I love Fall! This is a quick post today about a song I wrote a while back but finally put into Finale just this week!
This goes with the book, On Halloween Night by Ferida Wolff and Dolores Kozielski, available here from amazon.com.
After every page or every two pages, perform the song below. Add gongs, shakers, whistling wind tubes and thunder drums for a super fun book. If your recorder players are learning E like mine, and pretty solid on BAG they will love to play the "Ooo" part!
I have posted about this before, but I REALLY love the Pass the Pumpkin song/activity. This year, I came up with a new powerpoint for my first graders and I used it just this morning and am really happy with how well the students sang and played. One thing I love about this song is that it is "safe" for schools that do not celebrate Halloween; there is the word "spooky" but that is, technically, NOT a Halloween word.
I hope you enjoy the slides below.. save each one and put into a ppt. or email me at musicquilt@Hotmail.com and I'll send you the pdf! The directions and song are on slide 2, slide 3 is a beat slide and then subsequent slides show the progression from iconic rhythms to actual notation.
The final slides show what instruments play on the various parts of the song.
Happy Fall!
Chinese New Year is coming up next week! My daughter was adopted from China so this is a big deal holiday in our house; when she wakes up on CNY she has a special red envelope (hong bao) with "lucky money" inside and we do other things to make it a fun and meaningful holiday for her. Our school (where I teach and she attends) also has a sister school in China!
Here's a piece I wrote last year, the title is "Xin Nian Kuai Le" or "Happy New Year". Easy level bordun for accompaniment- add unpitched percussion (UPP) for the percussion line- lots of gongs, drums, etc. to "scare away" evil spirits. Very nice with a big, low gong at the end. Good for your upper level recorder players, too- those who have a solid low "C".
Look on youtube for pronunciation guide - Xin = Shin, Nian= like it sounds, Kuai= kwahee, Le = luh Yi (number 1) = eee, Er (number 2)= are, San (number 3) = sahn, "Jia Yo" (Let's Go! as in cheering people on) = jya yo.
Enjoy!
I love fall- everything about it- pumpkins, the smells of cinnamon and nutmeg drifting around, the crisp, cool mornings and the songwriting. Huh? Whatcha talkin' 'bout? Well... for me, October is when I start writing and arranging what seems like a gazillion pieces of music for our Winter Holiday (AKA Christmas) Concert. I love to write and am in the middle of putting the finishing touches on several Orff arrangments/songs I have written- I'm pretty happy with them and am going to TRY to find some time to put them in Sibelius and put at least one of them on here for you. My schedule is a *little* busier than last year. haha!
Speaking of fall, though- have you ever sung/played "Pass the Pumpkin"? I would love to post pics/videos of my kiddos doing it but I teach in a private school and can't post pics of my students on public blogs, etc. due to privacy issues with some of our more well-known kids parents, so check out this video:
My process is as follows:
1. Teach song- students discover stead beat and patsch; on "ooo" wiggle hands, on "you" clap
2. Set up your classroom as a rotation of rainsticks, gongs or metals, and Orff instruments.
3. Transfer patsch to bordun of D and A (play long D and long A together at the same time to the beat). Transfer "ooo" part to rainsticks, and "you" part to gongs and metals. All students practice ALL parts.
4. To select who is going to play the first instrument in the rotation, students all sit inside the circle of instruments, sing song in a circle, pass the pumpkin, 1st time on "you", ONE student goes to an instrument, does NOT PLAY... this is only to determine who is going to what instrument, not to play YET.. we'll get there.
Next time on "you" the student who had the pumpkin last chooses someone else to go with them so you'll have 2 students going to the instrument, sing again, on "you" the student who had the pumpkin last chooses 3 friends to go, etc. Keep adding numbers so you can get everyone to the instruments and then rotate through playing the instruments and singing; this way makes it easy as all students play the same amount of times. We usually rotate through every instrument- singing the song over and over.. drives me a little crazy to hear it that many times but they LOVE it!!!
Check back next week for a mixer dance to go with "Pumpkin, Pumpkin"
. UPDATE: Mixer Dance link is here!
Here's a song I wrote for Chinese New Year- easy peasy! Simple level bordun for accompaniment- add unpitched percussion (UPP) for the percussion line- lots of gongs, drums, etc. to "scare away" evil spirits. Very nice with a big, low gong at the end. Good for your upper level recorder players, too- those who have a solid low "C".
Look on youtube for pronunciation guide - Xin = Shin, Nian= like it sounds, Kuai= kwahee, Le = luh Yi (number 1) = eee, Er (number 2)= are, San (number 3) = sahn, "Jia You" (Let's Go! as in cheering people on) = jya yo.
Enjoy!
