Candles Glow Speech Piece

Planning holiday concerts is always tricky. I want to have all of my students diverse celebrations represented.  I struggle with finding music that represents everyone and isn't too much Christmas, but just enough, or too much Kwanzaa, and not enough Hanukkah, or too much ________ or not enough ______.  It is a tough balancing act made tougher by the limitations of the theme of holiday.  It is not a "winter" concert as it happens right before we break for the holidays and most of my families celebrate Christmas or a combo of Christmas/Hanukkah or Christmas/Kwanzaa and a few families are Muslim, which is difficult.
Candles are a theme that is inclusive and not exclusive.  This year our theme is "The Warmth of a Winter Candle".  We are performing "Just One Candle", from Music K-8, which is really love and accessible to all. Students are also performing one of their favorites, called Give Light, in addition to several other pieces. I blogged about Give Light- an incredibly beautiful song, a few years ago. The music and post is here.

I wanted to put together a speech piece with several ostinati performed vocally and with non pitched percussion.  This could be used to create movement, or as a drum canon, or as an A Section with small groups performing question and answer improvisations on Orff instruments in a pentatonic key as alternating sections to create a rondo, or it could be used to create a melody.
I am going to let my oldest grade -4th, decide how to perform it.  I can't wait to see what they come up with! 
I love seeds of ideas.. let me know how you use it. It is presented a couple ways below- one with speech only, the other has a possible idea with body percussion.

Chinese New Year and Jewish New Year Songs from AOSA Session

These are the two songs that were missing from our presentation at the AOSA Conference this past weekend in Denver. Use at will but please give credit. THANKS! Xin Nian Kuai Le (Happy New Year in Mandarin, Chinese) Process: • Teach melody with text. • Add “dragon” head movement every four beats; hands beside head like a dragon moving side to side, add other movements as suggested by participants to prep for teaching process of orchestration. • Transfer movements to instruments; perform. • Add “B” section with unpitched percussion. • Perform as suggested or develop alternate suggestions for performance. Tapuchim u'dvash (Jewish New Year Song) Process: • Play BX part for students, asking them to pat heads when they hear the higher sound and shoulders when they hear the lower sound. Once they are comfortable keeping this ostinato, add song. • Teach Hebrew text and melody by rote. • Transfer BX part to instruments. Add AX/AM and SG/AG parts. • Lead short discussion about Jewish New Year and tradition of eating apples and honey for a sweet year. • Brainstorm as many apple varieties as you can think of. • Working in small groups, students create 8-beat speech ostinato with apple words, adding movement with apple colored fabric. • Share group ostinato with class. • Put into Rondo form with song.

Music for Hannukkah

I love this time of year- I love Christmas music and I love snow.. well... snow that GOES- which is one of the reasons I left Maine for NC! I like it here for a ocuple days then gone! I have a huge holiday concert with my kiddos at school with 300 kids! Whoopee! I have a very dear music teacher friend who is Jewish and I'm always asking for advice on Hannukkah music. I have never performed "Oh Dreidl" nor do I wish to.. it's just one of those things.. not my favorite! I try to perform a Hebrew folk song with the children singing in Hebrew every year instead of performing a "Hannukkah" song that has been manufactured/manipulated for this very special holiday. I also believe my students benefit from learning "Bim Bom" or "Shalom Chaverim" or "Hasuka MaYafa". Other favorites are "Hine Ma Tov", "Dodi Li", "Burn Little Candle" among others. I also love to teach some Hebrew dances and the kids love them! Try Haida! Enjoy this video!