Year: 2021

Things about beat may be taught:  like tempo, time signatures, musical math and notes/bar.   However, the most important aspect of beat is better caught than taught.   That aspect encompasses the essence of what beat is, feeling the beat, keeping the beat, finding the beat within.

The first beat we experience is that of our mother’s heart when we are in utero.  Beat surrounds us and marks time even before we know what time is.

Most of us make the leap of understanding musical beat fairly easily.  For a few, however, that leap is hard to cross.  Everyone in the class will benefit from more time spent moving with the beat of music.  The power of conformity helps the few who do not easily “get” the beat.  Following along with the crowd of students will help the sense of beat in all participating.

Orff instruments need a sense of the beat for most accompaniments.   Its tempting to “help” a student play the mallets on xylophone bars with the beat by moving their hands  BUT, don’t give in to this particular temptation.   The forced power dynamic being played out does not help a learner to experience beat.  Instead, stand behind the student and lightly tap the beat on their shoulders.

Traveling in Africa I experienced a world where song is always accompanied by feet that move with the beat.   Try it with music students.   End classes not just with a student choice of song, but with everyone on their feet and moving with the beat!

From All-Hallow’s Eve to All Saint’s Day, how many ways can you spell peace?

Best month of the year –not too hot, not too cold, bugs gone and two delightful holidays!

Move or Dance in Celebration:  Turkey in the Straw;   Shoo Turkey; Five Fat Turkeys;  Thanksgiving Dinner (pocket chart composing);  Thank-Yous(warm-up);  We Give Thanks

Explore Voices for Drama or Dressing-Up:  One Person, Many Voices;   Hooting;   I’m Gonna Be a Pirate;  Skin and Bones(coming soon);  Old Mrs. Witch;  Role Playing Music

Autumn Themes:  Red, Orange, Yellow, Brown(improvisation);  Red, Red, Leaves(zipper song);  One Apple, Two Apples(reading, instrument playing);   I Like to Eat;   Ev’rybody Sing;

Hallowe’en:    Five Little Pumpkins;  Old Mrs. Witch;  Skin and Bones;  In a Dark, Dark Wood; and recreated nursery rhymes —Humpkin Pumpkin;  Peter Peter;  Twinkle Little Bat;  3 Snowy Owls;  This Black Cat;  This Is the Way the Witches …

The last post  (hmmm?) was an invitation to “breathe” as a music warm-up  AND an anxiety relief.

Two tips on music breathing.

1st Tip  —In through the nose  —  out through the mouth.   On the out, in breathe warm-ups, the key is to control the rate of exhale.  Hold one finger up in front of your mouth.   Imagine its a candle.   The flame is warm and gleaming.   As you exhale, don’t blow the candle out!   Breathe in to a count of 4,  and out to a count of 4  (building up to higher numbers) AND don’t blow the candle out.

2nd Tip  —lungs are not muscles, they’re just sacks.   The muscle that pulls the lungs open, is under them.   It’s called a diaphragm.  It’s a lot easier, and more satisfying, to breathe in deep when the diaphragm is free to work.   When we’re tense, or in the midst of stage fright, the whole upper body squeezes.  There’s no room for air, so we breathe shallowly and quickly.

To force deep breathing, try purposefully sticking your belly out (while standing or sitting straight).  This works the diaphragm, pulls the lungs down and sucks in the air.  WOW!  It’s amazing.

Works the opposite way when singing and running out of air near the end of a note.  Pull the stomach in,  the diaphragm pushes up against the lungs to get all the remaining air pushing out.   Wow -extra sound!

A quick check on breathing styles may be done this way:  “Lie on the floor on your back with your hands on your stomach. Breath in (inhale) and your hands will rise. Now breathe out (exhale) and they will lower. In this position it is virtually impossible to breathe incorrectly. “ (from BBC singing site)

Just exactly what we are breathing in, is an entirely other matter eh?

Here we go again into the somewhat nebulous school year.  Pandemic variants, climate change, social unrest and political divisiveness all threaten to sink us in a swamp of stress  –and that’s before contemplating lesson plans.

Breathe!   In through the nose to a count of 4, down into the lower lungs, belly moving out (via the diaphragm), shoulders  pried off their attachment to the ears      and then,   controlling it to last through a count of 8, breathe out through the mouth.    And again  ….

Basic warm-ups for music include relaxation,  focusing and breathing.   A breathing warm-up can take as little time as a minute,  easily included in a daily classroom routine.    This de-stressing practice can be a gift students keep for a lifetime.     Today is the day to begin breathing again.

Pattern   

1.   relax muscles
2.   breathing practice

*for ideas try   Resources —  Warm-Ups   — breathing/body

*for more information, try the following sites

BBC  –Sing  — Learning –Breathing

(Unfortunately I’m having difficulty getting a link to work, but google the above, it will open a vast array of wonderful resources.)

OR

http://musikalessons.com/blog/2017/05/breathing-exercises-for-singing

Truth be told, I don’t like bugs very much.  But I do appreciate their place in this world  —how important they are.    I remember this sometimes when I meet others I don’t like much.

The featured songs may be used to teach music, but they are also a good tool for teaching science  (ecosystems, biodiversity, animal groups, botany);  visual arts (looking for shapes to aid drawing, perspective, colour mixing); language arts (composition, storytelling, point of view) and social studies (ways people around the world incorporate bugs into economics).    In any of these subjects, hooking ideas to a song will make stronger connections between ideas in the brain, and easier recall of facts and questions.

Other “bug” songs in Can Do Music:                                                      Little Arabella;    The Internetting Spider;     Ladybug, Ladybug;  Baby Bumblebee (two versions);    Bee Bee, Bumblebee;

and for Active Listening:  The Flight of the Bumblebee

Other “bug” resources:    word card set

Have fun!

 

 

If I were teaching this month, and not confined to a curriculum, I would let usual expectations go and concentrate on music fun.  We’re all becoming screen weary, or mesmerized (which is worse?)    Let fun in music lighten the load for all of us.   Learning will happen.

Mothers come in all languages  … check out  “Los Pollitos“.   Challenge students to create and photograph a “stuffed animal” family.    How does the mother call her “chicks”?    Explore what chicks say in different languages   e.g.   peep,  pio,  piou.   What are the onomatopoeias for animal sounds in Asian countries?   Music is a language in itself, and also comes from the languages we learn.

And, just because  I learned “Los Pollitos”  in Ecuador,  try “Juanito” to get the jiggles out,  or  “La Cucaracha”  (a very old folk song used to parody political events in Mexico and Spain).

 

“Who Shall I Be Kind To?” is answered in this song based on a middle-Eastern moral story.    Its a question well worth exploring.

Spring has definitely arrived where I live.   The spaces of green near by are a reminder that in spite of everything, life continues to renew itself.

Happy Spring!