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! |
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