Happy January!
Christmas
season was barley over and "boom" the stores were already putting out
items for Valentines and Easter. Is there any rest in marketing and
selling?
No, not really. It's always a process. Whether it be
social media or word of mouth, it never really stops. Studio
marketing sometimes just advertises itself as your families will
invariably talk about lessons and thereby have marketed you by word of
mouth. Sometimes it just happens and sometimes you have to be
intentional.
Composition
season with Music for Young Children is a great way to advertise
visually and with intention. My students are having fun creating the
Caterpillar Composition
as they create their piece this season. When their piece is completed
they will take the caterpillar home and hopefully hang it somewhere so
it will be visible to their friends or take to school for show and tell
and better yet the student will be asked to play his composition for his
friends. This activity has the potential to be a great conversation
starter about music lessons and who their teacher is which is free
advertising for you!
Emma Skeete, a MYC teacher in Halifax, N.S.
has written a great article (which I've posted below) on how she
teaches composing to her students. It's chock full of great ideas and
easy steps to take your young composers on their journey of composing.
Thanks so much Emma for taking the time to share your thoughts and put
them down on paper for us to glean from your experience.
Someone on Facebook posted this fabulous video on a super easy composing technique
"repetition" from
Chilly Gonzales,
(not his real name) a Canadian living, performing and composing in
Europe. Chilly Gonzales dissects Taylor Swifts new song "Shake it
Off." I can't get that song out of my head once I say it or write it
but who would have thought there would be a great teachable moment in
that song. Share the video with your students and they will understand
the trick composers use called "repetition." I've shared and sent the
link out to all my parents as it's informative and educational and will
give students the inspiration to complete their composition by
"tying it off with a bow."
Valentines Day is in a couple of weeks and posted below is a list of what is available in the
Solo Time Music Games Teachers Notebook store. Most of the Valentine Day printables have been updated and I think you will be happy with the result.
Looking forward to traveling to the Music for Young Children conference
in Halifax and connecting with the teachers out east. Keep an eye out
for special conference deals in the near future.
Have a wonderful day!
Heartily Yours,
Lois Dicknoether
Solo Time Music Games
info@solotimemusicgames.com
Valentine Match up - Note and keyboard
Valentine Circle of 5th's - Keys to My Heart
Valentine Beginner Match Up - Music for Young Children specific
Valentine Beats - includes Triplets
Valentine Music - Rhythms using 16th notes
Valentine Tic Tac Toe and X's and O's - Beginner - Two levels included
New and updated versions of all the games played in the form of tic tac toe and ending with a black out where everyone wins!
Key's to my Heart - students match keys to the heart signatures.
Great review for theory students learning
key signatures up to four sharps and four flats. |
| Thoughts on Composing with Kids |
Thoughts on Composing with Kids
by Emma Skeete
I
love composing with kids. It wasn't always this way. When I first had
to do the Composition Festival I was intimidated beyond words. In
fact, with most of my teaching I have felt pretty intimidated. It
pushed me to find my way and to strive to communicate as well as
possible with students and parents to help them have fun in the process
of creating music.
Why do I enjoy composing with kids? It's the
one things that really reflects all of their learning. They aren't
taking my word for it, now they are in the driver's seat (with a teacher
in the passenger seat : ) ) and they can use the tools they have
learned to write a song.
Here is my process for introducing
composition. I generally use the same steps for every class, and every
level, but try to gear it to their age level. I feel the Composition
Festival gives us enough guidelines to make it challenging so I don't
really need to do anything further (ie: Sunbeams 1 has 4 bars while
Sunbeams 3 and Moonbeams three have a minimum of 8 etc...). Also the
kids are learning new things each year that they want to use in their
songs (ie: 6/8 time, new keys, accidentals etc...)
I am a singer by background/training so my approach starts with the lyrics.
Week 1: Lyrics (poem)
1.
Come up with a theme (or several) and bring it to class. Decide on your
theme. If they are having a tough time narrowing it down, or coming up
with a theme I might ask: "What would you like to write a song about?"
2.
During this class I ask the students to come up with a list of 10-20
words that describe that theme, or words that explain how they feel
about that theme.
Ie: Theme: Snow
Words: cold, frosty, glisten, sparkle, fun, sledding, shoveling, fun, snowballs, etc...
3.From there they need to come up with sentences.
So I'll ask - tell a story about your theme? What is the first thing you want to say?
I usually try to do these steps as a class exercise and then come up with something like this:
Ie: I love the snow
The piles grow and grow
I see the snow sparkling,
and my parents shoveling!
I
tell them it helps if each sentence has a similar number of syllables
and if the ends rhyme. Not absolutely necessary, but can make it sound
nice.
Week 2: Rhythm
1. In this stage I have
the kids read their poem, how THEY hear it. Most songs end up in 4/4
time which for the lower levels work best. Sometimes we need to add a
word or take one out, add a rest or lengthen a rhythm. But generally
the kids 'get it.'
2. I try to add rhythm to our "class song"
So for our poem above I might say:
Ta, ti-ti, half note (I love the snooooow).
I'll ask them:, would rather a rest at the end of the bar, then we put that in.
Ta, ti-ti, Ta rest
I love the snow (rest)
I always let the child make the final choice. I may see some suggestions, but try not to overwhelm them either.
4.
a. I emphasize in this phase to add rhythms first.
b. That the rhythms reflect the number of syllables (ie: a whole note won't work for the word elephant!)
c.Finally, that they add barlines and help the child adjust the beats to fill whatever time signature they are in.
Week 3: Tune
1.
I ask the kids to pick a key (for the higher levels) and to look at the
patterns they have learned (stepping up, stepping down, jump up high,
jump down low etc...). I also say they can pick something other than
those patterns if they get to the piano and like something else. Or if
they have a 4 rhythm figure they can still use a three note pattern,
just pick a note to repeat!
2. I ask them to think about helping their music to 'sound like' their words.
(ie: if you're writing about a bird would you pick a high treble sound or low bass sound?)
3.
Then I ask them to consider using a composing trick (especially if they
are stuck). In the 2 weeks leading up to this week I have tried to
teach/review the composing tricks. If not I will show a few at this
stage. (I like the hand out in the Moonbeams 3 student activity book for
this exercise).
4. Finally I say "what tunes do you like? Why?"
Here I am attempting to help them see what they might need to look for
as they write their tune.
Week 4-6: (if you haven't started yet) Put your song on the staff.
For
some their song is simple, and getting it on the staff is no big deal
for others it's a struggle. That is the flexibility of these weeks.
During this time I will encourage them to put in their phrasing, articulation, title etc...
And we comb over each composition to make sure all the guidelines of the festival are being followed.
For
those who cannot write their notes on - I have the parents simply put
dots on the page (after adding the barlines etc...) and have the kids
make larger note-heads and stems from there.
If they really cannot put the lyrics on the staff, I let the parents do it (it is VERY small space for some little hands).
Other Thoughts:
Some
kids have a tune, rhythm, words almost from the beginning, or at least a
general idea of what they want to do. I just set this forth as a
springboard for their creativity. For others, they follow this process
to-a-t and need all the steps. That is why I do it this way.
So
that is my process, nothing earth-shattering, for some it may seem the
backwards way to do it, for others it may help you come up with your own
way. I'm not a great song-writer, but I do enjoy writing songs. Not
all of my students have placed in the festival, not by a long shot. But
I do take pride in the fact that at the end of the year, every student
who has taken the time to follow these steps has at least one
composition in their hand. They can play it, put it in their memory
scrapbook, or frame it - and call it their own. The best part is that
I'd say pretty much all of them are excited to have a song they wrote by
themselves. Please do let me know if you have any
questions/thoughts/responses.
Happy Composing!
Emma Skeete, Certified MYC teacher, Halifax, Nova Scotia
emmasonlife@yahoo.ca
