forgot to do the last like bit of it. But other than that, were doing and we had a pretty good understanding of life.”

Senior Roman Trujillo is now able to notice intervals in songs after the singing experience.

“I had “Halo” by Beyonce and I liked it because it was very interesting lyrically,” Trujillo said. “We figured out the notes by having one of the members in our group play it into the piano and then transcribe it into music. I learned how to sing with intervals when before I didn’t.”