Song Garden© Music

Deck the Halls Song Garden first line“Song Garden” music is just the name I’ve given to sheet music that has the “Song Seed”-type notes on it. “Song Seeds” refers to the colored dots that correspond to the resonator bell notes, and to the Solfa notes, do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.

A Song Garden page can just show colored dots, or dots with the Solfa names on them. It can show the movement of the dots in their interval relationship as shown below (as if on the staff with no lines), as shown below:

Deck the Halls First phrase moving Solfa dots

Or a Song Garden can be shown in straight lines, as shown above in the non-moving note version of “Deck the Halls.”

Children can write their own songs by coloring dots on a black note card or piece of paper, as this child did:

song garden example with dynamic marking pp

(This song was written after a lesson on dynamics–that’s why there’s a pp at the end, to indicated pianissimo.)

The can also write songs in simple Solfa notation, such as this child did:

IMG_0126 - Version 2

Using Song Seeds and the Song Garden-style simply helps children in writing down the music they create. It is a step that can lead to music notation with absolute notes on the staff (A, B, C, etc.) later on.