 Parents come next week! Thank you for securing your spot in the 2nd year class. In 2nd year, the parents only come five times a semester (basically, once a month!) and we are on the keyboards. Make sure you continue to "play practice" with your students. They are all doing well, so continue the music exposure and play time. It’s so fun to see them progress and love music so much. It is my pleasure to help be a part of their growth! P.S. I have openings in Sound Beginnings and my 1st year Let’s Play Music classes for the Fall. If you know of anyone who is interested, please send them my contact information or direct them to the studio website: http://www.infusingmusicstudios.com/group-classes.html. Homework: pp. 22–23 Students draw notes on the staff and identify melodic patterns.  Dinosaur Song Yesiree, your kiddo is reading music! They are looking at the patterns of steps and skips in the “Dinosaur Song”. You should be so proud of them! For extra fun, have them try playing it on the bells while reading the written notation.  Baby Bumblebee
Please make sure your child knows this song. I will be asking them about it in class the next two weeks! Baby Bumblebee Music can change lives! What a gift you are giving your children! Check out how in this video. Thanks for coming to class parents! We enjoy having you. What a great way to bond with your child and what a gift you are giving them! End of Year Recital Saturday, May 21 4:30–5:45 p.m. Trinity Heights United Methodist Church 3600 N Fourth St Please join all of the Let’s Play Music students to enjoy a fun afternoon showing off all of the skills and songs we have learned. Recital rehearsal will take place during class on May 17/18. All Let’s Play Music students will perform the opener and closer together, perform in small groups, and Year 3 students will perform their own compositions. Enjoy a time of fellowship after the recital while munching on refreshments. (A refreshment sign up list will be sent out in early May.) A digital invitation you can use to invite your family, extended family, neighbors or friends will be sent out soon. $15/student. Register at http://www.infusingmusicstudios.com/performances.html. Registration is due by April 22. On Top of Spaghetti Learning to hear chord progressions as well as each part of a chord is a vital skill when becoming a musician. This song and activity is very rich in its musical lessons. We play the autoharp which allows us to have our hands doing two different things, and our eyes are looking at the chord map and reading music. We are hearing the chord progressions and then we sing each piece of the chord as each student points to their triangles. It's so fun! Drunken Sailor This folk song teaches musical form: You hear a theme that repeats a few times and we do the same dance movement back and forth. Then at the end of the phrase "...early in the morning" you hear a strong cadence pull to DO. A cadence is two (or more) chords found at the end of a musical phrase. This cadence has a strong pull to our ears that indicates the musical sentence has finished. This cadence trains the ear how music sounds when it is complete or finished. Fox Hunt - NEW puppet show! Our new puppet show teaches us to identify rhythmic patterns and learn about classical form. Classical form is when you identify the reoccurring melodic themes and label them. Understanding this concept will help your student in 3rd year to compose their own music! (See attachment below) Jungle Rhythms - spatial skills As your child sees how the Jungle Rhythm chart divides space and hears how the music divides time, they become aware of how the two correlate. This develops their spatial awareness. Seeing the Jungle Rhythm chart exposes children to what the written form of subdividing looks like. Can't Bug Me Today in class we clapped bug rhythms without seeing the bug cards. That’s right! We clapped our rhythms today using the ‘real’ music notation, without the help of our musical bugs. They’re smart little cookies!
Our new puppet show was written by Gioachino Antonio Rossini, who was born on February 29 (leap year!), 1792 in Italy to a family of musicians. His father played the horn and his mother was a singer. He was just six years old when he joined his father’s band where he played the triangle. When he was only 10 years old, he was often asked to play the piano and sing at their church. At that age, he began composing and soon became the most celebrated composer of Italian Opera. Our puppet show, “The Fox Hunt” is from the William Tell Overture. This famous piece has been imitated (top video) and heard in various "rock-n-roll" forms (bottom video) all over the world!
Parents come next week & tuition is due. Let's celebrate together the accomplishments of our fabulous students! End of Year Recital Saturday, May 21 4:30–5:45 p.m. Trinity Heights United Methodist Church 3600 N Fourth St Please join all of the Let’s Play Music students to enjoy a fun afternoon showing off all of the skills and songs we have learned. Recital rehearsal will take place during class on May 17/18. All Let’s Play Music students will perform the opener and closer together, perform in small groups, and Year 3 students will perform their own compositions. Enjoy a time of fellowship after the recital while munching on refreshments. (A refreshment sign up list will be sent out in early May.) A digital invitation you can use to invite your family, extended family, neighbors or friends will be sent out soon. $15/student. Register at http://www.infusingmusicstudios.com/performances.html. Registration is due by April 22. All students need a LPM t-shirt ($11). I will place the order during Spring Break. The fee will be added to your March invoice. If you haven't already filled out the form, please let me know which color and size you would like using this link: https://forms.gle/43xaitjoBTVSgtdB7 Are You Sleeping? This song reinforces the solfege hand signs. Very soon we’ll sing in a round, letting us hear multiple layers of music. Hearing music in our head and being able to stay on the part we are singing is a great skill for musicians to learn. B-I-N-G-O Who knew BINGO had such rich music concepts to learn from? When we sing it, we feel the quiet internal beats and learn to anticipate when to clap. Chords in Pieces - audiation (hear in your head) As we sang “Chords in Pieces” we left out some of the chords and audiated them in our heads instead of singing them aloud. Again, much of the learning in 1st year is subconscious and unseen. The musical development that is happening to your little musician right now won't be seen by the naked eye, but will be harvested down the road! Bug Rhythms We mixed up the order of the bugs and with no verbal cues we sang and clapped the bug rhythms. Your amazing kiddos were able to do “Can’t Bug Me” perfectly. Wow, they are learning so quickly! It is easy to underestimate the significance of solfege. It helps us label something abstract like notes, uses whole body involvement, helps us understand scales and key signatures, aids in learning about intervals, helps us sight read/sing music, and so much more! Click here to read about the many reasons why we use solfege in Let's Play Music!
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Clara McDonaldAs a music educator of 25 years, my passion is infusing others with music! Archives
January 2023
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