Can you believe we have reached the end of music classes? And that the school year is almost over?! I dearly wish we could have had this time to sing and make music together in person, but I am really looking forward to meeting you all next year! One final Music Listening piece for the school year. I thought this was a beautifully appropriate song to close us out. Pay special attention to the words Kermit is singing in this classic from the Muppets, "Rainbow Connection." Let's pretend we are giving our final performance of the year. Grab your parents and siblings if you want an audience as we sing and dance along to some of our favorite songs from this school year. Of course, we will start it all off with "Hello There! Speaking of rainbows, let us "Sing a Rainbow" together. Next is our fun and silly American folk song, "I Bought Me a Cat." Did you know that the great American composer created a version of this for vocal soloist and piano? Check it out if you get a chance: https://youtu.be/pfGWTiNN83E Now it is time to sing "Mariposita" in both English and Spanish. "Silver Moon Boat" is a lovely Chinese folk song- and in 3rd grade I will teach you to play it on the recorder next year in 3rd grade. We will sing it in English, and do our best to sing the Chinese words. Sing and dance along with "Shoo Fly!" Of course we can't forget the song "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" that gave hope to slaves in the South. How about some great classic Disney songs? "Let's Go Fly a Kite" and "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah!" Let's conclude the singing portion of our performance with the great American patriotic song, "America!" And now we will finish our performance with our favorite dances, "Dinosaur Dance" and "Doin' the Penguin! Have a great summer, dear friends! I'll see you in September!
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Hello, my dears! Can you believe that we are almost finished with music for this school year?! Juts one more week left after this one. Let's start with listening to some beautiful music. This Csardas by Vittorio Monti is a beautiful piece of Romantic gypsy music performed on violin and piano. Let's begin singing. We will start, as always, with "Hello There!" and "The Solfege Song," followed by some Call & Response Solfege Practice We added some new songs last week. First up, let's sing "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain." We also added a fun Disney song, "Zip a Dee Doo Dah." A slightly different version of this song, but I think you will enjoy singing "The Whole World." I know you all love to dance, so let's do "The Dinosaur Dance!" Two of the greatest, and most diverse, musical geniuses of our time collaborated on an album together in 1992, and the result was amazing. Bobby McFerrin is an African-American jazz vocalist who can do amazing things with his voice. (Your parents probably know "Don't Worry, Be Happy" one of his best-known songs.) Yo-Yo Ma is a Chinese born cellist who can do amazing things on the cello. Watch them perform a fun version of "Hush Little Baby." (And if you enjoy that and want to listen to some more, "Flight of the Bumblebee" and "Vocalise" are amazing performances!) You know what comes next! "Hello There!," "The Solfege Song," and then some Call and Response Solfege Practice! I know that learning the Chinese words to "Silver Moon Boat" may have been tricky for many of you, so I wanted to give you another chance to work on it. (You can review the Pronunciation Guide if you need.) Time for some new songs! "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" is an American Railroad song from the 1920s, although the original tune came from a hymn first published in 1899 called "When the Chariot Comes." It was sung by African-American slaves and is believed to be a song that gave clues for slaves to escape using the Underground Railroad. "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" is a fun, upbeat song (that would probably have been our show closer.) It is originally from the Disney movie Song of the South from 1946. If you would like to see the original version, you can find it here. How is "America" coming along? Do you have it memorized yet? One of my favorite books about music, and a great introduction to the musical instruments, is "Zin, Zin, Zin, A Violin" by Lloyd Moss, with illustrations by Marjorie Priceman. Watch this read-along video, which includes clips of all the instruments playing "Ode to Joy." Which instrument is your favorite As promised, I have a new dance for you this week, to the song "Dinosaur Dance." This silly song has an A-B form, with a special little extra Coda at the end. Watch the introductory video to show you how to do the dance, and then we can dance it together! I would love to see videos of you doing it at home. Send them to [email protected]. I wanted to start this week with some music listening. I'm sure you are all quite familiar with the song "Let It Go!" from Frozen, but I bet you've never heard it played like this before! It is played by a group of (mostly) teenagers on both orchestra and traditional Chinese instruments. Blew me away! I think you know what comes next! Let's do our Welcome Song, "Hello There!" and sing "The Solfege Song!" Time to do some Call & Response singing using our Solfege skills (say that five times fast!) Remember, I will sing first and you will echo me. Before we start our singing time, I'd like to talk to you about PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS. A percussion instrument is anything that we strike or hit to make a sound. In our music class, we have access to a lot of great percussion instruments, like drums, xylophones, egg shakers, triangles, and more. But right now, we are all at home and probably don't have things like that, which means we get to be creative! So look around the house and see what you can find. Here are some ideas I had for common household objects that could be used as percussion instruments:
Now that you have brainstormed, grab your instrument, whatever it might be and try playing steady beat with some of our songs. Or get extra creative and see if you can make up some fun rhythms that go along with the songs. (Make sure you ask Mom or Dad if it is OK to use it first!) You can watch this video for inspiration. Let's sing our beautiful Patriotic song, "America." Bet you have learned the words by heart! Although I am sure some of you speak Spanish, for many of us, learning the Spanish words to "Mariposita" may have been tricky, so I would like to give you the chance to sing it one more time, in Spanish and then in English. Isn't "Silver Moon Boat" a beautiful song? Let's refresh our memories by singing it in English again. Great job. Now let's see how we do with the same song in Chinese. Listen to the pronunciation guide a few times first, before you try to sing the whole song. Just do your best! "Shoo Fly" is such a fun song to sing. And it's even more fun to dance to! We will sing through it together before I teach you the dance and we perform it all together! Usually I would do this as a great big circle dance in class, but this version is fun too! Since we are in a dancing mood, let's close out our time with another dance. Let's see how well you remember the moves to "Can't Stop the Feeling!" I have a special new dance to teach you next week that goes with a song about dinosaurs! Let's get right into the music! Starting with "Hello There!" and "The Solfege Song." We are going to keep developing our solfege skills as we do some Call & Response singing. I will sing first, and then you echo me. Don't forget to do your hand signs! Moving on to our songs- Hopefully you are feeling comfortable with "America," our Patriotic songs. Sing along to get your voice warmed up. The last two weeks we have been learning the song "Mariposita" ("Little Butterfly") in English. Let's sing through it together before we learn the Spanish words. Now let's work on singing it in Spanish. We will start with the Pronunciation Guide. Now let's try singing all of "Mariposita" in Spanish. It may be a good idea to sing it a few times. "Let's Go Fly a Kite" is next on our list. This favorite from the movie-musical Mary Poppins is a simple, fun tune to sing. "Silver Moon Boat" is a children's song from China talking about the moon. Let's learn it in English this week. When you are in 3rd grade, you may even get to play this song on the recorder! Our last new song for this week is an American folk song that I love to dance to. I remember singing it in a Kindermusik class with my son was he was just a baby. I think you will pick up "Shoo, Fly" really quickly. It is a fun song written in ABA form. And next week I will definitely teach you the dance! I know you have all had fun "Doin' the Penguin" for the last few weeks. Time to move onto another fun dance that I am sure you will love! I'm pretty sure you will recognize the song and be able to sing and dance along with "Can't Stop the Feeling." As always, I would love to see videos of you doing your dances at home! You can email me at [email protected]. Welcome back, 2nd Graders! I hope you had a fabulous week and enjoyed last week's music lesson! Let's get right back into singing with our Welcome Song- "Hello There!" Let's continue warming up our voices and brains with "The Solfege Song." Learning solfege will help us learn more difficult music in the future, and be able to play it on the Orff instruments, like the xylophone and glockenspiel. We're are going to practice our Solfege skills with some Call & Response singing. I will sing and sign first, and then you will echo me. Well done! Now that we are all warmed up, let's get to some songs! Just so you know, I like to repeat songs for a few weeks so that we can be really comfortable with singing them. This allows us to add extra elements, like dances and movement, and adding in different instruments. First up is "Little Butterfly." Next week we will learn the Spanish words. Don't forget the rhythm we learned last week (Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Taaa-Ta- you can watch this video for a refresher if you want. https://youtu.be/7kY8vm-52g4) Did you enjoy learning "Sea Shell?" This week, let's try adding some rhythm. Look around your house and see what "instruments" you find to play along on the steady beat. Maybe two wooden spoons can be rhythm sticks, or a leftover Easter egg filled with rice (make sure you tape it closed!) can be a shaker. How about some pots and pans for drums? Be creative and sing and play along! "I Bought Me a Cat" is such a silly, fun song to sing. Can you think of a dance to perform with it? Next week we will add some movement to "Sing a Rainbow," so make sure you can sing it really well! Finally! A new song! If you have ever seen the original Mary Poppins, you may be familiar with "Let's Go Fly a Kite." It's a song about following your dreams together as a family. You can watch a clip from the movie below our song. Let's sing our Patriotic song, "America" before we close with a dance. Did you have as much fun "Doin' the Penguin" as my kids and I did? I think my nephews in Florida even got in on the action! We will dance it together "one more time!" I would still love to see videos or pictures of you and your family dancing along- you can email me the videos or save them to my Dropbox.
I love to start class by making music right away, so join me in singing our Welcome Song- "Hello There!" You will be echoing me for most of the song, but at the end we will sing "But we're all here together again!" Excellent! This is another song I like to sing at the beginning of every class, because it helps us to learn and sing our solfege! It's called "The Solfege Song." This one has some fun motions, so join me! Now let's do some solfege practice. Repeat after me! Are you ready to sing some songs together? Let's go! My kids and I just planted a butterfly garden a few weeks ago- and just this morning we had a monarch butterfly visiting to enjoy the nectar from flowers and lay some eggs on the milkweed. All that to say, that I really love butterflies, so I thought we could start with a song about butterflies- called "Mariposita" or "Little Butterfly." For this week, we will sing it in English, and when we are comfortable with the song, we can add the Spanish words. In this first video, we will discuss the difference between the short and long sounds, and learn the rhythm that goes through the whole song. In this second video, we will actually sing it together. One of my favorite things to do when I go to the beach is collect sea shells, rocks, and other interesting things left by the tide. Our next song "Sea Shell" is a simple song to learn and sing, using the interval of a perfect 5th (Do-Sol) with Mi and Re in there as well. I love to add percussion instruments to it, especially xylophones and glockenspiels. Next week, we will look around your house to find some percussion instruments to add to it. "I Bought Me a Cat" is a great American folk song to sing together, and it gets funnier with every new animal added! Enjoy! This is another one I would like to add some fun percussion to in the future. "Sing a Rainbow" is a beautiful song with an ABA Form. As you sing along, be sure to listen for the two distinct sections in this song. Soon we will create movements to match each section. For now, enjoy singing along! The final song we will be singing together this week is "America" which is a great Patriotic song about our beautiful country.The entire school is learning how to sing this one. Since you are almost third graders, you will be learning more than just the first verse! This last activity is just for fun and a great way to get some wiggles out! Grab your whole family to join in. I would love to have videos of you dancing to this song, and may even put together a special video featuring my students. If you would like to be included, you can upload a video to my Dropbox or email me. (The audio track for the song is below the video.)
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