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!" Now it's time for "Rig-A-Jig-Jig." Away we go! "Bluebird, Bluebird" is next in our "concert." Did you notice we sang a lot of songs about birds? Our next two sings are also about birds. Grab your percussion instruments and play along as we perform "Cuculi" and "Bam, chi, chi, bam." Let's sing our sweet song "Little Bear" or "Kuma San" in both English and Japanese. I love to cuddle up with a sweet, fuzzy friend. Grab a favorite stuffy as we sing "Snuggle Puppy." Dance and sing as you ride the "Merry Go Round," up and down! One final song to sing, our 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. Last week we started learning the Japanese jump rope song "Little Bear." Let's sing it together in English to refresh our memories. Now let's see if we can learn the Japanese words for "Little Bear" (called "Kuma San" in Japanese). Go through the pronunciation practice a few times before you try to sing it all in Japanese. Our next song is "Merry Go Round." Did you enjoy singing it as much as I did? I wish we were all together in class so we could dance and sing along together. This is a fun song I remember singing with my mom when I was a little kid, and it's another great opportunity for us to practice our Call & Response singing. Have fun with "Boom Chicka Boom!" Ready to dance? Let's do "The Dinosaur Dance" again! 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! Let's learn some new songs this week! "Kuma San" or "Little Bear" is a jump rope song they sing in Japan. Grab a stuffed bear friend to sing along- help him jump on the beat! Next week we will learn the words in Japanese. Have you ever ridden on a Merry-Go-Round (also called a Carousel)? My kids love to ride on them as they spin round and round (unfortunately, I get rather dizzy!) As you sing the song "Merry-Go-Round" try acting out the words as you sing them. Let's review "America" again. 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! Let's get this party started! Time for some Call & Response Solfege practice. Remember that I sing first and you echo me- see if you can do your hand signs as you sing. 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- you are going to need it for some of our songs today! (Make sure you ask Mom or Dad if it is OK to use it first!) You can watch this video for inspiration. Now let's make some beautiful music together. We will start off by singing "America." Did you enjoy learning about steel drums and singing "Bam, chi, chi, bam?" Let's sing it together to refresh our memories, and then I want us to add some percussion! In this video I will teach you the simple rhythmic ostinato we can perform with "Bam, chi, chi, bam." Don't get scared by the word ostinato- it's a fancy music term that simply means a short, repeated pattern, in this case for the rhythm "Ta-Ti-Ti-Ta-Sh." Now that you have learned how to play the ostinato for "Bam, chi, chi, bam" let's put it all together. Play your rhythm part as you sing along. Our next song is "Cuculi." Let's sing it again as a refresher. Then you can try playing your percussion instrument along. You could either play a steady beat or play the same rhythm you are singing. Let's close our singing time with "Five Little Chickadees." Can you make up a dance to go along with it? Now let's finish up our time this week with some dancing! 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! By now I think you are starting to get the routine down. So let's start with "Hello There!" followed by "The Solfege Song." Time for some Solfege Call & Response practice- you echo me! Let's sing our school-wide Patriotic song, " America." Now for a familiar friend, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Make sure you are doing the hand motions as you sing with beautiful voices! We have some new songs this week that are some of my favorites! And oddly enough, they are all about birds! The first one is called "Bam, chi, chi, bam." This is a folk song from the Caribbean Island nation of Jamaica and is singing about all the birds and the songs they sing. Doesn't it look beautiful?! One of the instruments that comes to us from the Caribbean Islands are steel drums. They have a really unique and surprising sound. Check them out! As the name suggests, they are made from steel drums, which are big metal barrels usually used to hold liquids. Watch this video to see how they are made. The language they speak in Jamaica is English, but it may sound a little different than you are used. "Dey" instead of "they," "dis" instead of "this." But I think you will pick it up pretty quickly after you listen to it once or twice. (Next week we will be adding some percussion parts!) Let's sing "Bam, chi, chi, chi, bam!" Another new song this week is "Cuculi." This is another song about birds singing- from Peru this time. As you sing it with me, I'd like you to pat a steady beat on your legs or chest. This is another one that we will be adding some fun percussion instruments to! One more new song to sing this week- "Five Little Chickadees." This is a counting song, so count down with me as the birds fly away. I know you guys had fun "Doin' the Penguin," so this week I would like you to learn a fun new dance to a song I bet you are familiar with, "Can't Stop the Feeling." As always, I would love to see a video of you dancing (or singing) any of our songs at home. I have enjoyed watching the videos from you all! You can email me at [email protected] or upload them to my Dropbox. Hello friends! I hope you have had a great week and enjoyed your music lesson from last week. Now that you are more familiar with it, let's start off with our Welcome Song- "Hello There!" Now on to "The Solfege Song!" Now we are going to practice our solfege skills with some Call & Response singing. I will sing and use the signs first, and then you can echo me. Our voices and brains are all warmed up, so let's sing some songs together! You should be familiar with these now, so really let yourself enjoy singing them! I like to work with a song for a few weeks before moving on to new music so you have the opportunity to become really comfortable with it. We will start adding some new songs next week. Join me in singing and moving along to "Rig-a-Jig-Jig." "Bluebird, Bluebird" is next. I usually do this as a big circle dance in class, but you can make up a dance that will work for you at home! Did you dance and sing along with "Snuggle Puppy" last week? I certainly did! This is a "new" song this week, but I am sure you are all familiar with it. I would love it if you would do the hand motions as you sing. Let's close out our singing time with our Patriotic song, "America." Did you have fun "Doin' the Penguin" with your family last week? Let's do it "one more time!" I would still love to see videos of you dancing along at home. You can email it to me or upload it to Dropbox.
This week's YouTube Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqoiQlzH7eKy8zb_zlDtOV2Thf466z60M 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! Now it's time for some fun songs that we can sing together. "Rig-a-Jig-Jig" is one of my favorites, and you can add some movements to it. For "As I was walking down the street" walk around in time to the music. "As I was running down the street" try jogging in place! Then there is "hopping," "skipping," "jumping," and "walking." For the refrain "Rig-a-jig-jig", make up your own dance to fit the music! Bluebird, Bluebird is one of my favorite songs to sing. Next week we may add some dancing! Do you love to read books? Or have your parents read you stories? One of my favorite books that I read over and over to my kids when they were little was Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton. We passed our very well-loved copy over to my nephews a while ago, but I have never forgotten the words. I even had my own song I made up to go with it. But I like this version a lot. Why don't you grabby a favorite stuffy (maybe even a puppy?) and sing and dance along! One more song to sing for today! This is a song I will be teaching all of the kids in the school, because it is a great patriotic song about our nation, called "America!" Our last activity is a fun dance you can do with the whole family! Grab your mom and dad or your siblings, and boogie down by "Doin' the Penguin!" (The audio file is below.) I would love to see pictures or videos of you "Doing the Penguin" and share some clips on my YouTube channel. If you would like to do that you can email your version to me or add it to this Dropbox folder.
See you next week!
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