Let It Shine

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I couldn't resist posting this great video I came across of "This Little Light of Mine" being sung at the University of New Hampshire's commencement.  How great is it to think that the gift of music you are giving your children now is something they will be able to continue to enjoy for the rest of their lives!



We listened to a jazzy version of "This Little Light of Mine" in class.  It was recorded by the Chris Barber Jazz Band if you are looking for the recording to use at home.

When we sang Los Fandangos in class we first put the clapping rhythm in our hands and then in our feet.  The ability to put a beat or rhythm below your mid-line is called the cephalocaudal trend.

Here is some more information about how rhythm develops.  

 We are all born with ability to move and, if nurtured in a proper developmental environment, that movement will change from our own rhythm to one that matches the music we hear and we are making.  We can first express rhythms with our voice, then we learn to put that rhythm in the top half our bodies, and lastly we learn to express it in the lower half of our bodies.  This is called the cephalocaudal trend. 

"The cephalocaudal trend is the prenatal growth from conception to 5 months when the head grows more than the body. It is also the trend of infants learning to use their upper limbs before their lower limbs."


Some people never develop the ability to keep the beat in their feet.  Whether you can keep a beat in your feet or not you will help your child develop this ability simply by moving your feet to the music.  Even if your dance ins't "correct" you are still showing your child that it is OK and good to dance and move.  So turn up the music and dance this week at home!

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

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Our play along from this week was from Mary Poppins.  Enjoy playing along and dancing to this great upbeat song at home this week.




REMEMBER
Sing lullabies to your child!  The sound of your voice is a comfort to them.  Studies have even shown when someone who is close to a child (parent, grandparent, sibling, nanny, etc) sings them a lullaby their body releases a hormone that helps them calm down and fall asleep.
For more benefits of singing lullabies with your child check out this article:
The Effects of Lullabies on Children 
from the International Journal of Business and Social Science.

Here are my favorite reasons to sing lullabies from the article.

"2. When babies are afraid of sudden movements and sudden voices their blood pressure and heartbeats rise
immediately. Lullaby draws this high blood pressure suffered by children into a normal level and this is
achieved in a very short time.
3. Lullabies provide for a healthier period of growing up

A child that grows up by listening to the lullabies of its mother will have a much healthier kind of
communication with her.
6. While the baby communicates with the mother through lullabies its mind becomes active. Because as long as
the mother keeps speaking or singing the related perception centres in the brain of the child remain
stimulated. And this contributes to a faster comprehension of the desired information the baby is supposed to
perceive.
7. Some expressions taking place in lullabies transfer children lots of subjects about life.
8. Lullabies take the tension present on the child and thus ease the baby’s falling asleep."

Boil 'Em Cabbage

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At Journey Montessori this week we listened to a song called Boil 'Em Cabbage Down.
We listened to a version played by Harry House.  You can find it on iTunes.  This was our listening activity.  After listening to the music the students told me what instruments and sounds they heard.  Then we did an instrument play along to the song.
Here is a little history about the music from wikipedia and Mark O'Connor.
"Boil Them Cabbage Down"  is an American folk song.[1]  The song has roots reaching all the way to the African slaves that were brought to the southern part of the United States
This simple tune is often used in Old Time Music circles to teach young folks how to play the fiddle, banjo, mountain dulcimer and/or guitar. The following is the basic tune with the lyrics of the chorus. These tabs assumes you have a diatonically fretted instrument tuned to one of the 1-5-8 open tunings like G-D-G or D-A-D such as you might find on a mountain dulcimer or a stick dulcimer.

2 2 2 2 3 3
Boil them cab-bage down, down.
2 2 2 2 1 1
Turn them hoe-cakes 'round, 'round.
2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3
The on-ly song that I can sing is
2 2 1 1 0
Boil them cab-bage down.


The word "hoecakes" refers to small cornmeal cakes that were fried in the fire on the blade of a hoe. A breakfast of hoecakes and cabbage soup testifies to the humble origins of this song.

Variations of this song can be found in Mark O'Connor's violin book 1.  They coincide with the Suzuki methods Twinkle variations.  

Here are some great versions of the song to enjoy at home.

Fall Music Together!

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Wow, it's Fall!  Summer flew by in my house and we are ready for cooler weather and Fall activities.  I'm excited to see familiar faces and new ones this Fall in Music Together class.

This weeks song from outside of your collection is from the Disney movie The Princess and The Frog.  "When We're Human" is a fantastic jazzy song that captures the spirit of New Orleans.  I hope you enjoy listening to your Music Together CD at home and in the car this week.  Also enjoy singing, dancing, and playing instruments to the music you love with your children.
I will do my best to post any songs we use from outside the Music Together collection here so you can enjoy them at home too.

Also, check back or scroll to older posts for early childhood musical development information and ways to enjoy music with your children.
Here is a great article about how music lessons early in life are linked to lasting brain benefits!
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/08/21/music-lessons-linked-to-lasting-brain-benefits/

Welcome to Summer Music Together

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Welcome to everyone who is participating in Summer Music Together classes.

Last week we briefly discussed that everyone is born musical.  Almost everyone is born doing two things, kicking and screaming.  Very quickly in life those sounds and movements begin to entrain, or match, the sounds and movements the adults and siblings the baby is closest to.  Small babies will coo around pitches that match the inflection in an adults voice.  Their bodily movements go from being sporadic to matching what others are doing.  The more parents, caregivers, siblings, teachers, and other people a child is close to interact with that child musically their more musical the child will become.
In short, by simply modeling musical behaviors you want your child to do, such as singing and dancing, you are helping him/her become a musical person.  It's that easy!

For our first week of classes we did some simple improvisation, making up lyrics on the spot, by having you sing what your child was wearing with the song "Mary Wore Her Red Dress."  We sang and recognized animals in Spanish with "Vengan A Ver."  When we played sticks along with the song "Stick Tune" we audiated (kept the beat going in our brain while no music was present) and played sticks in different ways and to different beats (microbeat, macrobeat and on the steady beat).

The free dance we did was by a Celtic/Irish group from Anderson, SC called Emerald Road.  They have two CD's out that you can check out on iTunes, Emerald Road and It's About Time.  While I don't have a link to the song we danced to you can go to the website below to play some of their music at home.
http://www.reverbnation.com/emeraldroadband
I'm proud to add that the fiddle player is a close friend and was my college roommate :o)

Our play along song, Playin' In The Kitchen, is from the Summer collection.  Did you listen at home this week and see if you could find the part we added words to in class?
"Eat, eat my peas and carrots.  I like to eat, eat my peas and carrots."

Lastly, here are some pages you can print out at home to go along with the chant "Down Under."

Singing With Daddy

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Getting ready for Father's Day?
 Here are some videos of Dad's enjoying music with their kids! Find a way to enjoy music with daddy this Father's Day. Play along, sing, and dance to the music that dad likes.

 Bohemian Rhapsody On The Way To School

Best Father Daughter Dance Ever - Comedian Mike Hanley and his daughter Jessica

Edelweiss from The Sound of Music

Dad and Daughter Sing Together on Ellen

Singing Along With The Trumpet
 

A Few Good Resources

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http://www.musictogether.com/ForEnrolledFamilies

Click the link above to go to the Music Together page for enrolled families.  You'll find some great information there like..
How to play guitar with songs from the current session
Coloring pages
Music activities to try at home
and other great music resources!

http://www.ecementor.org/articles-on-teaching/Early_Brain_Development_Research_Review.pdf
This is a link to an interesting article about early childhood brain development.  It discusses current research on brain development, and how you can apply that research to every day activities with your child.

Put The Rhythm In Your Feet!

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This week in Music Together we talked about how rhythm develops.  We are all born with ability to move and, nurtured in a proper developmental environment, that movement will change from our own rhythm to one that matches the music we hear and we are making.  We can first express rhythms with our voice, then we learn to put that rhythm in the top half our bodies, and lastly we learn to express it in the lower half of our bodies.  This is called the cephalocaudal trend.

"The cephalocaudal trend is the prenatal growth from conception to 5 months when the head grows more than the body. It is also the trend of infants learning to use their upper limbs before their lower limbs."


Some people never develop the ability to keep the beat in their feet.  Whether you can keep a beat in your feet or not you will help your child develop this ability simply by moving your feet to the music.  Even if your dance ins't "correct" you are still showing your child that it is OK and good to dance and move.  So turn up the music and dance this week at home!


When we played drums this week I asked you to try lightly patting the beat on your child's back to help them find the beat on the drum.  This is a great activity to try at home when you are playing along with music!  I encourage you to give it a try and let me know how it goes!


Our dances this week were from the current Music Together collection, Triangles.  They were "Allee Galloo" and "Hey, Ho, Nobody Home."


Our play along song was "Sabre Dance" by Aram Kachaturian



Everyone Has Musical Ability

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In an article I was reading by Ken Guilmartin, founder of Music Together, he discusses how most American children are developmentally delayed in music by anywhere from 2 to 5 years!  I think the following quote from the article is a good example of why most children in our country are delayed in music.

"How is it that parents rush to call in a speech therapist or a learning consultant if their 5- or 6-year old has a little trouble speaking or reading, but if the same child does not sing well they are content to conclude she is "not musical" or "tone deaf"?  These descriptions are no less objectionable than "word deaf" or "reading blind,"  Even though language may be deemed more necessary in our culture, there is still an underlying double standard at work here which says that language skills can be achieved by anyone - given suitable and sufficient education, including remedial work if necessary.  Musical skills, however, must first be present as obvious "talent" to merit our cultures' investment in music education.  Parents and educators alike may require this - even though music skills are not sufficiently modeled in early childhood and thus do not receive the same appropriate informal education from birth that language received."

Not only having your child involved in music programs in school, but also involving yourself as a parent in musical experiences with your child, will aid greatly in their musical development and help prevent your child from falling into the above statistic.  It is important for young children to be immersed in fun musical experiences daily with the people who are closest to them.

This week in Music Together we danced the Bunny Hop!  Play the link below and see how many different ways you can hop to the beat at home.


 This week at Journey Montessori we did a drum circle, discussed the percussion family, and finished Peter and the Wolf.

To enjoy the new drums we made we did a drum circle for a large portion of the class this week. We played to the beat, watched for conducting cues (when to play, stop, and what beat to play), effectively moved to the right to switch drums (a huge task when you are between the ages of 3-5), and made a rain storm.

We discussed that any instrument that you hit/strike to produce a sound fits into the percussion family.

Our last characters for Peter and the Wolf were the hunters who are played by the timpani and bass drums. If you have not had a chance to watch Peter and the Wolf with your child I encourage you to scroll down and click the link to watch it. See how many instruments and characters they can identify!

Music Together

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Next week is the last week for Winter classes!  I hope to see everyone again in the Spring session.
Click here to register.

Great job singing parts on Bells of Westminster in class.  Singing in parts for your children is a great for their developing musical ears!  Playing the bells helps the children's tonal development by reinforcing the tonic and dominant pitches.  It helps rhythmic development when we play on the microbeat, steady beat and macrobeat on the bells.  Accurately hitting the bell with the mallet helps your child's hand eye coordination.  And the mallets are great to teeth on!

We played with audiation (the ability to hear the music in your head) with the song "Rhythm's and Rhyme's." Now that the chant is more familiar it is easier to audiate.

Does your child echo you if you sing like we did in class with Lukey's Boat and Me, You, We?  If you haven't tried it at home I encourage you to give it a try this week.  I have a great time singing back and forth with my kids in the car that way!

This week in class our play along was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  Click the link below to enjoy it at home.  Mary Poppins is a fantastic Disney movie full of fabulous songs.



Making Drum With Montessori Students!!

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We started making drums today in music class at the Montessori school!  I am so excited about this joint effort with the teachers at Journey Montessori.  Today the kids helped figure out how I measured the tube and cut each piece for the drum.  Then they used wood glue and clamps to put embroidery rings inside the top of each piece of tube.  The embroidery rings will help reinforce the tube when we attach the drum head fabric.  The next step they will work on is decorating their drums with their teachers.  The last step will be measuring and cutting the circles of fabric for the drum heads and attaching them!  The students were very involved in the process today and did a fantastic job helping.

http://rhythmweb.com/homemade/tubes.htm


We learned that the french horns play the part of the wolf in Peter and the Wolf and read a lot more of the story today!  Scroll down to watch the animated version of Peter and the Wolf.

Music Together

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Play with musical phrasing this week at home with your kids!  
In class we sang Celebration Song and moved (bounced, jumped, twirled) with both the beat and the larger phrases in the song.  Learning music by ear the way children do when they are very young is a fantastic way to learn.  The Suzuki approach teaches specific instruments by ear and is a great way to learn!  Learning this way encourages children to feel the music and develops memorization skills.

"When a student learns first how to read music, often the child gets very focused on reading and how play what is on the page at the expense of not listening to what he or she is playing. In short, it's not a musical way to learn, but it is efficient. When a child learns to play by ear they establish the excellent musical habit of imagining the music in their mind and trying to find those sounds at the piano. That's how professional musicians think, and beginners can think that way too. If they establish that habit at first, then when they learn to read music they will still focus on what it sounds like rather than mostly on what it looks like." 

Singing, play instruments, and move to as much music as possible with your children from a very early age and you will give them a fantastic musical foundation to build on!

Scroll down to older posts to enjoy our dance and play along music from this week.
Waltz from Coppelia and Lukey's Boat!

Peter and The Wolf

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At Journey Montessori we have been listening to a new character in Peter and the Wolf each week and discussing what family each instrument belongs to.  So far we know that Peter is played by the string family, the bird is played by the flute, the duck by the oboe, and the cat by the clarinet which are all part of the woodwind family. 


This week we added Grandpa who is played by the Bassoon (also a member of the woodwind family).  We discussed the size of the bassoon and its low sound.

On May 5th The Charlotte Symphony will be playing Peter and the Wolf for their final Lollipops concert of the season!  I encourage you to take your children to the performance this weekend and the one in May!  My kids have gone since they were tiny and they LOVE the concerts!


The students really seem to be enjoying Peter and the Wolf at school.  
Here is a link to the book were are reading the story from

Click the YouTube links below to see a great animated version of Peter and the Wolf.

Music Together

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Our dance this week was "Bounce Me Brother With A Solid Four." Check out this version by the Andrew's Sisters and dance along at home!

March and play along with Mickey Mouse!

Did you know that there are guitar chords in the back of your Music Together book?  If you have a guitar at home try playing Me, You, We, Trot Old Joe, and French Folk Song.  They are fun, easy songs to learn and your kids will love playing along with you!

The lullaby we sang this week was to the tune of "My Lady Wind."  You can find the lyrics we sang in your songbook at the bottom of the page.
My Lady Wind seems to be a very calming song.  It's slow tempo gives the singer plenty of time to take a big breath before each phrase.  When you pause to breathe before singing it it also gives you time to audiate (or hear in your head) what you are about to sing.  Taking this purposeful breath helps your child learn to audiate, which is an important step in their musical development, while helping clam them at the same time.




Charlotte Symphony Lollipops Concert This Weekend!

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The Charlotte Symphony puts on some fantastic kids concerts each year.  Make plans to go see them perform the Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra this weekend!  If you go early at 10:00 your child can play the real orchestra instruments, participate in drum circles, and design their own instruments before the concert!  These concerts are a fantastic way to teach your children about music.


Does a bassoon sound like a baboon? Can a trombone moan or a kettledrum hum? Introduce children to the instruments of the orchestra through Benjamin Britten’s classic, A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, then hear those instruments strut their stuff as they twist and shout to the tunes of The Beatles.





At Journey Montessori we have been listening to a new character in Peter and the Wolf each week and discussing what family each instrument belongs to.  So far we know that Peter is played by the string family, the bird is played by the flute, the duck by the oboe, and the cat by the clarinet which are all part of the woodwind family.


On May 5th The Charlotte Symphony will be playing Peter and the Wolf for their final Lollipops concert of the season!  I encourage you to take your children to the performance this weekend and the one in May!  My kids have gone since they were tiny and they LOVE the concerts!

Music I Have Enjoyed This Week

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Ashokan Farewell, soundtrack for 'The Civil War' documentary by Ken Burns, was written by Jay Ungar. A true modern 'classic', this is my favourite version and comes from the BBC series "The Original Transatlantic Sessions". It features, on fiddles Jay Ungar, Aly Bain, Mark O'Connor, Charlie McK





1993 version by the Illuminated Film Company in an anthology called 'The World of Eric Carle' that included four other Carle stories: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Quiet Cricket, The Mixed Up Chameleon, and Papa Please Get The Moon For Me.

Music Together

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I haven't found the time to post anything since the baby was born.  Charles "Hudson" Hubert Thomas IV was born on his due date, October 21.  He's 3 months old now so time to get back to a normal routine!

I am loving the Bells collection this Winter and hope you all are too!  We've already done a lot of the songs in the collection in class and you are all doing a fantastic job with them.

At the first class I asked all of the parents to make sure you sing with you child when putting the instruments away this session.  A lot of you have been doing that and your children are already singing more in class!  I can't wait to see what a wonderful impact that will have by the end of the session.  Keep it up!

This week we talked about, and created our own, rhythm patterns.  Try this activity at home with you child (even if they are tiny).  Animal sounds are great to create rhythm patterns with.  You will soon notice your child creating their own vocal rhythm patterns.

We played drums along with the song Hopping and Sliding and worked on feeling contrasting duple and triple meter in our bodies.
"Children learn by noticing differences - they are especially alert to contrast.  By juxtaposing duple and triple meter as well as staccato and legato within one activity, we're giving children the opportunity to hear and experience these qualities.  For children, putting these meters and articulations into their bodies is a powerful and direct way to learn about them."

Play around with musical contrasts this week.  
Fast/Slow
High voice/Low voice
Staccato (bouncy, detached, separated)/Legato (smooth, connected)

Our dance was the Waltz from Coppelia.  Click on the YouTube link below to enjoy it at home.  I LOVE holing my little ones and waltzing around the house with them!



Our play along was Buffalo Gals by Pete Seeger.  Enjoy!

"Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-20th century American folk music revival.  Pete Seeger's life, music, and legacy encapsulate nearly a century of American history and culture. He has immersed himself in folk music and used it, like Johnny Appleseed, to "plant the seeds of a better tomorrow in the homes across our land." The songs in this collection of 139 American Favorite Ballads narrate tales of ordinary people and their extraordinary deeds, and show Pete at the crossroads of the past and the future putting his own stamp on America's folk song heritage while bequeathing it to generations to come."

Montessori Music Class

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I've been very impressed over the last few weeks with how the students are growing musically!  They are all getting better each class at finding the beat, whether I change it fast or slow!

After we sing Hello we have had fun making shapes with our voices.  See your child can teach you how to do this at home.  Follow the shape up high, down low, or straight across (on the same pitch) with your voice.  I had many volunteers do this in class today and they did a fantastic job!

We have been working on listening and watching for musical cues (when to start and stop).  We have played sticks along with the song Kookaburra and jumped like frogs with the song Gallump Went the Little Green Frog.  Ask your child what word they are suppose to jump on with the frog song and enjoy jumping like frogs together at home!

We are also learning about simple musical form with the song William Tells Ride.  We leaned that there are three different parts and they get the letters A, B, and C.  The form is A, B, C, A.  The class split up into three groups and each group had to listen and watch for their part of the song so they played instruments at the correct time.
We enjoyed the Finale from William Tell by Gioachino Rossini as a play along song.  Click the link below to listen and play along at home!



Today in class we sang songs about Fall leaves and ended with the book "The Leaves on the Trees" by: Thom Wiley.  This book is to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus, but tells you about what color and shape Fall leaves you will see from different types of trees.  A great book to check out.  If you sing it at home you could hunt for those types of leaves outside, put them under a plain piece of paper at home and color over it so the leaf shape will show up.  Create your own Fall trees and sing while you work on it!

http://www.amazon.com/Leaves-Trees-Thom-Wiley/dp/0545312906/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318272394&sr=8-1