Music Activities - Tuesday April 30, 2013

The Plan:

Tuesday is cleaning day, but I try to take breaks to play with L.  RJ has Kindergarten in the morning and co-op in the afternoon, so all these activities are for L.  Like yesterday, I probably won't get to all of these, but it's nice to have options of what to do when I take breaks from the cleaning to play with L.

1.) Listening to Baroque & Classical Music while cleaning

2.) Looking at Pictures of the pages we already covered in Usborne book - reinforcing topics

3.) Making of a Piano video (since L missed it yesterday): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAInt7hIZlU
4.) Rhythm practice

5.) Pitch Practice

6.) Glee Karaoke (L's favorite song of the moment is Don't Stop Believing and I've been intending to catch him singing it on video)

How it went:

1.) L did want to listen to music, but he insisted on listening to a variety of different versions of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing".  Luckily after the 4th version (We listened to the original and then 3 different Glee arrangements), he let the playlist continue.  We'll try Baroque & Classical music another day.

2.) Didn't get to this

3.) He did get to watch the video, and I was impressed it kept his attention the whole way through, since it was a bit technical. Even if he didn't absorb the details, I would file this experience under "It's better than him watching cartoons when I'm trying to sweep the living room floor".

4, 5, & 6.) We did not get around to these.  I suppose singing along to "Don't Stop Believing" on repeat was pretty much what we would've done with the Glee Karaoke on the Wii, just without the microphones and knowing if we were hitting the right notes.  Unlike the karaoke game, I was able to sweep the floor in our family room and kitchen as I was doing it, which was a bonus.  When we were in the family room sweeping (and listening to music), he brought out the drumsticks and was freely playing the drums (okay, he was playing the RockBand drum pad even though it wasn't on - his drum kit is in the other room) along with the music.



While you would think that L's obsession with one song would get old, I have to consider myself lucky that this time it's one of my favorite songs too.  It is completely normal for 3 year old children to crave repetition.  Most parents probably see this most clearly in their child's frequent requests for a favorite book or a favorite movie, but it's common to see lots of repetition in music choices and in children's play as well.  It makes sense from a developmental standpoint, because repetition, both with and without variation, allows for mastery of skills, as well as deeper understanding with each repetition.  Even in your own life, you probably find that you catch something new when you watch a movie for the second (or the 10th) time.  Since children don't necessarily grasp all aspects of the plot (for books or movies) or lyrics (for songs) the first time around, they choose to go back and try again (and again and again) until they fully understand it.  In L's case, he's heard the song here and there for a good portion of his life, because I like the song and it's featured in one or more of it's incarnations on at least three different heavy rotation playlists.  Something about it was interesting to him, and he latched onto it.  He started asking for it as his bedtime lullaby a few weeks ago, increasing his frequency of asking to play the song, and now he walks around the house singing parts of the chorus and also sings along to the verses and chorus when the song is playing.  With that said, it's a good bet that part of his motivation for this little obsession was learning the lyrics was that he could sing along like I do.

I think the main reason why we didn't engage in the book review, rhythm practice, or pitch practice today was because he wanted to build with legos for our longer cleaning break in the morning.  So, I was spending time with him in between the cleaning, just not on music themed stuff.  It happens.  I try to maintain a balance of child-led play and adult-led activities, and some days have more of one while others feature more of the other.  It really depends on how much RJ & L are engaged in their free play and how the lulls in their play fit in with the times that I'm free for playing (because while I'd love to always be able to play, the house doesn't clean itself, nor does dinner cook itself, etc.)

Music Activities - Monday April 29, 2013

The Plan:

Read Usborne - Classical Music and The Orchestra

Watch Piano making video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAInt7hIZlU

Listen to Beethoven, a sonata, 

Singing - pitch matching

Glee Karaoke

How it went:

Well this was definitely an overly ambitious plan.  Sometimes that happens - I get too excited and forget that we have other things to do.  This time, I think I forgot to leave time for RJ to do chores (he has some extras to do since he is working off a shattered globe from our light fixture), so it cut into our activity time.

We did an impromptu review of the previous pages of the The Usborne Story of Music book.  This was helpful because I saw how much the kids remembered, reinforced it, and re-discussed what they didn't before moving on to a new period.

RJ remembered more about the instruments than the names of the composers or the time periods.  But I was impressed that he remembered that the lowest and largest of the four recorders was the bass recorder.  And he read the names of the others for himself.  He also led the pitch demonstration on his own accord!  RJ and L really like making high and low noises with their voices).  L was able to make the sounds of the bass and descant (highest) recorders when we asked him, not just as we were doing it too.

This time, I also took some time to go over geography, since we reviewed that music was being written in Europe.  I sent RJ and L over to the wall map to discuss where Europe is.  Our map doesn't have the country borders, but at this point, I think knowing that Europe is across the US and across the Atlantic Ocean from us in California is appropriate.  RJ was however able to point out where we live in CA on the map on his own.

We read the pages on Classical Music, but they were already loosing interest, so I plan on going over the info in another way, since the page content wasn't inherently interesting to them, other than the picture of the piano.

After reading, we ran out of time and had to go grocery shopping.  When we returned, L had fallen asleep and got deposited on the couch, surprising me, because a nap is a rare occurrence   So, only RJ got to watch the piano making video when I was making dinner.  I will have Logan watch it tomorrow when RJ's not around, though, so not all is lost.

We didn't get to anything else, it was just too busy of a day with both boys busy in the morning with school (RJ) and gymnastics (L), followed by time at the park, followed by homework and chores and the grocery store, and then dinner and gymnastics for RJ.

Concepts Covered:

See previous post on Renaissance and Baroque Music for full content.
We mostly reviewed the instruments pictured - flute, lute, bass viol, viol, recorders, wooden flutes vs. modern metal flutes, Stradivarius Violin

Classical Music

• Classical is often used to describe all music that isn't pop, folk, or jazz, but it really means music from late 18th, early 19th centuries.
• Baroque concertos and sonatas developed into the forms we know today during this classical period
• Haydn
• Worked for the Esterhazy family in Hungary (I showed RJ & L approximately where Hungary was on the map)
• Mozart
• Mozart played difficult pieces on a harpsichord and organ by the time he was 4
• Harpsichord and Organ have keyboards like a piano
• He spent his life composing, teaching and conducting his works throughout Europe
• Beethoven
• Developed a way of writing that inspired composers of the Romantic period (which is next)
• People thought his music was very complicated
• Piano
• Invented in Italy around 1700 by Bartolomeo Cristofori
• Proper name - pianoforte, meaning soft-loud in Italian
• Unlike a harpsichord, you can play both loud and soft
• forte - Italian for loud
• piano - Italian for soft
• Concerto
• Developed from the Baroque concerto
• Piece for orchestra with one or more soloists
• Music played by the soloist is often more difficult and exciting than that played by the orchestra
• Sonata
• In Baroque period, Sonata described many different types of instrumental compositions
• Classical Sonata developed from this into a piece for one or two instruments
• Most sonatas are for pianos alone or for another instrument accompanied by a piano
• Sonatas are usually in three or four sections called movements
• The Symphony
• Means sounding together
• Developed from the Baroque sinfonia
• Sinfonia - piece played at the start of an Italian opera
• Classical symphony - piece for orchestra with four movements

Music Activities - Thursday April 25, 2013

I didn't plan anything ahead of time for this afternoon, but some of the books we got from the library did lead to notable learning.

1.) L and I had picked out "The Magic Flute" when we were at the library last week, and while RJ and L had no interest in actually reading it (which was weird, since they normally love being read to), I was able to find an animated version online, so they were exposed to it, and I told them that they were watching and listening to an opera, which involves the characters acting and singing out the story. Part 1, 2, and 3 are all on YouTube.

2.) A little later in the afternoon, RJ and L wanted to read The Usborne Story of Music, which we had also borrowed from the library.  We had borrowed this particular book from the library before, back in September, but had only made it to about page 5 before getting sidetracked from the music theme by the rigors of kindergarten homework, so we returned it before finishing it.  

Today, when RJ opened the book, he recognized it and accurately told me where we had left off before.  He told me that he wanted to continue where we left off, so that's what we did.  We read the pages covering Renaissance Music and Baroque Music, each of which comprised a two page spread.  This book is actually intended for older children (Amazon's listing has it rated for age 10 and up), but I like to use more advanced books fairly often.  Whenever I choose a book from the library, I choose it because it has good information either for me to provide in a developmentally appropriate way, or because it is actually a good read for the kids.  I choose this book for both reasons.  While there are a LOT of concepts covered per page, the information is arranged similarly to a Children's encyclopedia, with relevant illustrations nearby, which is appealing to my children. 

I also don't just read the text to my kids, who are a few months shy of 6 and 3. Instead, I start reading text I find interesting (skimming quickly is a great ability to have for this - I can usually get through half a page to find the interesting stuff before they start bugging me to start reading!), and then follow their inquiries about the pictures to jump around, filling in any missing information as needed.  Luckily in this book, each two-page spread has fairly discrete bits of information, so many of the paragraphs do not need to be read in order to make sense.  This is helpful when reading to a three year old who likes to jump around on the page depending on which pictures are interesting to him.  I also don't push them to move onto the next section, but rather take time to discuss the pictures and answer their questions and engage in impromptu demonstrations.  Doing this is the main reason why I can read a book intended for a 10 year old to my significantly younger children.  For example, there was a small section about recorders, which had a picture of the bass, tenor, treble, and descant recorders.  L asked, "what's that?", and pointed to the picture.  The text merely said, "Recorders of different sizes were often played together", but I explained that they were all recorders, like the one they have, but that the different sized recorders play different ranges of notes.  Then RJ chimed in, saying that he thought the biggest one played the low notes and the smallest one played the high notes.  Then, I asked him if he could show us what kind of notes each recorder could play and the three of us sang our lowest notes for the bass, and our highest notes for the descant, while I helped them make some medium notes for the tenor and treble recorders.  They really enjoyed making the different pitches with their voices.  

Concepts covered:

Any concepts in parentheses and italicized were my addition to what was in the book, or something that I should add in the future.

Anything printed in red was in the book, but we skipped, accidentally

Renaissance Music

• Great interest in music, art, & learning in the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe (Note to self: I should probably have shown them where Europe was on their wall map)
• Renaissance means rebirth
• Composers - people who write music
• Composers work at the courts of wealthy noblemen, kings, and princes
• Composers wrote music to entertain, for dancing, and for church
• Duke of Burgundy in France employed the best composers and musicians
• Guillaume Dufay
• Gilles Binchois
• they wrote French songs called chansons
• Printing developed during this time (1450) in Germany
• First music book was printed in Italy in 1501
• Before printing they had to write out music by hand
• Printing made it cheaper and easier to print throughout Europe
• Pictured
• Man playing treble viol (looks like a violin)
• Man playing a lute
• Man playing a flute
• Man playing a bass viol (looks like a double bass)
• Dancers - they could only take small steps while dancing because their clothes were stiff and heavy
• (They were not wearing costumes - that's how people dressed when they went to parties back then)
• Before 16th century, instruments were used to accompany singers
• From around 1500 instrumental only music was being written, primarily for dancing
• Some of the instruments were the recorders and a keyboard instrument called a virginal
• Recorders of different sizes were often played together
• Pictured - Bass, Tenor, Treble, and Descant Recorders
• Discussed and demonstrated that the pitch range for the bass recorder was the lowest of the recorders, then the tenor, then treble, then descant, which had the highest pitch range of the recorders.  We sang our lowest and highest and middle pitches together.
• Church music was still prevelant
• Thomas Tallis started writing church music for the whole congregation, not only the choir
• Madrigals - songs often about love, sung in small groups
• first written in Italy
• Andrea Gabrieli wrote many famous madrigals
• Before the renaissance, instruments were played by professionals, but during the renaissance, rich people were learning instruments for pleasure.

Baroque Music

• European Music from 1600-1750
• Instrumental music became more important
• New types of music were written
• Invention of opera
• Organ music was prevalent
• (An organ is an instrument with a keyboard that controls the flow of air through the pipes, which makes the sound)
• Instruments such as the flute were improved to play more notes
• Unlike modern metal flutes, baroque flutes were made of wood. (We talked about how my flute is made of metal, but the pictured one was a hollow wooden rod with holes to cover with one's fingers to make the different pitches, more like their recorder)
• People wrote books on how to play instruments
• Composers began to write marks on their music to tell the players to play loudly or softly, using Italian words
• 'piano' is italian for quiet
• When the player sees it, they should play quietly
• Concerto Grosso - piece of music for a small group of solo instruments and an orchaestra
• Famous concerto - The Four Seasons, written by Vivaldi
• I have Summer on my iPod so we listened to it, and I explained that it was only one part of the concerto.  (Note to self: I should get the other three seasons)
• Famous concertos - six Brandenburg concertos by Bach in 1721
• Oratorio - a religious story performed by a choir, orchestra and solo singers
• Unlike an opera where the singers act out the parts
• Famous oratorio - Messiah by Handel
• I reminded them that the Magic Flute from earlier was an opera (although I left out that it was an opera from the classical period, not the baroque)
• Violin was very popular during the Baroque period
• Especially in Italy
• Stradivari was a famous violin maker
• Violins made by his workshop are very valuable today
• Called Stradivarius Violins
• Public concerts started during this period
• Previously, only churches and wealthy people hired musicians, the latter only to play in their homes for parties
• Musicians no longer had to rely on churches and the court for their livelihood
• Handel made his living from staging operas and oratorios
• Suites are a set of songs to be played one after the other for dancing
• Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote suites for keyboard instruments like the harpsichord
• Pictured - harpsichord

Music Activities: Co-op Edition - Tuesday April 23, 2013

The Plan:

Kale Cookies -
seriously, they're made with pureed kale

I am hosting a big kid co-op in the afternoon, so the morning will be spent cleaning the house, putting dinner in the crockpot, and making our cookies for snack.  L will probably help me with the cookies and otherwise have free play.


Here's the cookie recipe in case you want to get some leafy greens into your kids - http://versatile-vegan.com/2013/03/17/dont-call-these-spinach-cookies-although-thats-exactly-what-they-are/

1.) Create an instrument with legos.
2.) Dance Party
3.) Rhythm Band
4.) Percussion Water Play - bowls and spoons in water table
Cool site that talks about Musical Water Play - http://childsplaymusic.com.au/2012/01/17/water-play-music-play-children-a-natural-combination/

How it went:

1.) For this week's co-op, I had two five year olds and my three year old.  Both older boys are big fans of lego, so I thought that the make-an-instrument-out-of-legos activity would be a big hit.  First, Z and RJ built a drum and cymbal, respectively, when L requested help in building a guitar.  Then RJ took the activity one step further (delighting me!) by asking if he could build a made up instrument.  Perhaps I wasn't clear when I told them they could build any kind of instrument they wanted in the beginning, but in any case, I was thrilled that he was using his imagination.

This is his unnamed instrument:



As per his explanation, this instrument has a string made of different materials where one part of the string makes high pitches and one part makes lower ones. The "string" is the jagged blue piece.  The string also makes the grey pronged lever at the end vibrate, making the instrument make noise both from the strings vibration and the vibration of the end piece.  RJ said that it makes those two sounds at once, making his instrument different.  I thought it was pretty cool.  It is played with another lego piece that sort of resembles a two pronged pick.

2.) Dance party was a success with RJ and L, but Z wasn't into it and instead wanted to play with the workbench and then the car ramp.  I thought he would like it since he regularly has "dance party" at his house and I specifically tried to add the pop/electronic/dance sounding music that he would like to my "Kid's Dance Party" playlist on my iPod (rather than my usual classic rock/alternative/pop ballad/broadway/most of what they cover on glee tastes).  But maybe next time he'll be in the mood to dance.

3.) No one wanted to play Rhythm Band, so we skipped it.

4.) When they wanted to go outside and get their swim suits on to play with the water (it was a glorious warm spring day, near 80 degrees here in Northern California), I brought out the various bowls, spoons, plastic mallets, etc. for them to play with.  I also brought out our water xylophone and water whistle to play with (they normally live in the bathtub, but I might keep them for the water table now that it's warm out and the kids have mostly switched to taking quick showers anyway.  They'll get a lot more use that way).  The neatest sounding things were the stainless steel mixing bowls that made a wavering "boiiing" kind of noise when they were hit on the bottom when filled with water that you gently shook around (I should have recorded it - maybe next time).  RJ in particular perfected the movements necessary to make that noise.  Once they explored all the different sounds and how the pitch changed with the addition of more or less water, it mostly devolved into throwing water at each other, but that is to be expected on a warm, sunny day!  

Music Activities - Tuesday April 16, 2013

When I'm not hosting co-op, Tuesday is usually a cleaning day, but I try to add in a few fun activities for L in between the cleaning and free play, especially since his brother is gone for kindergarten in the morning and then 4 hours of co-op in the afternoon.  And before anyone thinks that I have a clean house because I have time set aside for cleaning on Tuesdays, be informed that it's really not.  Unless we have people coming over, it's usually not clean.  At all.  But we have fun and learn lots, which is more important!

Plan:

Morning - 

1.) Xylophone patterns 

2.) Rhythm patterns on the drums

3.) Library time

Afternoon - 

4.) Drawing Letters and Notes

How it went:

1.) I couldn't find his xylophone mallet anywhere, so we settled for drumsticks.  This actually worked out better because I could draw upon some of the patterns I learned in elementary school music class (which is sadly missing in so many schools these days)  on the "Orff Instruments" (i.e., xylophones, glockenspiels, and metallophones), which involved two hands.  He did pretty well, but liked it better when I guided his hands in the patterns and let me know that it "sounds pretty".  I learned a couple of things from this.

a.) Drumsticks make awkward xylophone mallets, even though the mallet that came with the xylophone wouldn't have worked much better
b.) Our xylophone, which I originally liked because it was part of a Melissa and Doug set of wooden instruments, doesn't work very well.  The bars stick, so the pitch doesn't reverberate, and sounds like a wood block, rather than a pitched xylophone.  For a toy, it's wonderful, but as a musical instrument, it falls rather flat.  Looks like a real xylophone will be added to the kids' wish lists!

2.) L did much better with this activity one-on-one than he did when I was playing with him and RJ.

3.) We headed to our library and L picked out a couple of books from the non-fiction Music section.  He selected a book about trumpets and a book about drums based on the pictures on their covers.

4.) L did not have any interest in coloring or drawing of any kind and was determined to play with his brother's Harry Potter legos, so we opted to do some uninterrupted building and playing in his absence.  Just another example of the need to be flexible with kids.  Forcing him to draw or write wouldn't accomplish anything at this point, so we will do this another time.  He usually gets coloring/drawing time in his preschool-gymnastics class and likes to draw when RJ is doing kindergarten homework (which I will continue scanning and reviewing at some point - as it has NOT gotten much better), so I wasn't too concerned with his choice to do something else during our play time.

Music Activities - Monday April 15, 2013

The Plan:

1.) Music Mat Activity for RJ during Homework Time /Drawing or Dancing to the Music for L

2.) Drum Rhythms on the Homemade Bongos ( http://mommaphd.blogspot.com/2013/04/co-op-activities-march-19-2013.html , http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.com/2012/05/boppin-on-diy-bongo-drums.html )

3.) High, Low, and Middle - Game to recognize pitch
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/music/highlowandmiddle.htm

How it went:

1.) We didn't end up doing this today - we will another day when we have more homework time before needing to run out to the grocery store.

2.) Both kids did this briefly.  RJ being older matched the rhythms fairly well after a few tries for the more complicated beats.  L was able to match the simpler beats, but mostly wanted to just make his own.  At this point, I'm happy with exposure and him at least trying before going crazy on them!

3.)  I wanted to see if they could tell me if one note was higher or lower than another. RJ was able to correctly tell me if the second note I played was higher or lower than the first. At first he told me that he knew because he was watching my fingers and knew that the higher notes were to the right and the lower notes were to the left (which is interesting because I only told him that once), but when I made him turn around, we discovered that he was also able to use auditory discrimination because he didn't make a single mistake, even when not looking at my hands.  L watched, but didn't participate.  He seemed interested, so I think he was absorbing some of it.  I will have to try it sometime with him alone.

Since RJ was doing so well at the higher or lower game, I decided to grab our cat keyboard  so that he could try to match notes with what I played on our not-as-cute keyboard that I've had since I was a kid.  This was largely a trial and error game since he is not familiar enough with the keyboard nor absolute pitch to be spot on, but he enjoyed playing different notes until he heard that he had found the right one.  Once or twice he would say the note was the same, despite it being an octave lower or higher, but then we'd listen again, and he would say that one was higher, leading the way for me to say that it was the same letter note, but a lower or higher octave.  Unfortunately, despite RJ being engaged, L was much more interested in reaching over and hitting the buttons that start the pre-recorded songs on the cat keyboard, so we let the game end and let L explore the instruments more.