Movin' and Groovin' - Movement in Music

 I love folk dancing and movement although with this crazy school year and social distancing protocols, we haven't been able to move in our normal way.  

Movement is so very important in what we do in music education.  There are a veritable plethora of reasons "why" - this is not that post. 

Judith Thompson-Barthwell wrote a wonderful article here about creative movement in the music classroom. This is a MUST read! 

Movement

As a teacher who uses the Orff Approach, experiencing beat, rhythm, melody, form, and expression happens first in the body with movement. From the beginning, with youngest ages, we move, experiencing non-locomotor (in place) and locomotor (traveling) movement.  Reaction training games are elemental, basic games - playing a beat on a drum, students move. When drum stops, students freeze. Subdivided beats (eighth notes) played on temple blocks indicate running. This is such a playful beginning exercise in responding to music, awareness of physical space, pathway, and personal space. Adding a wind chime and asking students what to do (float, turn in place, wiggle), and alternating between walking, stopping, running, stopping, and wiggling/floating/turning allows students to playfully experience responding to musical cues and signals. 

Once students experience basic movements (walk, hop, turn, skip, freeze, jump, etc.) we add direction (forward/backward, sideways, etc.), and levels of high, medium, and low, we are ready for more complicated and sophisticated movements but we never stop working on the basic concepts- they simply spiral.  Dalcroze movement stories are IDEAL experiences to help students growth and they are easy to implement. My students love this one!

Once we have experienced structured (this is what we do here) and unstructured movement (what should we do here?), we are ready to continue adding on with formal "folk dances."

Highland Gates

This is one of my favorite first experiences with "folk dancing". The song gives the directions:  Go all around the circle (walking clockwise), go up and down the ladder (moving in and out of a circle), kneel and face a partner, and swing and swing your partner (right elbow swing). It is a wonderfully playful dance and students gain rich experiences in moving, changing partners, all while singing! It is a fast favorite and a fabulous opener if you have a family folk dance night or experience with a multi-age community of children and adults. 

Sasha

Another fast favorite, this song is a changing partners "game" and dance in one! 

Alabama Gal

Working with partners, "peeling the banana", etc. - a favorite!! 

Pata Pata 

This one is a good "Four Walls Dance" - students perform the dance individually, then do a quarter turn to face a new wall, dance again, quarter turn again, etc. 

The Sweets of May

Such a fun dance from the New England Dancing Masters! 

This previous post has many of my favorite dances including the 

•     Broom Dance    
•     Wassouma
•     Chimes of Dunkirk
•     Yesh Lanu Tayish
•     Chilili

Resources

EVERYTHING by the New England Dancing Masters! Click on the picture to be taken to their shop - I would HIGHLY recommend this bundle! 

Teaching Movement and Dance by Phyllis Weikart - this is THE RESOURCE everyone needs. Yes, it is $55.00 but oh so worth it.  The way in which Weikart breaks down dance and movement steps is simply amazing. Forward, 2, 3, 4, side close, in, 2, 3, 4 - this is the language students learn to speak to make dances accessible and attainable in a VERY short amount of time. 

Creative Dance for All Ages by Anne Greene Gilbert - a sequential curriculum, 40 lesson plans, instructional strategies, assessments, etc. 

Enjoy!!

Leroy Anderson's The Typewriter

 One of my most favorite pieces of symphonic music is The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson. I love much of what he wrote!  

Click here to get the Typewriter Listening Glyph on google slide.  This will force you to make a copy. 

We will be using plastic bottle caps on a hard surface and sliding the caps on the yellow arrows. The bell will be played by me or a chosen student on my desk bell. The black "splat" is really a placeholder and does not signify something to be played. 

I love this recording- there are many! 

Enjoy! 

Cloud Love

 I have always loved clouds. Fascinating things. I have memories of being a kid laying on a blanket on the grass in the summer, just watching and finding shapes, animals, faces, and things in the shapes of the ever-changing clouds. Hope you enjoy these and find some ways to use them with your students. 

And some wonderful books to add! These are my favorites! 

Enjoy!

Theme and Variations with 2 VERY FUN Websites!!

 I love teaching Theme and Variations!  My friend Kate introduced me to two very amazing sites - no login, no ads, and I knew I needed to figure out a way to use them beyond the "echo my rhythm" idea. So, Theme and Variations Reboot was invented! 

Get the complete Google Slide here - it will prompt you to make a copy. Theme and Variations

www.patatap.com

www.typatone.com

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Enjoy!

All Are Welcome - Or All Are Assimilated

 Social Justice, Anti-Racist, Decolonization

Five words with power. Five words that confuse. Five words that need to be talked about right now. 

Most of us are hearing words and having conversations about needing to do the hard work, but what does that mean? Reading books like Waking Up White, How to Be an Anti-Racist, White Awake, Blind Spot, and the plethora of books on the subjects of helping all of us to understand the struggle, biases, and injustices is only a START. Acknowledging white privilege, acknowledging bias, helping our littles to see color and to call out injustice is also a part.

Here is my latest read- I will need to go back and re-read. SO good.

Having hard conversations with friends, family, and yes, students also needs to happen. Yes, even in the music room. 

Problematic Song Material

If you haven't been here before, or you have forgotten about some other posts on the subject - this post is about being sensitive (and inclusive, not exclusive or hurtful) with our song material. Songs are listed in alphabetical order and source information is included as is a short synopsis of why the material is problematic. 

Why I No Longer Use Seuss in the Music Classroom

This post delves into the research study conducted in 2019 that researches the CONTENT of Dr. Seuss books and the stereotypes, anti-Semitic, disproportionally male characters, and other content issue within Dr. Seuss books. 

Diverse and Inclusive Children's Literature

A few years ago I started taking a hard look at my curriculum, songs, and children's literature and went through ALL my song books and started making X's through songs and adding a note as to why a song was problematic. For future music teachers, I wanted there to be an immediate understanding (if they were not already aware) of why a particular song should not be used. I also wanted the reminder for myself.  I also threw away books - yes, really. It was hard to do that, but I will never use, nor do I want anyone else to use those books that mock, harm, and perpetuate stereotypes. That is what is meant by disrupting the system. That is part of being ant-racist. The songs, stories, and books we use should be mirrors that reflect our students, windows into another's story or culture or way of being and doing, sliding glass doors to let students walk (or sing/dance/play) into another culture or way of being and doing, and sometimes we need to close the curtains.

I recently heard this quote and had to make it into a quick post for instagram. 

If you haven't joined already, join the Diverse and Inclusive Children's Books for the Music Classroom page on facebook. There are wonderful books with lesson ideas posted. 

Are we Welcoming or Assimilaiting?

We also need to talk about teaching - how we teach is MORE important than what we teach. Examining our bias, the words, gestures, speech, etc. in our teaching- especially with students that are having a hard time in school for whatever reason- trauma. learning differences, ability, developmental maturation, family changes, home life, equity, etc. It is a LOT. But the littles in our life are EVERYTHING. Remember teaching is a marathon, not a sprint or a 5K. Yes, we will make a plethora of mistakes. We are, after all, human. 

 I recently saw a conversation on facebook that was an "Ouch" moment. When we say, "All are welcome" do we really mean all and do we really mean welcome or do we mean ASSIMILATED?  

Our school recently finished a 21-Week Racial Equity Challenge where we had small and large group conversations- REAL, hard, tough to hear conversations. It was amazing. We wondered what to do next. I am honored to serve on our YBG - You Belong Group - that focuses on issues of Social Justice and Equity. We are reading this book:

 Each week we will look at a word and one person will share about the word. I chose the word, "Assimilation" after some heavy conversations with friends. 

I hope this challenges you. It challenges me. 

Trombone Shorty Hurricane STICKS

 One of my absolute favorites when I want to jam is listening and playing around with the music of New Orleans musician Troy Andrews, AKA "Trombone Shorty".  There are a couple of great children's books featuring his music and his story - check them out!

Today I have a rhythm stick arrangement I have been working on for the past couple of weeks to Hurricane Season - the music is here:

You can always decide to change up a section - the B Section will be challenging with the rhythm but if you say "Hurricane" to the rhythm as written it will help solidify it. The "Turn R" fits right in with the "Hey" spoken in the song. 

Want the pdf? - click the image.  This is from my Singing Waters, Dancing Flames book available in print or as an ebook from major music suppliers or direct from the publisher at www.singsmileplay.com.

Enjoy!

Ella Fitzgerald

 This year at our school, in addition to dismantling some long-held traditions that were problematic, and engaging in a 21-week Racial Equity Challenge- which has been amazing, we are celebrating Black History Month in a way we have never done before. I am so incredibly proud of my school for embracing change and valuing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice work year round. If you celebrate Black History Month, I hope we all realize the importance of celebrating Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian People of Color (BBIAPOC) music and musicians throughout the year, not only during the nationally designated, recognized, and celebrated months. 

This year we are also having a door decoration contest, with each teacher celebrating one African American/Black person of influence and importance. Teachers are relating this to content within the classroom and students will have a socially-distanced gallery crawl as well as a time to hear about each person by the students via video announcements in classrooms. It is exciting, but we also need to work on our curricula, traditions, histories, and centering voices of BBIAPOC within our classrooms. 

Here is my door our students decorated:

I chose Ella Fitzgerald, and students will be listening to and learning about this barrier-breaker and glass-ceiling-shatterer throughout the month as well as learning about Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Duke Ellington,  Louis Armstrong, and Esperanza Spalding - here is one of my favorite videos of her! 

For the full slide set of the preview below, click here. 

Enjoy!