You can listen to Air and Simple Gifts played at President Obama's Inauguration by clicking the video below.
Maestro John Williams arranged a piece based on Aaron Copeland's arrangement of the old Shaker Tune "Simple Gifts" as "Variations on a Shaker Melody". Yo-Yo Ma performs along with Itzhak Perlman on violin, Gabriela Montero on piano and Anthony McGill on clarinet.
In class we talked about simple improvisation. If you have been following this blog for any amount of time, or involved in my classes for more than one session, you may notice this is a common topic! Improvisation is important for young children. As parents we have to be ready to improvise with more than just the songs we are singing with our children. Improvising (creating something in the moment) new verses to the familiar songs you are learning in class can help with your day. You can make up verses to songs about cleaning up, going potty, going to sleep, eating food, something you see while you are learning to wait patiently! We improvised with the songs Rocket Ship, Hey Lolly, Lolly, and a little bit with Ran Tin Tinnah this week. Pick your favorite song and see if you can make up a new verse to help you get through your day.
We also sang I've Been Workin' on the Railroad this week and I promised I would add more specific musical terms here for what we did. Your children are playing with huge musical concepts in class (odd meter, mixed meter, form, many tonalities, elongation, diminution, accelerando, ritardando, and many more). Being exposed to these large musical concepts through play at a young age will help them understand them as they get older.
In this song we had 3 main sections A, B, C. We played the egg shakers differently in each section.
A - tapped on the floor.
B - shook back and forth in the air
C - tapped together.
We repeated the B section 3 times. Each time we got faster. The musical term for this is accelerando.
Between sections we did a choo-choo whistle sound. We slurred our voices between the same pitches we use when we clean up. These are also the first pitches you can expect to hear from your infant/young child.
We also held two notes for a really long time. This would be indicated in music by a fermata.These are all great musical terms and ideas you can explore with older kids, and discuss with your children as they get older and want to understand more about what they already know how to do!
