Baby Steps Song

Is everyone ready to start again on Thursday? I hope you all had a great break and are ready to get back into the swing of things. Listen to your Blue Bugs CD, so you know the new songs we will be working with.

I wanted to share another song with you that will help with the babystep concept. Go to the Let's Play Music blog, and listen to it.

See you Thursday!

Lesson 11

I hope you all had a great break, and are ready to "play music" tomorrow!

We sure had fun last class on our giant staff! One idea you can do at home is to draw lines on the sidewalk with chalk, and play a game with your students. You can instruct your child to jump to the “First Line” or “Fourth Space” to help her remember ordinal counting, or you could play "mother may I" with those directions. I bet the kids would love it if you let THEM be "Mother" and instruct YOU where to go.

A couple of announcements:

-Dec. tuition will be due tomorrow (for those paying monthly).

-Parents will come to class on the 10th for lesson 13.

-The evening class will be meeting on Tuesday the 15th (instead of the 17th) for our final class, this semester.

-For both groups: I am wondering if our final class can be 1 hr. long, instead of 45mins., since we will be combining two lessons. That would mean starting our morning class at 9:00, and the evening class at 6:00. Please let me know if this will work for you. I'm going to say that parental attendance at that class is optional, since you will have just come the previous week. Morning class: if you do plan to come, let me know, so I know whether we will need Mikayla that day, or not.

Looking forward to a fun (and musical) December!

Lesson 10

In class we have fun with some variations on the classical music puppets, and you can try them at home, too:

-Quickly turn down the volume, and have your child sing (or bum or doot) the missing part.

-Play a bit of music (or sing it) and have him guess which puppet it was. Even harder: hold up a puppet and have him sing the part!

-Do the show with costumes, or dolls and toys as characters. Dance them around when their part comes. Get physical and silly! Move your bodies to match the music.

When doing the homework assignment this week, if your child always draws baby steps going up on the theory assignment, guide him to notice that steps could optionally go down.

Tomorrow's class is going to be fun! Look forward to seeing you all there!

Lesson 8

Your theory assignment 8 that you’ll be working on this week is not too tricky, but is tricky for me to READ. If it isn't too late, please have your child use a crayon to draw circles, and a different color to make squares (that way, it won’t matter too much if the square looks a bit circle-ish.) It’s great that the students are working hard on homework, and doing their own writing! I love to see them grow and improve.

Some kids are getting to be pros at finding the hidden sol-sol-do's, or mi-re-do's in songs. You can reinforce this by listening for these patterns in everyday songs, and seeing if they can hear them too.

I saw some really great harp playing this week, too - reading and interpreting the map, translating it to an action for one hand, and simultaneously using the other hand to strum with rhythm.... that's a LOT to process all at once! We're training the students to think like musicians and get all those mental and physical skills going at the same time.

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

Lesson 7 notes

We're doing great in class with TWO melodic patterns now (mi re do, and sol sol do). Both are important examples of cadence melodies that pull us back to DO. That's why these patterns make great endings to songs! Songs sound “right” when they end on DO!

We didn't use the bells much in class this week, but there are some fun things you can do at home:

1. Play sol-do on the BOOM-BOOM (ain't it great to be crazy). Sing in the key of F...play bells RED-GREEN (lower case sol do).

2. Play sol-sol-do-do as you say hell-o your-name in the hickety pickety bumblebee song. (Do is on F…we’re singing in F). If you want to play the WHOLE song, play hickety-pickety using the high sol (RED BELL) and mi (dark blue) to be in the key of F.

3. YOU can play the song Scotland's Burning for your child on the bells! Soon she will play it too... the hand signs will give you clues as to what notes to play... just remember to play using the lowercase letters, in the key of F. The high SOL! SOL! SOL! SOL! of FIRE! is on the highest red bell.

Thought for the day from another "Let's Play Music" teacher:

" I noticed the other day that my daughter hadn't played with her doll house for a long time. Gosh, doesn't she like those toys anymore? I decided to get down on the floor with her and pull them out, and started having doll people talk to each other. Not surprisingly, once she saw I was having fun and being silly, she was happy to join in and wanted to play, too. If it turns out that your child is not so inclined to play on the bells or sing the songs from class, maybe a similar approach will be helpful. Play the bells yourself, sing along to the CD in the car, or instigate a game from class with ALL the family members. Hopefully as she sees YOU modeling having fun with music, she'll gravitate to you and decide to give it a try. Be sure to applaud every effort and allow some time for creative exploration, too!"

As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I'll see your students on Thursday!

Lesson 6 - Homework Help!

RED LESSON 6

For the theory assignment this week, you’ll need to know some songs that we haven’t used in class! Don’t worry if you don’t know these songs, you can check out these websites that have tunes and lyrics to these and additional songs.

http://www.kinderplanet.com/music.htm

http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/index.html

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/musicchild.htm

http://www.theteachersguide.com/ChildrensSongs.htm

I enjoy playing with any of the above sites to listen to random songs and ask, "Does it end with a Mi Re Do? Does it have a Sol-Sol-Do?" As we learn more and more patterns, you're child will start to recognize and catch on to more and more of the common melodies used in music. Listening to kids’ music while driving in the car will never be boring again!

Lesson 5

***Please check your email for an updated schedule, as I had to make some changes***

The primary chords song and the chords in pieces that we worked on will be an important part of our curriculum from now on. These 3 chords make up 90% of the music we listen to. Developing an ear for the chords will enable your child to understand and compose accompaniments…you’ll see them do so next year! Let me know if you have any questions about how the children can use the chord map to practice pointing to the chord color as they listen to the music on the CD. Help them point on the beat, as if they were strumming the autoharp.

The practice of singing “Do is home” to match a Middle C will also be practiced from now on, so the students can develop relative pitch (the ability to pull a correct pitch from think air!). Parents…YOU can improve your relative pitch, too, with practice. Don’t feel bad if your child learns it more quickly! This is the only exercise in which DO is always assigned Middle C. You know by now that we can build a major scale starting with DO on a C, or F….or any note! Eventually your child will use this knowledge to transpose between keys effortlessly.

The kids had a great time with Ooooo Halloween. This song isn't just for fun, and the ghost sounds we made weren't just nonsense. What we were doing is called "vocal channeling." We are extending their ranges (which is helpful with matching pitch) and using a pure head tone. The "oo" vowel is the best vowel for placing the tone up in the head and forward in the nose and "mask" of the face. Basically, it is a good beginning "voice lesson." It works for adults, too! :-)