Montessori Music Class

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

Music Together

Time to catch up with the blog!  This week in Music Together classes we did several different songs that change between duple and triple meter.  From the Music Together Collection we did the chant Every Day and we played finger cymbals with Walking Through The Woods.  I encourage you to try these activities at home!  See if you can come up with alternate verses for Every Day.  The first part of the chant is in a duple meter, "Mommies go shopping."  The repetitive part is in a triple meter, "Shopping and shopping and ............"

Our play along song also changed from triple to duple meter.  Kingdom Dance from the movie Tangled starts in a triple meter and changes to duple feel.  Click the link below to listen at home, play along, and dance.  Listen for the change in meter around 1:12.



Both this week and last week we added an ostinato to the Canoe Song.  An ostinato is a repeated part that goes along with a song.  For this song the ostinato was "Dip dip and swing."  Adding an ostinato to a song is a simple way to add parts and is a fantastic way to help develop your child's ear for music.  I encourage you and another adult or older child at home to try an ostinato that we have done in class or come up with your own!  Ostinatos can be tonal or rhythmic.

For a couple of weeks we also worked on the chant Down Under.  This chant exposes your child to mixed meters.  Mixed or unusual meters may seem hard to figure out.  However, by exposing your child to them from an early age these meters will seem to be a normal part of music instead of odd or difficult.  Click the link below to access the coloring pages we looked at in class.  You should be able to print them at home so your child can color them and use them along with the chant! (For me to print them from the blog I had to click the little square on the bar at the bottom.  It should say, "Open in a new window."  Once it is open in a new window click the actions button at the bottom of the screen.  Then click on print slides.  If you can't print them at home let me know and I'll print them for you!)



Some of the other play along songs and dances we have used in class are:

Following The Leader from Peter Pan
We worked on large motor skills by marching and doing a silly hop from one foot to the other on the macrobeat and steady beat.




We used the song Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian as a play along song.
Listen for the soft part of the song.  Play along loud, soft, and then loud again!

Music Together, September 19 and 20

Everyone did a fantastic job singing, dancing, and playing instruments this week!  Thank you parents for continuing to do all these things with your children in class.  It is apparent that you have been listening to the CD at home and are getting to know some of the songs.

Below is a copy of the coloring page I handed out in class.  When we played sticks along with the song "Palo, Palo" this week I just dumped them all out on the floor!  I find this to be a fun way to let the children explore all the different ways they can be played.  Some children will play just like you or I do, many will come up with their own ways, some will build with them, and some will just choose to observe.  Most of the parents choose to play the stick the way I was playing them.  If you did that then you were changing the size of the beat you played with each verse.  We played the steady beat, the microbeat (smaller/faster), and the macrobeat (larger/slower).  We will work on finding all of these beats in many of the songs we play along with.  The quote at the top of your coloring page was about finding and playing these different beats.  Most children find the faster microbeat easiest.


We also did some simple improvising with the songs "See How I'm Jumping," and "Hey Diddle Diddle."  When you or your child comes up with a new way of moving on the spot to the song "See How I'm Jumping," that is simple improvisation.  In the middle of the song "Hey Diddle Diddle" we did some jazzy tonal patterns.  Did you recognize any of the tonal patterns recognizable as other songs?  See if you can add your own jazzy scat singing or tonal patterns to this song at home.
I also encourage you to adapt songs to use in other ways at home.  I changed Little Johnny Brown to "Little Johnny Brown, are there any scarves layin' around?  Put them in the bag, Johnny Brown." to use it as a clean up song.  Change Johnny Brown to your own child's name and adapt the verse to something you would like them to get done.  Singing about it may make the task easier for you and for them!

The book we read along with "Hey Diddle Diddle" was
"Hey Diddle Diddle" By: Eve Bunting

The book keeps the same rhythm as the poem/chant, but adds other animals and instruments.  I checked it out at the Lake Wylie Library and it will be back there in a few days for you to get it next!

http://www.amazon.com/Hey-Diddle-Eve-Bunting/dp/1590787684









Our dance this week was the "Can-Can," and our play along was "Rocky Top." Click below to enjoy them at home!

Journey Montessori September 19

We continued working on some basic musical concepts this week with the songs we sang, danced to, and played instruments with in class.
The students are continuing to work on finding the steady beat for the Hello and Goodbye songs.  I change the steady beat to make it faster or slower, so they have to listen closely to the guitar to know how fast to pat the beat.
We did two familiar, and fun, rhythmic chants this week in music class.

I Have a Little Frog

I have a little frog
His name is Tiny Tim,
I put him in the bathtub,
To see if he could swim,
He drank up all the water,
And gobbled up the soap!
And when he tried to talk
He had a BUBBLE in his throat!

Hey Diddle Diddle

Hey! diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.


I read a great book to go along with the poem "Hey Diddle Diddle."
"Hey Diddle Diddle" by: Eve Bunting

The rhythm from the original poem is continued in the text in the book.  Each animal in the book plays a different instrument.  Students who I had last year that remembered what family different instruments belonged in could also identify those instrument families while we read the book!


http://www.amazon.com/Hey-Diddle-Eve-Bunting/dp/1590787684



We danced with scarves this week to the song "Pop Goes the Weasel."  Again the students had to work on listening closely to the music to know when to dance and when to freeze and throw their scarves up (they threw the scarves any time they heard the music or words for pop goes the weasel.)

We played sticks this week and worked on when to play and when not to play.  The students found very creative ways to keep their sticks quiet!  They were all very good listening for when to play and when to stop.
Our instrument play along song was "Rocky Top."  All of the students are doing a fantastic job waiting until they hear the music begin to get the instruments, keeping all of the instruments with their "family" in the correct box, and putting them all back as soon as the music ends.  The play along time also gives me a good opportunity to see who can play along to the beat of the song, and who can change the way they are playing to match the music (loud, soft, fast, slow, etc.)
Click the link below to listen to Rocky Top at home.  Help your children identify the instruments they see playing, and see if you can figure out what family of instruments they belong to.

Montessori Music Class

I can hardly believe we have already had three wonderful music classes at Journey Montessori this year!  The students are doing great in music class and we are having lots of fun.  We have several songs that we have been singing for the last three weeks.  Some of the songs will change soon and some of them will stay as part of our routine in music class.  We will always start class with our Hello song and end with a Goodbye song.  Right now I am just looking to see that the students can help me find the steady beat with both of those songs.  As the year goes on we will add some more difficult rhythms with the Hello and Goodbye songs.  We are also working on using our singing voices and finding the tonic (first note of the scale/key we are singing in) the dominant (fifth note of the scale/key we are singing in).  These are the easiest notes for our ears to hear and voices to sing.  The kids don't know they are working on all of this though, they just think they are having fun singing in silly voices up high and down low!

Some of the songs we have been singing that will change soon are, Open and Shut Them, Marry Wore Her Red Dress, and Yankee Doodle.  Below is a list of what musical concepts we are working on while singing those songs.

Open and Shut Them - This is a familiar song for many children.  We are using this song to calm down and prepare for music class.  We are also using this song to work on audiation.  (The definition of audiation is in the Music Together post below.)  Because it is a familiar song I am listening/watching to see if the children can sing part of the song, then hear the next part in their heads while we continue with the hand movements silently, then sing the following phrase, and so on.

Mary Wore Her Red Dress - This has been a fun way to get to know each of the students.  Each student gets a turn in this song to tell me something they are wearing and the class sings about it.
Check out the book Mary Wore Her Red Dress at your library or Amazon.  You can look inside the book on Amazon and see the song notated.
http://www.amazon.com/Dress-Henry-Green-Sneakers-Along/dp/0618752498

Yankee Doodle - We have used this song to work on marching (large motor skills) and group work.  The students are separated into two groups in class, the green group and the yellow group.  Each group had two phrases of the song to march across the room and back to their line.  They had to work as a group and listen closely to the music to all make it back to their line in two phrases!
We also used this song as a play along.  They learned about all the different non-pitched percussion instruments we have in the room and what family (box) they belong in.  Click the link below to play along with the song at home!

Music Together September 12, 13

Fall Music Together classes are off to a great start!  I'm so excited that we have three fantastic classes in Lake Wylie this session!  It's wonderful to have some local make-up options.  There are classes at 9:30 on Mondays and 9:30 and 10:30 on Tuesdays in Lake Wylie.  Each class has only a few spots open.  If you want to invite a friend to try a class with you I would love for you to bring them along.

Thank you to all the mommies, daddies, grandparents, aunts!  You were amazing singers and dancers in class.  Your children will learn best by hearing you sing and seeing you dance and play instruments.

This week we danced to Jump In The Line by Harry Belafonte.  This is a fantastic song to dance to or play instruments with at home.  Click the link below to enjoy it at home.

If anyone missed out on the information from the coloring page handed out in class here it is!

"Audiation is defined as the ability to hear and understand music in the mind, when the physical sound of that music is not present.  Aduiation is not a skill that is immediately or quickly learned.  It is a skill that children develop slowly, through an ordered process over a period of time.  And it is best for children to develop this skill as soon as possible.  They can learn to audiate shortly after birth."  

Guiding Your Child's Musical Development 

by Edwin Gordon

You Audiate when singing a song like "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes and leave out (don't verbalize/sing) one part each time you repeat the verse.  We worked on audiation today when we did a drum break and continued playing to the beat of the song with no music (singing) present.  The songs we added the drum break to were Little Liza Jane and Funga Alafia.  They are paired together on your CD, but on separate pages in your song book.  I encourage you to get out drums or pots and pans at home and play along with this song this week.  It is a great recording to play along with!

Music Together of Charlotte Facebook Sweepstakes!

If you missed out on being one of the first 150 to like the Music Together Facebook page don't worry, there will be another drawing once the page reaches 300 fans!!

Music Together of Charlotte has a new Facebook page.  If you "liked" the old page it is gone now and you need to "like" the new one!  The first 150 to "like" the new page will be entered into a drawing to win a free session of Music Together at the Music Together of Charlotte location of your choice!  Hurry almost 100 people already like the page!

Improvising With Your Children

Check out this fun video of Adam Sandler improvising a song (creating a song right in that moment) with Elmo on Sesame Street.  Then read on below about how we improvised with our Music Together songs and more ways to improvise with your children at home!



This week in Music Together class we changed the song Apples and Cherries (better known as Grey Sand and White Sand) to make it into a large movement song.  Changing the words to movements is a very simple way for both parents and children to improvise their own verses to this familiar song.  We changed the verses to activities like jumping and running, walking and marching, crawling and snuggling.  You could also change them to give your children directions about what they need to do at home (eating my breakfast, putting my shoes on).  I encourage you to try improvising ( the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition) your own verses with your children at home, no matter how little they are.  If they see you try it they will learn to try it to!

Another fun song to improvise new verses to in the Summer Music Together collection is "There's A Little Wheel A Turning in My Heart." Try changing the verses to something fun you have done this summer, "There's a little girl a splashing in the pool, there's a little boy a digging in the sand."  Check out Laurie Berkner and Nancy Cassidy's versions of the song for some more verses.

There's a little wheel a-turning in my heart            
There's a little wheel a-turning in my heart  
In my heart in my heart 
There's a little wheel a-turning in my heart 

There are two hands clapping in my heart . . . 

There are two feet stomping . . . 

There's a little dog barking . . . 

There are two eyes blinking . . . 

There are some kids sleeping . . . 

There's a big truck honking . . . 

There's a little wheel a-turning in my heart . . .

There's a little wheel a-turning in my heart,            
There's a little wheel a-turning in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
There's a little wheel a-turning in my heart.

There's a little song a-singing in my heart,

There's a little frog a-leaping in my heart,

I see the sun a-rising in my heart,

We're dancing round the world in my heart,

Babies Hear Songs Before Birth

Infant Learning and Music

By Lyn Ransom, D.M.A. on January 25, 2011

Lyn Ransom, D.M.A., is the recently-retired Director of Program Development at Music Together LLC and coauthor of Music Together Preschool. She helped to develop Music Together’s Babies Program in 1999 and was a curriculum writer for all of the Music Together song collections. In addition to 25 years’ experience teaching adults and young people to sing, Dr. Ransom developed the music program for High/Scope Foundation and served as a teacher trainer for Head Start and Follow Through. Author of Children as Music-makers, she has served on the music faculties at several universities, including Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Iowa State University, and Westminster Conservatory of Music at Rider University. As a new faculty member at Iowa State University in the ‘80s, Sister Lorna Zemke was an important influence for me. Sister taught at Silver Lake College and was a pioneer in prenatal music development. I was fascinated by her program, which involved singing to babies in utero. She observed that newborns recognized their parents’ voices, as well as the lullabies that had been sung to them prior to birth. I was fascinated but doubtful. How could babies hear or remember anything from before they were born? Yet, three years later, as an expectant mother myself, I was sure my six-month embryo kicked more around cello and bass guitar than anything else. We went to a jazz concert where the speakers were turned up and the baby kicked hard—and it seemed as if he kicked when they were playing and stopped between songs. I went to my OB/GYN the next week and said, “Dr. B., I am sure he kicks more when there are low sounds than when there are not. Would you be interested in doing some research with me? We could watch the baby on ultrasound while different musicians play. We could see if he responds to music and we could see if he responds more to low sounds.” He told me that the kicking was probably random and that I perhaps had a vivid imagination. Now, of course, we know prenatal babies hear from the fourth month in utero, and we know they tend to respond more to low-pitched sounds than to high ones. We are rapidly finding out the level of discernment and memory that babies posses when they’re born, and we’re beginning to understand more about the stimulation they need for development. One recent study by Nakata and Trehub (2003) compared babies’ responsiveness to their mothers’ singing and mothers’ speech. Babies six months old showed greater interest when mothers sang to them than when they spoke to them, as indicated by increased visual focus and reduced movement. We see this at home and in Music Together classes as babies “stare and study” when people sing to them. The researchers also noted that the regular pulse of music may also enhance emotional coordination between mother and infant. Another study by O’Neill, Trainor, and Trehub (2001) documents infants’ greater visual attention when being sung to by fathers than by mothers. It also articulates the differences in the ways fathers and mothers sing lullabies and play songs when the baby is present and when the baby is absent. Both fathers and mothers were more animated and playful when the babies were present, but fathers didn’t raise the pitch of the songs with baby present as did the mothers. I think this study points out the importance of fathers and mothers both singing to babies: In addition to aiding emotional bonding and musical play, this may help babies develop their focusing skills and memory. One-year-olds remember and prefer music they heard before they were born, according to a study by Alexandra Lamont from the University of Leicester. The “Child of Our Time” study involved mothers playing a self-chosen piece of music to their babies for the last three months before birth, then not again until the children were twelve months old. Eleven babies tested all showed a significant preference for these pieces compared to very similar pieces of music they had not heard before. The babies’ preferences were based on the amount of time they spent looking towards the source of the music. When they stopped looking at the speaker which played the music, the music stopped. The babies quickly learned the association between their looks toward the speaker and the amount of music they could hear. Many more studies on early learning and music have been conducted recently, but even just these three indicate how much and how fast babies learn, how strong their differentiation skills are, and how important caregivers’ singing is to the infants. It is also an indication of how complex music-learning is and how much researchers have to study! Did you sing or play music for your baby in utero? Have you observed your baby’s preferences for different kinds of music? Lamont, A. (2001.) Birth of musical protégés. University of Leicester Bulletin, 3. For more information on the Child of Our Time study:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072bk8 Nakata, T., & Trehub, S. E. (2003.) Infants’ responsiveness to maternal speech and singing. Infant Behavior and Development, 27, 455-464. O’Neill, C., Trainor, L. J., & Trehub, S. E. (2001.) Infants' responsiveness to fathers' singing. Music Perception, 18, 409-425.

Sing ABC's With Sesame Street!

Here are some fun Sesame Street videos of celebrities singing the ABC song in different musical styles.  Enjoy singing along at home!

Music for the 4th

Happy 4th of July!  It's a fantastic weekend to enjoy both fireworks and music.  Click the link below to watch the Boston Pops play some wonderful patriotic music and sing along with your children!

If you are looking for some wonderful music and fireworks together you can go out and watch the Charlotte Symphony tomorrow night (Sunday, July 3rd).  Take a picnic and enjoy the show!

Can't make it to see the Charlotte Symphony perform, then watch the Boston Pops play on July 4th and enjoy the fireworks on TV.

DANCE!

Below are some fun songs and children's stories about dancing you can enjoy at home this Summer.

When you are dancing or playing instruments at home remember to play around with different beats (Macrobeat or the big beats, the steady beat, and the microbeat or little subdivided beat that your child will find easily).
"Repeating the melody while changing the rhythmic movement helps everyone learn the music more deeply because it involves more neurological pathways and more parts of the body."

"How Can You Dance" by Rick Walton and Ana Lopez-Escriva is a fun book that compares dance moves to animals and nature.  The book has a great rhythm to it and encourages children to try/create the dance moves themselves!  

"Color Dance" by Ann Jonas is a fun book that teaches primary colors and what colors they make when you mix them.  This is a fantastic book to go along with the song "Me, You, We" from the Summer Music Together Collection.  Sing one color for the first, another one for the second, and the color those make when they are mixed together for the last verse which is sung up a third from the first two verses.

Click the YouTube links below for some great songs to add to your collection of dance and play along songs. 

Malambo from Estancia by Alberto Ginastera

Waltz from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky



Bounce Me Brother With A Solid Four



Obla Di Obla Da by the Beatles

Great Big Stars

We did sign language with the lullaby Great Big Stars this week.  If you would like to add sign language to the song at home follow along below.

A wonderful bedtime story to go along with this lullaby is "How Many Stars in the Sky" by Lenny Hort.  In this story a little boy and his dad go from the city to the county to count the stars they see.  They compare how many stars you can see in the city to how many you can see in the country.

Just For Fun

Click on link below to play the Google Guitar.  You can record your own song and save it!  Have Fun.
http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

Learning Rhythm Through Play

Below is a great video that Music Together put together about how your young child learns about, and plays with rhythm.

Summer Music Together Registration

Favorite Classical Play Along and Dance Songs

Here are some of my favorite Classical Play Along Songs and Dances that we use in class but are not part of the Music Together collection.  This post is a work in progress so check back for more songs.  I will add other categories of play along and dance songs used in class soon.

For the YouTube links you can click directly on the picture to play the music at home.  The YouTube links are typically similar to the version of the song we listened to in class, but may not be exactly the same.  If you want to buy the MP3 so you can put it in your playlist or burn your own CD click on the smaller Amazon links.  I have been very happy with Amazon music downloads and you can now save your music to their cloud player so it is never lost even if your computer crashes.

Most of the pieces listed below are from the CD "100 Of Classical Music's Greatest Moments."  The album is a great deal for 100 great classical songs.













The Can Can by Jacques Offenbach
Our dance to this song involved tippy toeing around the room at the beginning.  When the dancers start singing in the video we did the classic leg kicks followed by wiggling at the end of each phrase.  When the music returns to the soft bouncy music being played by the orchestra we went back to tippy toeing again.  We typically ended the piece with some combination of jumping and wiggling!  This is a fantastic song for dancing and playing instruments with.
















William Tell Overture - Finale by Gioachino Rossini
We used this song as a play along to go along with the Music Together version we sang in class.  This song can also be fun to dance or move around like horses to.















The Toreador's Song from the opera Carmen by George Bizet
We used this song as a play along in class.  It has some fantastic musical contrasts to listen to (loud/soft, legato/staccato, fast slow).















Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian
This piece was used as a play along in class.  It is a fun energy filled piece of music!














Russian Sailors Dance by Reinhold Gliere
We used this piece as a dance in class.  I asked you to listen for how the music kept changing and change your movements to match.  Each time the melody repeats it is presented differently.  We used big and little movement, heavy and light movements, fast and slow movements, and many others.  This is a great game to play with your older children to see if they can identify musical contrasts.  Also a fun play along song!















Waltz Masquerade by Aram Khachaturian
We danced to this waltz in class.  It is great for holding your child and dancing around the room.  Help your child feel the strong down beats while dancing or playing along.














Radetzky March by Johann Strauss
This is a great play along song.  The Vienna Philharmonic plays this song every year on New Years.  If you have never watched the the Vienna Philharmonic I highly recommend it!  Watch the video below and see if you can clap along at the correct times when the conductor turns to the audience.

Journey Montessori May 11

I can hardly believe there are only two music classes left this school year.  I have had so much fun teaching your children and I am amazed at all they can do!  We have continued to identify instruments and what instrument family they belong in.  The children are all doing a wonderful job of telling me the name of each instrument and whether they belong in the brass, woodwind, string or percussion family, as well as why they belong in that family.  If you want to play around with instruments and musical concepts with your child(ren) at home I encourage you to go play at sfskids.com.  It is the San Fransisco Symphony's kids website.
They are also able to quickly identify musical contrasts, verbally or with movement, such as loud/soft, fast/slow, high/low.

A great summer music activity is Jump Start Music.  Your child can work on melodies, rhythm patterns, and instrument recognition at home on the computer.
http://www.rmlearning.com/2071.htm


We have been working on clapping the syllables of our first names in class for the past month.  In this class we added the icons and note values that go with our clapping.  We looked at a half note, quarter notes, and eighth notes.  Ask your child to clap their name and see if you can match it with one of the rhythms below. (The rhythms should appear as follows 1. one half note, 2. two quarter notes, 3. eighth note, quarter note, eighth note, and 4. eighth note, eighth note, dotted eighth note, sixteenth note.)

________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________                ______________________________________

        ____________                     _____________________________               ______________

___________      __________                _______               ___________

Jazz and Classical Music at Home

Music Together LLC shared some wonderful articles on their Facebook page about enjoying Jazz and Classical music with your children.  Both articles are talk about using books or stories to help engage your child in the music.  I used most of the books listed in the jazz article with my students when I taught public school general music and have also enjoyed reading them to my own children so I can tell you from experience that these stories greatly enhance learning about great jazz musicians and their music.  The article on classical music talks about the family telling their children what the music they are listening to is about.  This is something my husband (who also has a degree in music) is great at doing with with our children.  My daughters will now ask me when we are listening to classical music what it is about.  If we don't know the exact storyline we enjoy making up our own story about what the music could be about.  It is a great car ride activity!

How Do You Introduce Classical Music To Kids?

02:33 pm

May 16, 2011

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by ANASTASIA TSIOULCAS

EnlargeErich Auerbach/Getty Images

This lad looks less than enthused about classical music. (Actually, it's a very young Nigel Kennedy, captured by a cameraman in 1964.)

It was early afternoon on a sunny Saturday. We were stuck in the car in heavy traffic. All three of us were bored and restless. All snacks had already been consumed and endless rounds of 20 Questions had already been played. We'd forgotten our iPods and our phones were running low on batteries. We were nowhere close to our destination.

"Are we there yet?" came a cry from the backseat at closer and closer intervals. In desperation, my husband fiddled with the car radio, and chanced upon the gleaming chords of Das Rheingold. Ah, the Metropolitan Opera broadcast and then, something that stunned us: glorious silence from the peanut gallery. Had we hit upon something that would stave off the impending meltdown?

"What's this about?" finally came the querulous three-year-old's voice. Sensing the possibility of a small reprieve, my brave spouse launched into a more than lightly edited précis of Wagner's firstRing opera: a dwarf, a golden ring, three lovely river sprites, a kingdom full of interesting gods and goddesses.

"I wanna go see it!" she cried. When we gently told her that she might not like the entire story, and that it takes hours and hours and hours anyway, she promptly burst into genuine tears. She was burning to go to the opera and witness this story about the magical ring and all the people who wanted to own it. As adultRing-lovers, our associations with this music might revolve around Wagner's artistic genius, or, more grimly, about the composer's repellent anti-Jewish writings. For our preschooler, the Ring sounded like a wonderful addition to her greatly beloved stable of princess stories. (Cinderella, Snow White, Brünnhilde ... )

Admittedly, the Ring isn't quite appropriate for a less-than-mature audience, what with its murders and incest and whatnot. But that episode in our car spurred me to thinking about how kids encounter classical music, and how we adults shape those early encounters, whether it's just via what music we have playing in our homes or how we introduce classical music and opera in more formal settings.

We've invited some notable artists, including soprano Christine Brewer, pianists Leif Ove Andsnes and Orli Shaham and conductor Marin Alsop to weigh in on this topic this week. But we're also eager to hear your thoughts and experiences, and to have your voice as part of our conversation.

A few of my own observations as a parent and as a music lover:

• Talking down to kids about music never works, just as it doesn't work in any other subject matter. Children can smell disingenuousness at a thousand paces. Moreover, there's no reason to gate kids only to "music for children." Yes, Peter and the Wolf is wonderful, but it's not the endpoint of the journey.
• I have yet to meet a small child who turns away from new music, even the supposedly "thorniest" — there are no preconceptions about what music is "supposed" to be, which is very freeing. Kids don't sniff at abstract or modern visual art, and they don't turn up their noses at abstract music, either.
• Forget that "baby brain" business — that classical music should be listened to because it will help get your kid into Harvard. Not only do scientists say that it's not true (though many companies have made a lot of money pushing the idea), but it's not a good reason anyway. What's the matter with listening to music purely for enjoyment? On the other hand, a few great things came out of that kind of marketing, like a segment from HBO's "Classical Baby" series that marries a Miro painting to music by Bach. (You can check it out below.)
• Smaller fry have yet to absorb the (false) notion that classical music is stuffy, snobby, or boring. It's just sound, as far as they're concerned. If they can dance to it, all the better.
• Exposure to classical music shouldn't be doled out in strictly educational, "eat-your-broccoli-because-it's-good-for-you" doses. It can and should be part of the larger flow of life. In my own house, last evening's play list included some of John Coltrane's Impulse sessions, Stravinsky's Wind Symphony, the Kronos Quartet's "Caravan" recording and the Yo Gabba Gabba album "Music Is Awesome." (Yes, it is!)
• Lots of the "traditional" avenues of introducing classical music and opera to children are not necessarily relevant to children today. Sure, there are the amazing Bugs Bunny cartoons like 1949's "The Rabbit of Seville" or "What's Opera, Doc?" (also known as "Kill the Wabbit") from 1957, but they're more than half a century old now, and so are many of the references within these cartoons.
• Some live concert programming for kids is amazingly good. I'm a big fan of the current incarnation of the New York Philharmonic's Young People's Concerts. Last season's walk-through of Magnus Lindberg's Feria should be required listening and viewing for audiences of all ages. (And the DVDs of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's broadcasts are a staple in our home collection.) Some such children-focused programming, though good-intentioned, is honestly pretty awkward and stiff — and, when you get right down to it, deadly dull and earnest to a fault.
• Humor is great. Everyone in our family loves Lemony Snicket and Nathaniel Stookey's The Composer Is Dead, even though many of the jokes fly right over our kid's head. And physical comedy never fails to please; I heard more belly laughs than I've heard in ages at Nathan Gunn's performance as Papageno in a Metropolitan Opera "family" performance of the Julie Taymor-directed Magic Flute.
• The music belongs to children just as much it belongs to "us" — the ones with the years of listening experience, who have already absorbed current conventions of concert-going practice (don't applaud between movements, obey the dress code, etc.), and who might well have had years of formal training. Classical music isn't a museum piece to be looked at and not touched, as it were.

shatalka

Miro meets Bach.

Source: YouTube

Tags: classical

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9 Books to Introduce Children to Jazz

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Amy

Jazz music has inspired some wonderful children’s books. The booklist below features great read aloud books, including Charlie Parker Played Be Bop, Ben’s Trumpet, and When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat. This booklist also includes autobiographies of five great jazz musicians: Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum and Charlie Parker. (So far, no one has successfully written a good children’s book about my favorite jazz musician, Billie Holiday.)

For those of you who would enjoy sharing videos of jazz musicians with your children, I have created a YouTube jazz playlist with videos selected to appeal to children. Take a look!

Charlie Parker Played Be Bop by Chris Raschka. A fun read aloud, with words and rhythm that give kids a sense of be bop: “Charlie Parker played be bop. / Charlie Parker played saxophone. / The music sounded like be bop. / Never leave your cat alone.” Raschka’s wonderful illustrations have movement that matches the words. Ages 0+

Max Found Two Sticks by Brian Pinkney. Max (not Roach) imitates the sounds he hears in his neighborhood with his sticks. This wonderful, simple story shows kids that music can be found anywhere. Max creates music by pounding out rhythms on his thighs, a bucket, hat boxes, and more. Ages 2+

Ben’s Trumpet by Rachel Isadora. A sweet story about a young boy Ben who enjoys listening to jazz music and pretending to play the jazz trumpet. Ben frequently stops by the Zig Zag Jazz Club to listen to the musicians practice. One day the jazz trumpeter at the Zig Zag Jazz Club offers Ben encouragement and a special gift. Ages 3+

When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat by Muriel Harris Weinstein and R. Gregory Christie. A very fun story to introduce kids to Louis Armstrong and to scat. My kids love the silly bubble gum scat rhyme. The bold illustrations and bubble gum scat make this book a wonderful read aloud. Ages 3+

The Jazz Fly by Matthew Gollub and Karen Hanke. I did not appreciate this book until I read it with the accompanying CD. The story together with the CD introduce kids to the sounds various jazz instruments make and to the concept that jazz musicians improvise based on sounds they have heard. Ages 4+

Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuoso by Andrea Pinkney and Brian Pinkney. An entertaining introduction to Ella Fitzgerald. Narrated by a fictional cat, Scat Cat Monroe, Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuoso tells the tale of Ella’s initial efforts to become a professional dancer and ultimate success as a jazz vocalist. Ages 5+

Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra by Andrea Pinkney and Brian Pinkney. Another superb biography by wife and husband, Andrea and Brian Pinkney.Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra tells the tale of Duke Ellington’s career, from his early rejection of the piano to his success as a band leader, pianist and composer. Ages 5+

If I Only Had a Horn: Young Louis Armstrong by Roxanne Orgill and Leonard Jenkins. Describes how a very young Louis Armstrong first came to play the trumpet. Includes a scene where Louis shoots a gun in the air to celebrate New Years Eve and is sent to jail. Ages 6+

Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum by Robert Andrew Parker. An inspirational biography of the phenomenal jazz pianist Art Tatum that focuses on Tatum’s early years. Despite being blind, Tatum taught himself to play the piano and is considered by some to be the best pianist ever. Ages 5+