Guess who's back, back again!

Well, this is the year that all 4 kids are in school. Amazing.

But now, what to do?

I am back in the music classroom as a long term sub at a local elementary school!

It's kindergarten through 6th grade. Where to start? The regular teacher is on maternity leave, and hasn't had time to set up the classroom or her grade book yet, so I'll start there. :) Next, I'd better get crackin', because they called me with 24 hours notice! Here are my thoughts:

First day of school  priorities:

1. Set up classroom procedures (how to enter/exit classroom, classroom etiquette, etc.)

2. Songs. You have to sing on your first day of music!! But what songs to sing??? Hmm.. I'll have to think about that one. Where are my John Feierabend books?

3. Name Game. I've got alot of students' names to learn.

4. Music Trivia. Everyone likes to go home knowing something new.

That should do it.  I'm so excited!

Practicing Piano without a Keyboard

One of the most visited posts of this blog was on how to practice piano when you don't own a piano. I believe the title of that post was Praciting Piano...sans Keyboard.

My family is an Army family and we move around quite often. In fact, we are moving in a mere 3 weeks to a state that is 6 states away. While that's not moving overseas, it is still a move ,nonetheless, that requires having all our household goods packed up and shipped off. Our piano will be included in that packing and shipping procedure. So while we are in limbo, we have to problem solve this dilemma of not having a keyboard to practice on, as well.

So here are the possible solutions I've come up with for our family:

1. Practice at Nana and Papa's house. They have a piano and we'll be there for a night...but only 1 night.

2. Take a week or so off from piano...but its SO hard to get back into a routine once you lose momentum.

3. Take our cheapo electronic keyboard with us in the van...that will not help the 18 hour van ride go well, though.

4. and final thought: Practice on our piano until the morning that they put it on the truck, bring the piano books along with us and have them do the finger work on a counter or table at a restaurant or hotel, window shop at a piano store along the route, then pull out the cheapo keyboard once we get to the new house and are waiting for our household goods.

#4 might be the best idea for us and for our sanity.

From Froggy to Foggy

Someone asked me just the other day about how to cure a "froggy" voice. 

Usually the "froggy" voice comes from a tightening of the throat while singing. Vocalists should try to keep the throat as open as possible. This "openness" is easier to achieve once you know what it feels like to have an open throat.

A great way to introduce this feeling is to breathe on a  mirror or window, and  make it foggy. Pay attention to what the throat feels like while breathing. Try to isolate the muscles involved and work on "muscle memorization" so that you can recreate this openness during singing.

Now begin singing a simple warm-up. Does the throat still feel open? If not, go back to the mirror and try it again. Do this over and over until the throat begins to open repeatedly.

During song performance, keep the open throat in mind! This can help take your voice from froggy to foggy!!

Waltz like Cinderella

In the Primer Level book of Piano Adventures, one of the first concepts is the feeling of 4 beats per measure and 3 beats per measure. This feeling is demonstrated even before the concept of a measure, bar lines or even a staff has been taught. Many times, I have had students that have difficulty in grasping the 3/4 feel.

The first song that this is demonstrated in the book is Mr. Half Note Dot. The lyrics are:

Hey Mr. Half Note Dot, hey Mr. Half Note Dot

You sound like you've just been dancing

When we go 1-2-3, dance up to middle C

We sound like we've just been dancing

These lyrics inspired me to introduce songs written in 3/4 as a Cinderella Waltz song. First, I ask the student if they have seen the Disney movie Cinderella. Then I ask if they remember the scene when the Prince and Cinderella are dancing around the ballroom.  If the student is a little girl, they usually get up from the piano bench and begin demonstrating. :) 

Then we go on to talk about how the piece of music in the book that we are talking about, should feel just like a Cinderella Waltz song.

The students always like it when I make watching the movie Cinderella, part of their homework!

Singing off key...on purpose

Last week I had to purposefully sing off key. I learned a couple of things:

1. I HATE singing off key. 
2. It's hard to stay off key. I kept wanting to go to a harmony note.
3. I found myself wondering if that same frustration is felt by singers who struggle to stay ON pitch rather than me trying to stay OFF pitch...

It's that third point that really got me to thinking... People who are born with a certain talent (i.e. singing, drawing, spatial reasoning, or other certain "affinities"), often take these natural born talents for granted.  We say to ourselves, "why is it so hard for them to do that? All you have to do is ______". 

My goal is to try to put myself in the shoes of the person who was not born with a specific talent, but wants to work at that and learn how.  It's that "working hard and learning how" that is my job to teach!

Beginning, Middle, End

When children are in the early grades and preschool, they are taught concepts of beginning, middle and ending. These concepts are key to understanding word development and story development and eventually large numbers in math.  Teachers reiterate these concepts in as many ways as possible.

In music, these concepts are used also.  Parents can reinforce these concepts by asking their children questions like these:

How does the song Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star begin?

What comes next after "Up above the world so high...."?

How does the song Happy Birthday end?

**Some more questions would be:

What are the words that rhyme in the song Jesus Loves Me?

Can you think of any other words that rhyme with those?

Substitute any songs that are familiar to your family, and you've got a great way to increase your child's familiarity with foundational concepts of beginning, middle and end!

O Happy Day! --Vocal warm-up

Anyone who has studied voice or had singing lessons knows that sometimes vocal warm-ups can get old, tired or boring.  A good voice teacher will try to come up with interesting vocalise exercises that still demand vocal concentration, intonation and endurance.

When "Mama-made-me-mash-my-M-and-M's" becomes mundane, try the warm up from this clip from Sister Act II (one of my favorite movies...ever):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata_player&v=SLY7yI1xV-M

That warm-up contains:

A pentatonic scale

Arpeggio

Syncopated rhythm

Call and response

And on top of all that.....it's a pretty AWESOME arrangement of an AWESOME song!