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!

Say your ABC's....Backwards!

This is a simple, but important tip that will help all young musicians:  learn your ABC's backwards! 

The musical alphabet is only 7 letters: A B C D E F G.  As piano students learn to play the keys on the piano, it is often easy for them to figure out the letter names of the notes as they ascend.  Its easy because the music alphabet goes in order, but the tricky part is figuring the letter names as the notes descend.  Thinking about the music alphabet in reverse order, quickly, is often very challenging.

In order to help your young musician achieve success in this area, help them practice saying the letters backwards.  Start at G and work backwards to A, then ask what comes before the A....its G!  Then start at a different letter and work down, and so on and so forth.  This will help with the quick decision-making that they have to do when playing.

Happy Playing!

The Five Senses - Seeing

Studies have shown that the more of the five senses (see, hear, touch, taste, smell) used during learning, the more likely the knowledge will be retained. As a music teacher, it is my goal to use as many of these senses as possible in a weekly lesson.

So for this post and the next 4 posts, I'll go through the senses and give some ideas on how to incorporate them into your musician's practice time or lesson time. (Make sure you check back each day and especially on the taste and smell posts---they're very interesting!)



Sense #1-Seeing



Next time you have a minute, pull out a piano lesson book (or other instrument), open it up and look at the songs. Start at the top of the page and point out and read every word written on the page--from the title of the song or unit at the top, to the last little word at the bottom of the page. Each one of these words are printed there to help your musician. Words at the top, usually describe what is going to be played in the song, the mood of the song, speed or tempo, as well as review the main point of the lesson which is sure to be used often in the song. The words written in the music itself describe what is going on at that time and give instruction on what to do or what to change immediately. The words at the end of the song or at the bottom of the page refer back to the lesson "meat" itself, and many times issue a challenge based on the lesson, the song and the upcoming application of that lesson.


Highlighters are great tools to use to make important instructions stand out!

Eenie, Meenie, Minee, Mo...

...catch a tiger by his toe. If he hollers, let him go! Eenie, meenie, minee, mo.

This rhyme came about in the 1800's and has had many different variations. It is a great way for kids to resolve conflict, take turns, etc. It is even better at sneaking in rhythm work! It uses a 4/4 beat, sub-divided beats, patterened rhythms and emphasizes down beats. Sing-say it with your kids at normal speed, then to be silly try it at a slower pace or faster pace.

Have fun!