DMK 1.2 What is Music? Mrs. Livingston

Today was a blast! It was week 2 of teaching Mrs. S’s AM kingergarten class, and the children were bright and beautiful and wiggly: perfect for music time!

I never follow my lesson plan exactly, but today was pretty close. We didn’t get the name song made last week (I had to teach a 20 minute lesson, so I saved that until this week). After I reviewed the ascending and descending Solfa major scale on the bells with them singing, and then I put the notes up on the board to show the change in pitch. The resulting image looked like a “mountain,” I pointed out, so we stood up and “hiked” up the mountain by marching in place, singing up and down the scale as I pointed to each note. Then we “ran” back up and down. It was a nice movement to music in the middle of the exercise.

(The only challenge about moving to music is that the children can sometimes be wigglier at the end than when you start, so it kind of has to be used with that in mind.)

One little girl asked when we are going to write our own songs? “Soon!” I told her, but we were going to write our own song right then with our names. I showed them a piece of sheet music that had lyrics, and how the notes on that music were just black, whereas ours were colored(!) (More fun!) and how the lyrics were written in a line below the notes. Then I got out Mr. Owl and we sang “Whoooo are you?” a couple of times and then started writing the children’s names under the notes. I told them which note they were so that after we sang it once, I had them pop up and sing their name when we got to their note. By the end of the song, everyone was standing.

Joshua Bell Romance of the Violin

After doing the name song, in which I started learning their names, we moved to “I Got Rhythm” played by Joshua Bell (album: Romance of the Violin). We contrasted that with “Nocturne,” (from the same album) and discussed which song was slower and which was faster, and how one was kind of chipper and upbeat and the other slower. We did a little ballet to “Nocturne.” I just go with the movement–whatever seems appropriate. We have a good time.

Then we talked about what music is. One child said, “A note!” I agreed and said that we did that earlier when we put notes up on the board to create our song. “Notes all together makes music! But what makes the sound of each note? How do we hear sound?” Then I explained using the visual that I had put up on the board. We repeated “Sound is vibrations that travel to my ear that sends a message to my brain to tell me what I hear” several times until they could almost say it without my help.

I showed them the little wave demonstration from the OMSI online exhibit where you can click on a circle to make a sound and waves emanate out from the circle. I didn’t have time to do the rubber band or pebble dropped in a bowl of water. (I’ll save that for next time!)

We had a little impromptu addition to our lesson somewhere in all of this. I told them I wanted to teach them a song (“My Grandma Has a Green Thumb”), and somehow we segued to what a “solo” and a “performance” are. So I told them what a solo is, demonstrated briefly, and explained what audience manners are when someone performs: “You have to sit quietly with your lips zipped and your eyes on the performer. Then, at the end of the solo, you give wild applause, and the performer bows.” We had a little girl volunteer to sing a solo for us. She announced her piece: “You are my sunshine”  and proceeded to sing it beautifully! We gave her an enthusiastic round of applause, and she bowed, just like I had demonstrated. It was terrific! I love spontaneously delightful moments like that!

I taught the children the “Green Thumb” song quickly, sang “Adios Amigos” twice, and said goodbye.

I might have some videos to share along with this post. If you are interested, check back later!

 

It’s Recital Time!


I am SO excited for our first recital in Beginning Orchestra! We have planted a bunch of great seeds in our minds this semester, and we’ve been nurturing them with our practicing. We have been able to see the seeds sprouting a little, and that is SO exciting!

We aren’t musical “trees” yet––we have some time to go yet, but we are growing in that direction.

I recently watched this video of a 13-year old who has been playing violin for some years now. She has worked very hard. She gets up very early and practices day after day after day. Her mom helps her, just like in our apple seed, although she doesn’t help her practice every day like she did when she was first starting to learn.

I hope you know how important recitals are. Recitals aren’t about playing perfectly (it’s wonderful when that happens once in a blue moon!). They are about sharing our progress. We need to share our progress so that others can celebrate our hard work with us, just like that potluck picnic we talked about, when everyone brings something to share that they have grown from their garden.

I am proud of each of you for trying to learn to make music better this semester. Thank you for each day that you practiced! Thank you for coming to class whenever you were able to. I hope that the last weeks of orchestra, we will work extra hard to learn “Brother John.” Together, we can do it!

 

Lord of the Rings

Lindsey Stirling is passionate about moving while she plays her violin. She really feels the music and shows it! But notice that she has learned how to keep her LH (left hand) wrist nice like a slide the whole time (no “pancake” wrist here!). AND she keeps her bow nice and parallel to the bridge the whole time (no crazy “skiing” all over the place bows). If you can get those two things to work for you (your LH and your bow arm) so that you are strong and steady, then you can move your body to the music more freely and joyfully! So keep working on those important posture position skills!

Bow hold video

One of our students made a “How to hold your bow” video to earn extra smiles! Way to go!

It’s not hard to make a video! All you need is someone who has a smartphone to record you. Then you can email it to me, and I’ll upload it to YouTube, and post it here! Remember: Your video doesn’t have to be “perfect” since none of us is a “perfect” musician yet! But we can give each other good ideas and help each other learn by sharing what we know!

Lift, place bowing: Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp K.299, Andantino


When you watch the violinists at the beginning of this piece, did you notice them lifting and placing their bows?

Did you see their bow holds? What about their shoulders?

Did you notice how the bows are going parallel to the bridge and the end of the fingerboard?

The violinists (and other string player) sometimes wiggle their left hand as they play. That’s called vibrato. (We learn that later on, after we get really good at placing each finger and moving our fingers around the fingerboard.)

Did you notice that everyone waited for the conductor and that the conductor looked to the soloists (the flute and harp players) before beginning the piece?

Did you see that everyone is dressed in black?

This lovely piece of music is part of a concerto, which is a song made up of 3 parts, or “movements.” The movements are named after the feeling or tempo of the part. Andantino means “slightly faster than walking pace.” Do you remember which language these musical terms comes from? Yes! Italian!

Mozart wrote this concerto, and this video is the movement andantino. Can you close your eyes and see if you can figure out the approximate bpm (beats per minute)? Remember that 60 bpm is 1 beat per second, so something slower than one beat per second would be fewer beats per minute and something faster than that would be more beats per minute. Andantino is often around 80 bpm (just a hint!).

The K in the name of this piece (K.299) stands for Köchel, the last name of a man (Ludwig von Köchel) who made a chronological list of all of Mozart’s pieces (“works”). The number stands for the number of the piece in that list. There are 629 works catalogued on his list!

Here’s some trivia for you: notice which fingers the harpist uses when he plays? Never the pinky finger! Also, did you know that flutes can be made out of nickel, silver, brass, and wood, or some are even made of gold! (A famous flutist named James Galway wrote a book about his life and career called The Man with the Golden Flute. He has a photo of himself holding his golden flute on the cover.)

Here is a video of a young harpist playing another Mozart concerto. (Check out the pinkies!) You can just leave this on as fabulous background music if you don’t want to watch it all…