Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Halloween coloring fun: Witches, Black Cats, Goblins, too!

Trick-or-treat!  

We have a treat for you that won't cause cavities- it's a Halloween coloring page.

Our Red semester Let's Play Music students are singing about witches, black cats, and goblins, too in our song, "Halloween is Coming".  To help you remember those tricky words, we've got a coloring page filled with those sneaky ghouls.  All will try to frighten you (but they won't be able to, will they?). 

Extend Your Vocal Range

This treat has a little trick, too- we trick the students into working out their vocals with all those ghostly howls.  The voice is an instrument and students improve with practice.  For this song, they practice making the mouth, jaw, and throat shape that will help create better tones and reach higher notes.  Hint: yawn and pay attention to the position of those parts.  While holding that mouth-shape, we step our voice up and down with the melody of the song- an excellent exercise for voice control and pitch-matching.

Read and Compose at Home

All semesters of Let's Play Music students can enjoy more fun exercises for sight-reading on bells or piano.  Here are the same Halloween pals to download and cut out.  They're round so you can use them as notes on a homemade staff (lines of tape on the floor work!).  Make a major scale!  Create a melody for bells!  Quiz each other on steps, skips, and intervals!  And finally, have a safe and fun Halloween.
The 5 fat turkeys are already looking forward to Thanksgiving, so they snuck in there.

-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music teacher

*Items shared via the blog are not official Let's Play Music student materials.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Online Game for Treble Clef Note Naming

This is a short post for my Purple Magic students: Here's a quick and fun website to drill you on your treble clef line and space note naming!

http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/note_naming/flash_card/note_flashcard.html

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Spring Bees: A Puppet Show With Vivaldi

Our Green semester students are learning the intricacies of Spring by Vivaldi through playtime with our "Spring Bees" puppet show.  Now they want to know more about Vivaldi and more about bees!


A Few Notes About Vivaldi

Who was born in Venice in 1678 on the same day as an earthquake, had red hair, suffered from asthma, and wrote 500 baroque concerti?  It was Antonio Vivaldi, of course.
Vivaldi's father taught him to play violin and they performed together. (Do you look forward to playing piano duets with your student?)  He was ordained a priest and nicknamed "The Red Priest" for his red hair, but left the ministry and spent most of his life composing and teaching music.  His "Four Seasons" is a very popular piece, and you're sure to enjoy this artistic rendition with some cool sand animation.

All About Bees

Several bees are cast in our Spring Bees puppet show, each doing its part to help make the hive successful.  Bee society is a fascinating subject, and we'd love to tell you more about each of the players in the show.
Here's a site with lots of photos of real bees at work!
  • The QUEEN is the mother of all the bees and can lay 1,500 eggs in one day.  She is the largest of all the bees.  She will fight any other queens she meets and can live 5-9 years.  You can hear her worry about her hive in this music!
  • The BABY bee is not really much of a baby- more of a young adult.  Bees have 4 stages of development: egg, larvae, pupa and adult.  A pupa becomes an adult during metamorphosis.  Young bees do the household chores: making wax into comb, sealing cracks with wax, and feeding the larvae.  Do the youngsters in your home do the chores?
  • The WORKERS are all females.  Honeybees are covered with fine, branched hairs that collect pollen when they crawl around the flower.  A bee gathers it from the hairs and carries it in pollen baskets on her legs.  She has a special tongue to suck up nectar and water.  Bees need water, too!
  • GUARD BEES are workers with the specific job of keeping an eye out for mammals or even ROBBER BEES from other bee colonies.  They all want the food inside the hive!
  • BEES STING only if they feel the hive is threatened.  If a honeybee stings a mammal, the barb in its stinger will stick in the thick skin and the bee will die.  However, the bee can sting other insects multiple times without harming itself.  Some species, like Bumblebees, have smooth stingers and can sting multiple times.
  • The COLONY works together like a single animal- if one part is threatened, the whole hive reacts.  In this music, you can hear how the music becomes minor when the whole hive is worried about attack.

Working in Concert

Who else besides bees are highly organized with specific roles?  Orchestras and bands! When you hear the music of the whole hive buzzing together, imagine you are conducting a bee orchestra.

The conductor helps all the musicians work together to express the dynamics of the music (volume and stylistic expression.)  Without a conductor, the musicians might play the correct notes, but some might be playing forte (loudly) when they should be playing piano (softly).  Even worse, some might play too fast or too slow and the group wouldn't stay together.  To help your child get an idea of the fun and power of conducing, enjoy this video of Mickey Mouse and his band.

As I sign off, here's a table of a few more terms your young composer might want to use as he conducts his beehive puppets this week, AND he may end up using them in his piano composition in Orange semester!

pianissimo (pp) superlative of piano- very softly
mezzo piano (mp) moderately softly
fortissimo (ff) superlative of forte- very loudly
fortississimo (fff) as loudly as possible
mezzo forte (mf) moderately loudly
forte-piano (fp) loudly followed immediately by softly
forzando (fz) >  or ^ : indicate a single tone or chord is to be accented
crescendo gradually become louder
decrescendo gradually become softer
crescendo poco a poco becoming louder little by little
crescendo subito becoming louder immediately
crescendo al fortissimo becoming gradually louder until f has been reached
crescendo ed animando gradually louder and faste 
con amore (with tenderness) con bravura (with boldness) con energia (with energy)
con espressione espressivo(with expression)
 con fuoco (with fire) con passione (with passion) con grazia (with grace)
con maesta maestoso(majestically)
scherzando schcrzoso(jokingly)
sotto voce (with subdued voice)

Have fun with your bees and Vivaldi!
- Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music teacher

Friday, October 4, 2013

What Type of Musician Is Your Child?

Would you like to have more ease, peace, and fun during piano practice time?  Would you like music time to go more smoothly- with less yelling, arguing or bribing?  Read on to explore how understanding your child's experience and perspective can give you one tool for welcoming the joy you seek.

At the 2013 Let's Play Music symposium, teachers attended a workshop featuring the book The Child Whisperer by Carol Tuttle.  Tuttle's goal is to help parents and teachers have ease with children, through honoring the true nature of each child. 

The 4 Types

Tuttle identifies 4 Types to be profiled (not personalities, but inherent natures). All children have all types within them, but lead with a dominant one.   To get a better pinpoint on which type matches your child, read more in The Child Whisperer or get a glimpse with this brief summary:
  • Type 1 children are fun-loving, social, and spontaneous.  
  • Type 2 children are thoughtful, emotional, and in-touch with feelings. 
  • Type 3 children are physical, active, energetic, and love challenges.
  • Type 4 children are intellectual, efficient, exact, and analytical.

Type 1: Practice Must be Fun

The fun-loving child wants practice to be FUN.  She'll love to pretend she has laser-beam eyes firing at her book, to put fancy stickers on her daily practice chart, to give high-fives at the end of every single song, and to play imaginative games you invent to make practice go by.  "At the end of this song, let's do jumping jacks!"  Because everything is more fun with a friend, she'll love playing duets with a parent or sibling and performing regularly to any cheering crowd.  Although having a daily practice time is always a good idea, this spontaneous child loves to pop in and play a song or two of her choice in short bursts whenever it suits her.  She won't mind if you propose a short impromptu play time at the piano randomly during the day, and she'll have more fun with you by her side.   When composing time comes, she'll have lots of short ideas and needs to have all of them appreciated and validated before cutting it down to the themes that will become the piece.  If you feel your relationship with your Type 1 is strained, it may be a sign you need more laughing, hugging, and cheering. She feels loved by having fun with you and she'll have a long relationship with music if she identifies it as one of her playful outlets.

Type 2: I Know Exactly What to Do

Your Type-2 child is a planner.  He can see details and how they add up.  At practice time, he'll want to discuss with you exactly how many reps he'll need to do of each drill each day to meet the weekly goal, and he'll care a lot about knowing exactly what the weekly goals are. He'll want to plan out what order he'll do the songs  before starting each practice, and have a vision of exactly how long it's going to take him at his own pace.  Encourage him and let him know that he will be able to achieve the weekly goals, even when they seem large.  He cares about making life flow easily, and will want to be in on the discussion about when the practice time will be happening each day.  This sensitive child will like to hear you tell him about your feelings and emotions.  "I am happy to see you trying so hard, even though I can tell it is not always easy."  "Thank you for singing and snuggling with me in class- I sure do enjoy spending time with you."  He will enjoy singing with you or playing duets with you because it gives a sense of connection and bonding.  When composing time comes, he will feel most confident if given as many details as possible about what is expected and how the process is going to play out.  "Please come next week with four bars of melody and some block chords to harmonize."  If your Type 2 child is unhappy in class, he likely wants to talk about his feelings and be understood, without being rushed.  Reflect back to him to show that you understood. "Are you feeling nervous because you think it might sound bad the first time?" The great news is that this type of child has the patience to practice and make steady progress.

Type 3: I Can Do This!

Your determined Type-3 child is adventurous and self-motivated once she decides she wants to do this.  She loves creating results, and will appreciate if you film her each time she masters a song and put stickers on the pages so you can look back frequently and celebrate her achievements.  For the same reason, she'll love to put on mini-recitals with photo documentation.  This child will enjoy manageable challenges like striving for a perfect practice record every week, and she'll enjoy sticker charts to show her progress.  If she has a hard time getting to practice at the agreed-upon time, it's possibly because she's excited about another pursuit she's equally passionate about in the moment.  Show respect for all of her passions, and remind her of what she's accomplished.
 When she feels downhearted, reflect with her. "Remember when you could not tie your shoes, but you kept trying, and now you can do it so easily? I think if you stick with this scale, you will be able to do it very soon."  Help your child be very aware of the weekly goals.  If she is enthusiastic and puts in two hours straight to complete the goals on the first day, it may be fine to let her take a few days off to pursue other passions (but a refresher just before returning to class is a good idea.)  This is also the child most likely to request advanced options from the teacher and have the drive to achieve them.  Provide her with recordings of various piano music. She may hear a song she loves and let you know, "I MUST learn to play this song!"  Get her the sheet music and she will! 

Type 4: This is Serious Business

Your analytical child wants respect from you, and enjoys being taken as seriously as another adult.  Include him in the discussion of when and how to practice and let him know that his ideas are taken seriously.  You may be surprised at his problem-solving.  "I think the best way for me to practice without being interrupted by the little kids is if you let me stay up to practice after they are in bed."  This Type enjoys perfecting and polishing his songs, so if he is ever frustrated when the group class puts a song away, assure him that he can keep working on it at home.  For the same reason, he may get frustrated when his progress is not quick and perfect.  Assure him, "It seems you are frustrated that it's taking a long time to learn this part.  I think your progress is right on track, and it was expected that this part would be tricky.  It's okay to feel frustrated, and it doesn't mean you're not a good pianist." Because he longs for respect, ask before offering too much advice on his work.  "I heard a few mistakes in that last song; would you like me to help you notice them, or do you want to keep working on it alone for a bit longer?"  Your thoughtful child may easily fall in love with the beautiful mathematics and theory of music as well the satisfaction of playing polished pieces and mastering technique.   He is the most likely Type to appreciate knowing the many ways music lessons can affect and improve his brain and school success.  He also is the Type who will enjoy knowing the purpose of each activity in class- what theory it is teaching and what skills it helps him practice. If your Type 4 child is not enjoying class, he may feel like he's not being included in designing how to go about learning and practicing.  The great news is he'll be able to handle a mature and respectful problem-solving conversation; if you take him seriously he'll love to find the solution for making things work.

Let's Play Music!

Now as you head to class and practice time, keep your child's experience, needs, and perspectives in mind.  Many parents are aware that each of their children go about music learning in a slightly different way, often different from how the parents themselves would work through it.  Respect your child's nature while guiding him through this wonderful and sensitive period.  Let's plant the seeds of love for music and offer a platform for bonding between parent and child.

For more ideas, grab your own copy of The Child Whisperer, by Carol Tuttle.

-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music Teacher