A Trip Around Musicians' Island

Our practice incentive theme this year was "Marooned on Musicians' Island".  What a GREAT time we had!  It was fun, engaging and motivating for my students.  I always try to tie in my Spring Recital with the incentive program so last Saturday's recital was "A Trip Around Musicians' Island".  

Part of my program this year was to have each student compose their own song to play at this recital and I'm happy to say, "We accomplished that goal!".  What a great night of music!  Each of the 21 students that participated in the recital played their own piece as well as a favorite song they enjoyed learning in the past few months.  And of course we had an "island" theme!

Here's a peek:

As a gift to each of my students, I put all of their compositions in Finale and gave them each a book of the studio compositions.

They were excited to see each other's pieces and have them to play.  It took a bit of time for me to get all of them done, but it was well worth it!  I left space on each composition above the title so they could also do artwork.  I'm so thrilled to have worked on this with the kids this year.  Many of them expressed that it seemed a bit overwhelming at first, but with my help and a bit of nudging they grew to LOVE IT!  I see much more of this in our future!

There were also several other awards given out since the Spring recital is also Award's Night.  It was a superb night of music.  I'm proud of all of my students and how hard they worked! 

Fall Sale!

I love Fall - pumpkins, gorgeous foliage, mums and the gathering of family and friends.  So many of you have become friends and I truly appreciate your kind words and comments on this blog as well as your emails.  As a way to say thank you, I'm offering both the camp plans, RoadTrip USA! and the plans for Meet the Composers! at a 25% discount now through October 31st!



RoadTrip USA! is now available for $29.00 (Regularly $39.00) and Meet the Composers! is now available for $15.00 (Regularly $20.00)!   I hope this helps you to take advantage of these resources for your classroom or studio.  If you're planning a camp next summer, I can tell you that RoadTrip USA! has been my most popular camp.  Meet the Composers! was also a big hit with my homeschool class and would be a great resource in your studio or classroom for 6 lessons on famous composers and the art of composing.

Enjoy!

Meet thc Composers!

So many of you have been asking me about the lesson plans I have been using for my homeschool groups. I'm happy to say that one of them is now available for download!

Meet the Composers! provides a wonderful opportunity to introduce elementary students who may have minimal or no musical knowledge to some amazing composers and the art of composing!

Designed to be taught in 4 one and a half hour classes, these plans provide the complete format to not only introduce students to some amazing composers, but also to give them the opportunity to create their own compositions through a few basic composing techniques.

These plans are perfect for use in an elementary classroom, working with a homeschool class, a summer camp or even using for year-long group lessons in your own music studio. The packet provides complete plans, supply lists, and a resource section with materials you will need!


To purchase your copy now, simply click on the camp tab above!

Compositions are on the Rise!

I've been encouraging quite a bit of creative composing over the last month and it has yielded some amazing results!  Several of my students have risen to the challenge and have been working on and completed some fantastic pieces. 

This brother and sister team decided to take one of the songs they were working on out of their lesson book and add a duet part.  I think it seemed more fun for them to play together rather than always having me play with them!  It was wonderful!  So very creative and so enjoyable for me to see them work together as a team!

Here is the result of a written composition by a 5-year old!  She is currently working through the second book of Pianimals so she plays by reading letters only at this point.  Because of all the theory I've been working on with her, she knows that eventually she will read notes rather than letters.  Here is her version of "My Country Tis of Thee"!  Totally adorable! 

She sat down to play it for me and although it didn't sound like the version we all know, she play very distinctly, one note at a time!  She told me that the very long note at the beginning of the piece meant that she should hold that note longer!  Works for me!

She was very proud of herself and was thrilled when I made a copy to keep.  She was also very proud of the way she played and very excitedly told me, "I'm remembering my curly fingers!" (code for rounded hand shape!).  LOL!  Don't you just LOVE this job?!

I hope you are encouraging composition in your studio as well.  I find that my students get very excited to work on their own pieces and the more they do it, the more they come to love it.  It's especially exciting for them to take it to another level and perform and record them!

Meet the Composers!

My last homeschool class was such a success, that I was asked to squeeze in one more 4 week class before the end of the year.  This time 15 kids registered!  We had a fun and exciting time today at our first class!  I wanted to spin off the class we just had, but make it independent since I knew I would have some students who weren't at the last class.  So I put together a class I called, "Meet the Composers!".

Today we started with a look at Frederick Chopin.  I love the series, "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers".   The kids really seem to respond to them.  They are colorful, have funny little jokes throughout and really help make what could be "dry" facts come alive!







My friend, Becky (who I've mentioned many times on this blog) helps me with all of these classes as well as the camps.  She is a wonderful reader so I had her start out reading the book on Chopin.

Since Chopin was a child prodigy, we talked about what that meant and then I showed the kids a YouTube video of Umi Garrett playing Chopin's, "Fantasie Impromptu".  They were pretty amazed!

Part of what I wanted to accomplish with this class was to help them realize that any of us can be a composer - that you don't have to be dead, old or wear funny wigs! 

With that in mind, I did a fun game with them to work on rhythm and then I handed out a bunch of small cards with the letters of the alphabet on them.  After they got in groups of two or three, I had them put the two octave sets in order.  Then I had them connect them all together and showed them how the music alphabet kept going!  They really liked this simple activity.  I also played all the notes on the piano starting with the low A all the way to high C and named them outloud as I played just to reinforce that after A-G came A-G again. 

Now came the fun part!  Let's compose our own song together!

I had each student randomly pick 2 musical alphabet cards and give them to me.  I lined them up in a long line across the floor.  I then pulled out a diatonic set of boomwhackers and handbells and gave one or the other to each student.

After a bit of practice with them, we played our "composed" song.  They were very excited to know that it was the first time their "song" had ever been played!  They decided to name it the "Boom-a-Bell Song"!  Cute, huh? 

Well, we didn't stop there!  We then decided to play it backwards!  Of course, then they had to name it the "Bell-a-Boom Song"!  So funny! And so clever!  They laughed, giggled and got SO excited to do this activity!  After a few run throughs, I touched a bit on what harmony meant and rearranged the cards so they played two notes together.  I was very impressed at how quickly they caught on and how well they played.  We also played ALL the notes together (shaking the bells and rapidly whacking the boomwhackers on the floor) for the last note!  Of course that part was their favorite! 

This was the last activity we did in the class, so they all left VERY excited!  I plan to build on this composing activitiy as we practice more over the next 3 weeks!

Composition Craze!

There's a lot of blog postings about student compositions such as a post here by Anne Crosby Gaudet (fabulous!) and this one by Jennifer Fink (also fabulous!).  I'm not as techno-saavy as Anne (and I certainly wish I was!), so Jennifer's ideas have great appeal (since they are easier for me to actually accomplish!)!! I actually have two of my teenage students who have been working on compositions.  They have put them in Finale and will be playing them in our studio recital next Friday night!  I'm super proud of both of them.

Another fun thing I am doing with one of my students at the recital is a bit of improvisation.  I'm planning to read the book, The Song of Middle C by Alison McGhee while one of my students improvises in the background!  He and I have had fun figuring out how to dramatize page by page!  This is a silly book about a little girl who is playing in her first recital and all the nerves that go with it.  We thought it would be a fun recital "opener"! 

I love to add a bit of wimsy!  I know many of you have already had your recitals but I wondered what fun things you may have incorporated this year.  It's certainly is helpful to learn from each other.  I LOVE all the blogging friends I have made!

Composer in Training

This is one of my new students, Julian (who is 5 years old) and this was his third lesson.  I have him using the Piano Adventures Primer method book and during his second lesson I suggested he try and come up with his own song using the black keys.  This is the result:

Not only did he come up with "3" songs, but he wrote them down!!



I think I have a little composer on my hands!