Sneak Preview-Kindermusik Village

We're already making plans for bears, balls, birds, and boogie this Spring. While our Spring schedule isn't open for registration yet, we know what we have coming, and this Spring, we will be doing Feathers and Do Si Do. Feathers brings the beauty of creatures with wings into the cold of Winter, as we sing songs about Geese, hummingbirds, Owls, Chickadees, Robins and other feathered creatures, explore up and down, singing, swooping, and sharing, and even some harmony (don't worry, parents, it's easier than it might sound :) ).  You even get a special chime ball, just like the ones we use in class to take home, as well as the class music on CD and digital download, and art banners and a board book with beautiful bird pictures, plus additional activities available online.  Feathers was the very first Village unit my daughter did, and even at almost 7, it's still one of her favorite CDs.

Then we move into what is her FAVORITE book from Village (and one of her favorites from Kindermusik) with the dancing bears of Do-Si-Do. In this semester, we'll be singing, dancing and moving to a lot of different styles and types of music, up, down and all around. Babies will giggle and bounce, and parents will get a workout and have fun doing it while we learn about music and the ways our wonderful bodies move. The fun continues at home with the "This is my Dance" board book that STILL has a place on my daughter's bookshelf, almost 7 years later, the Do-Si-Do CD and digital music download, additional digital activity downloads, beautiful art banners featuring dancing bears, and a scarf and egg shaker for home movement exploration.

The schedule isn't up yet, but keep watching this space and our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/KMatCMS so that you can be the first to reserve your spot for this musical experience :)

Favorite recorder resources

I got to lead a wonderful HOMe Co-op today, where about 20 kids learned the basics on recorder playing. For those parents interested in continuing at home, here are some of my favorite recorder resources. Also, I will make myself available to help any child or children (or parents) who want to do a little more recorder each week at Co-op before or after the more formal lesson.

http://www.dexterdragon.com
Dexter Dragon's Amazing Recorder adventure is a suite of pieces, beginning with one played just on B. If you're in the co-op group, you got the sheet music and the site password today at co-op for the first piece, and there are several more that I can make copies of for those who wish to continue. There are also adorable stories for each next step and new skill. On the site, you can hear the music and play along, as well as access other great resources.

http://www.musick8.com/rkdojo/rkdojo.php
By the same folks as Dexter dragon, you also got the first piece from this book (Hot Cross Buns) and the password to this site today. Recorder Karate is a set of "belt levels" for basic recorder, each adding a new skill (you may have noticed that my recorder has a "pompom" of colored yarn on the bell-that's why!). Like with Dexter, you can play along and participate in more activities on the site as you progress through the belts. I will make copies of the other pieces for anyone in the group who wants to continue-just e-mail me and let me know that you want them.

Other resources:

http://sites.google.com/site/laslomitasmusic/home/3rd-grade-music/recorder


Printable sheet music and video lessons

Recorder playing powerpoints
http://music.pppst.com/recorders.html


Tips to remember about playing recorder-

Left hand on top-
On recorder, this matters less than other instruments, but all other woodwinds and brass are left dominant, so it's best to get in the habit of playing left hand on top now so that the transition is easier later on if the child decides he wants to play a different instrument.

Blow Gently-
Soft, warm, air-be a tropical breeze, not a west wind. It's not the right time of year to fog up windows, but when I started recorder 2nd semester, I'd actually have my students practice fogging up windows to get the breath slow enough. Another good trick is to attempt to move a candle flame, without blowing it out.

Cover holes completely
Look for "recorder circles" on the pads of the fingers when hands are removed-if you don't have them, you're not pressing hard enough.

Think Dah.......

Most wind instruments you tongue using a "ta" sound. For recorder, you want a very soft approach, so you don't overblow and squawk. Daa is a good place to start.


Recorder care-
Don't share your recorder with anyone you wouldn't share your toothbrush with!
Brush teeth before playing, or at least rinse out your mouth. You don't want food in the recorder.

Plastic recorders can generally be washed in the dishwasher without melting (every now and then, I'll get one that will, but that was usually using the commercial dishwashers when I was still teaching K-6). If yours is 3 pieces, take it apart. Let drain and dry thoroughly before playing.



I had a lot of fun making music with you today! I hope you'll have fun at home.

Parents can help babies develop rhythm ~ Moving to the beat an early step to learning music, research shows

Parents can help babies develop rhythm ~ Moving to the beat an early step to learning music, research shows

March 11, 2007 

Parents can help babies develop rhythm ~ Moving to the beat an early step to learning music, research shows

The Associated Press
Updated: 6:40 p.m. CT June 2, 2005

WASHINGTON – Gently bounce a baby while you sing, and you’ll usually get squeals of glee. But it’s not just fun: Feeling the beat helps wire babies’ brains to hear rhythm.

So says new research that tested moms and babies doing what comes naturally — dancing around together.

Everybody knows babies love music. Around the globe, parents sing to their infants in a special way, with a distinctive high pitch that’s soothingly slow for a lullaby and elaborately bright at playtime. Babies catch on quickly, able to perceive aspects of melody and recognize different beats at just a few months of age.

Important for development
As psychologist Laurel Trainor studied how babies perceive music, she noticed that parents hardly ever sing to them without bouncing or rocking or playing with their feet. She wondered if that movement was important developmentally.

Her research shows it is: Using multiple senses helps the brain learn about rhythm — how we move indeed influences what we hear — Trainor reports in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

“It’s wiring the sensory system,” said Trainor, of Canada’s McMaster University. “That early experience that parents do naturally is probably really important for learning down the road.”

Consider it an early step toward learning to make music, or at least to really appreciate it, said infant development specialist David Lewkowicz, a psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University.

“It’s a very clever kind of study,” said Lewkowicz, whose own research also shows that stimulating multiple senses is important for brain development. “When babies are learning about their world, we should never lose sight of the fact that they are learning in a … multisensory context.”

Moving to the beat
Trainor and colleague Jessica Phillips-Silver tested 16 healthy 7-month-olds by having them listen to music made by a snare drum and sticks that had an ambiguous rhythm — no accented beats. Mothers bounced half the infants on every second beat, in a march-like rhythm, and half on every third beat, in a waltz-like rhythm.

Then the researchers played the music again, this time with the beats accented in either the march or waltz pattern.

The babies preferred to listen to the pattern that matched how they’d been bounced. (Trainor measured preference by how long the babies looked at speakers playing the different selections.)

Watching someone else bounce to the music didn’t do the trick. In a series of tests, the babies picked out a rhythm only if they’d been moved to that beat while listening to the original, nonaccented tune.

Nor was vision necessary. Blindfolded babies picked out the rhythm, too, as long as they’d been bounced.

So what if you don’t boogie with your baby?

No one needs continual bouncing, and passive listening certainly isn’t bad. “But they’re not getting the full experience that they would naturally get in most human cultures” without some bouncing along, says Trainor, whose research was funded by the Canadian government. “It suggests that you’re better off to do music in an interactive way.

“It probably doesn’t matter if you listen to Mozart or a rock band or jazz,” she adds. “All those kinds of music and concurrent rhythms go to wire up the brain.”

----

Kindermusik classes for parents and children 0-6 now enrolling! http://memphis.edu/cms/childhood.php

Beyond the Music-Movin' and Groovin' week 1

Welcome to the family! This week in Family time, we began our exploration of everything related to movement by starting with tempo. Tempo simply means "how fast (or slow) are you going".  As children grow and develop, they learn all the ways they can move, from crawling as babies, to walking, to running, until they get to the point that you REALLY wish they'd slow down a little! So, in class we will explore both ways to go, go, go, but also ways to slow, slow, slow down a little, to relax, and to control those growing bodies, even when it's hard.

Please go to play.kindermusik.com and use your play card to download a few songs to share with your child. This will let you start listening to the music while waiting for your home materials to arrive, and will greatly increase your child's enjoyment of and participation in class.

Here are some specific songs from class today:
http://play.kindermusik.com/tracks/4264-lento-y-rapido-slowly-and-quickly/

http://play.kindermusik.com/tracks/4262-hop-up-my-baby/

http://play.kindermusik.com/tracks/3892-riding-the-rails/

And a suggested album
http://play.kindermusik.com/albums/203-zoom-e-oh/



This semester we will also be looking at a lot of different animals and the ways they move. A great purchase to have at home, and a very inexpensive one at this time of year, is a deck of animal picture cards. Target usually has these in the dollar section during the back to school season, with either drawings, photographs or both, and at $1, it's hard to beat the price. This year, along with regular animal cards, they have animal movement and sound cards, which are great, too and musical instrument cards.

My personal favorite visual cards, especially for children who are learning a second (or third) language, are the Lang o Learn picture cards. These are more than a little bit pricey, I'm afraid, at about $10 a set (I've found them as low as $6 a set at teaching stores) but the nice thing about these cards is that not only are they nice, full color photographs of animals, objects, people and the like, but that they're labeled on the back in 17 languages, with pronunciation helps.

This week we listened to a horse galloping and trotting. If you have a chance to visit Shelby Farms, you can often observe horses in action out there, or here are some examples from youtube

Horse galloping

Horse trotting (with background music)


We still have spots for a few more friends in our Friday and Saturday classes. If you know someone who is interested, please invite them to check us out at http://memphis.edu/cms/childhood.php or contact me to set up a preview class

Have fun this week making music with your child!

Beyond the Music-Wiggles and Giggles, week 1

Welcome, or welcome back, to a new Kindermusik semester as we wiggle and giggle! As our children move from babies to toddlers to preschoolers, they literally MOVE, and move a lot! This semester, we will celebrate that movement and that growth in songs that refer to experiences in a young child's life.

First of all, please use the class code to visit http://play.kindermusik.com and download your class recordings. Since we don't have home materials yet, this will allow you to start listening to the music and improve your and your child's enjoyment of class each week, as you wishy, washy wee! together in your real bathtub, while washing dishes or the car, or just for fun.



Here is a cute, easy to make fish craft out of a paper plate. Why not use a big plate and a little plate, and let them explore "Above the Sea" this week? Participating in simple crafts, whether it's simply by observing and listening, coloring, or even, as a child moves into the preschool years, gluing or even cutting independently, develops fine motor skills and concentration, as well as gives a child an "I did it" feeling of accomplishment.

We still have room for a few more friends in our classes this semester. If you know someone who would love to join our Kindermusik experience, please invite them to come along and to get more information at http://music.memphis.edu/childhood.php. Right now, we have openings in classes on Fridays and Saturdays.



Until next week, have fun making music!

Music in a down economy

This has been a hard week for me. I've talked to a lot of parents who, as one mom put it "it's not a hard choice-if it's music class or mortgage, you have to pay the mortgage". These are parents who have suffered a job loss, or are worried about the future for other reasons.

And I understand perfectly. We found out less than a month ago that my husband's company is being bought out-for the second time in 5 years. We don't know what it means for us, whether we'll be moving, whether he'll have a job. It's terrifying. And it's SO easy to say "Well, those extracurricular activities are extra. We don't need them, and can save that money for the future". And feel justified in doing so. Especially since it WOULD reduce my stress to not worry about scheduling piano lessons, or getting to dance classes, or sewing elastics on ballet slippers.


But the other side of it is that I see my daughter, who is also responding to the stress at home. The stress of her father's potential job, the stress of a mother who is trying to get students for music classes. And I see that for her, in an uncertain word, music and dance are something she can cling to. They're there for her, supporting her, giving her a chance to be successful, and people who focus on the present, right now, without fear of the future. And she needs that. What's more, I need that. I need to be able to see that my labors are worth it, that she's benefiting, and that she's happy.

Obviously, each  family has to set their priorities, and if money's not there, it's not there. But consider the costs and benefits of stability, of familiarity, and of having someone in the child's life who isn't, for at least that hour, worried about the future. For me, it's worth it.

Sing to read, read to sing!

I had a wonderful storytime today at the Booksellers at Laurelwood, and in it I used a couple of Sing and Read storybooks. These are a wonderful addition to any home library. As a child "reads" books where the words are familiar, they are developing foundational literacy skills and working towards actual, independent reading. Furthermore, often these books become favorites, read again and again, giving the young child the reinforcement they need. You can find these books at any bookstore and many teaching stores. If your child gets Scholastic book orders through their preschool or child care program, they are often included there as well.

And, of course, literature selections are included in every set of kindermusik home materials.

Join us this Saturday at our Kindermusik Open House and Storytime at the University of Memphis, Park Avenue campus, building 2. We'll be exploring instruments, finding out more about the program, and just plain having fun! 

Free kids music downloads

Here are several sites with some nice kids' music downloads
http://www.nancymusic.com/Som-Cat.htm
This one has over 70 songs in Mp3 format for download, with most having printable sheet music as well. Songs follow a wide range of preschool and early learning themes. You can purchase a CD with all of the downloadable songs, too.

http://play.kindermusik.com
All of the Kindermusik core curriculum CDs are here, as well as many supplemental songs from the Do Re Me and You library. You get three songs intially free, and if you take a Kindermusik class,  can use the code in your book to both download your class music and 7 more free songs. You can also download songs at .99 each.

http://www.musick8kids.com/html/mp3freebies.php
There are several free songs for download here, including a wonderful one about washing hands.And lots of other thematic songs for download at .99 each, too-I've used many songs from this publisher through the years as a music teacher, and love them.

We are currently enrolling for classes at the University of Memphis Community music school, including Kindermusik!
visit us at http://music.memphis.edu/cms
For more music fun, visit me at makingmusicwithkids.blogspot.com or follow me on twitter  @musicwithkids

Practice as play-or, how do I get my child to practice?

http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/how-many-hours-a-day-should-you-practice/

This article brought practicing to mind. One of the hardest lessons that parents of young musicians need to learn is that practice doesn't just happen, You have to actively TEACH a child to practice, and that's not always easy. Here are a few suggestions I have for practicing with a young, beginning student that work...most of the time.

1) Have a set time to practice, with a set deadline. What works well for my daughter is to practice while a meal is cooking. She knows dinner will be ready "soon", so she doesn't feel that it's as interminable of a time period as "30 minutes" would be, and it's a flexible amount of time where I can pretty easily adjust it if she is really doing well and we want to follow this for awhile.

2) Teach someone else. My daughter does very, very well when she gets to teach someone else-usually her father (for some reason, she doesn't accept that I need to be taught), or even a stuffed animal or doll, her lesson. And in her explanations, I can tell that she's got it, or that she doesn't have it.

American Girl has 18 in doll sized musical instrument sets which seem perfect






It's almost enough to make me wish my daughter played violin, cello, or flute, but my daughter's found ways to create a piano and a recorder for her special friends.

Encouraging recitals helps, too. My daughter LOVES to put on concerts for her stuffed friends when she has a song ready-sometimes including programs.


I've also found, both with my Kindermusik Young Child students and at home, that focusing on repetitions instead of on time is a good way to go. Since Alfred, my alligator puppet, is my companion in Kindermusik classes, I let him help the children practice, too.

The kids push a bead around to "Feed" Alfred each time they play "mouse, mousie" or whatever song they're working on. And, of course, Alfred needs to eat EVERY day :). It's amazing how well this works. The beads and charms came from a necklace kit from Oriental trading-in this case, a "cajun crocodile" themed one, and there are all sorts of cute options. Each one makes 12 or more practice buddies (each necklace has 3 charms-in this kit, one alligator, one firefly, and one dragonfly, so if you don't have a specific mascot, you could easily make more than one per necklace).


I know that eventually, we'll get to the more deliberate practice talked about in the article-but right now, practice is play.

Confessions of a cheerleader mom-or, who chooses music lessons?

This is a tough one-because obviously, I believe music is important for kids. Otherwise, I wouldn't teach it-and especially, I wouldn't teach it to ages 0-7.

But there also comes a time when the child is truly expressing a preferences, and circumstances, whether it's too much homework, too many nights out of the house for mom to keep her sanity, money, or just common sense force a choice. What do you do when your child is clearly expressing a choice that's not what you want?

My first thought is to decide what the important factors are. For me, having music as part of my daughter's life is important, and since she's homeschooled, she is not getting even the once a week school music class. However, that doesn't mean that a specific KIND or type of music activity is essential. When my daughter was 2, I was gung-ho about starting her on Suzuki violin. I'd always wanted to play strings, and hadn't had the chance to learn until college, and here I was, teaching every week in a building with all these wonderful string teachers. So, I got a violin and started practicing.  I bought the Suzuki book 1 CD and started playing it constantly. I pointed out the violins that my DD heard each week when we were in the music building. I told my daughter that pretty soon she'd be big enough to take violin lessons, and wouldn't that be fun? I pointed out the Elmo's World episode where the violin was the word of the day.

And my toddler told me flat out "I don't LIKE violin! I play flute!".

Oops! Guess I'd missed an important step-figuring out what the child wanted.

Anyway, my DD stayed in Kindermusik, which she did enjoy. In YC 1, after she started playing glockenspiel, she began picking out the melodies on piano, and started trying to figure out some of the piano books I had at home. I started giving her little mini-lessons when she asked for them-but didn't even suggest starting formal lessons. In YC 4, she started playing recorder, and wanted to play it more, so I asked her if she wanted me to teach her recorder. Her response is "yes, but I want Ms Teri to teach me piano". Enough said. So now, she takes piano with Ms. Teri, and recorder with mommy. It works. She found her own way.


If she hadn't wanted to take piano or recorder, we'd find another way to get music education in for our homeschooling plan-maybe a children's choir, or a music literature class or music theory, or maybe she'd have wanted to try that flute she said she wanted at age 2. And I would have been worried that I wasn't doing enough-but I would have tried to let her do it.

Similarly, I feel that it's important for her to have some form of physical outlet, especially since we homeschool. We've tried soccer and t-ball. She hated both. We tried swimming. She likes playing in the water, but doesn't particularly like it in her nose, and she tends to break out when she's been swimming. We tried dance and cheerleading and gymnastics. Basically, anything our local parks and rec department offered that she showed any interest in whatsoever.

What's stuck was probably the single thing hardest for me to accept as a graduated high school and college band geek-she loves cheerleading. She loves it enough that she's willing to spend hours working at the gym, not for gymnastics, but for tumbling. She loves it enough that she wants to do hip hop or jazz-dance team, cheerleader-type dancing, not ballet, despite having worn a tutu everywhere at age 3-and even when she's dancing with her dance class, she's jumping and moving with the crisp, brisk moves of a cheerleader, not the fluid movements of a dancer. So, I've become a cheer mom, going to competitions and sitting on uncomfortable bleachers to watch my pigtailed, pleated skirted daughter get picked up by kids only a couple of years older than she is, and sitting at the gym watching her work on back handspring prep. Oh, and sitting in the orthopedist's office when my child broke a bone in her hand trying to do a flip off the stairs like the "big girls"-and having the orthopedist comment "You're a cheerleader, you'll be back to see me again!".

I don't know what the future holds. There's some big part of me that hopes that by high school she'll decide that she'd rather march in a band than lead cheers on the sidelines, or that she'd rather dance to Tchaikovsky than Justin Bieber. But she's made a choice that fulfills the stated goal of having something physical. She's working hard at it. And she enjoys it.

And, if push came to shove, and we could only afford one activity outside the house, she'd pick cheer. And I'd go with her. Not just because I can teach it myself, but because music is something she enjoys and finds rewarding, but for whatever reason, cheerleading is what she loves.  And if she, later on, decides she wants to try something else, that's fine too.

But ultimately, if she's not hurting herself or someone else by her choices, they should be her choices. Even if it means mommy doesn't get to take violin lessons.