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Here you can find all the information for the classes each week!
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Orange Roots #9
Tuesday, March 4, 2025 | Orange Roots Lessons
Lesson #9
Thank you, parents for attending this week!
SPIRIT WEEK IS UNDERWAY! Let me know if you need any substitutions for any of the squares. The BINGO card is in the Student Portal, if you lose yours and need to make a copy! As a reminder, some of the drawing prizes are some instruments and an MP3 player that you can put your class music on!
One of the items on the BINGO card is to leave a Google review. I'm striving for a 5 star rating. If you don't plan to give me 5 stars, please talk to me BEFORE you post a review so I can address any issues you may have. Unfortunately, negative feedback has much more impact than positive feedback does, so please give me the chance to earn 5 stars if I'm not already there. Thanks! Here is the link to post a review on Google: https://g.page/musikandmebethany/review?gm
Bridge is a fun class for Let's Play Music graduates that is a great "bridge" between Let's Play Music classes and private lessons. I will be starting a new Bridge class next year, and will be teaching it as a 2-year program. If you are interested, let me know and I can get you more details.
I just want to remind you of our new puppet show elements that can be incorporated into your student's composition. We have the introduction, which is at the beginning of a piece, the coda, which is at the tail (end) of the piece, and the bridge that leads from one section to another, often when changing keys.
We've been working on our G Major scale this week. Don't forget that the key of G has the F# as the magic key!
Bagatelle Bridges
This repertoire piece has all the elements that we've learned about in our puppet shows! It has an introduction, a CODA (special ending) and it has 2 BRIDGES. We will actually learn the theme in C Major and then we will get to show off our transposingskills to play it in F and G.
G Major Scale
This is the last of the major scales we will learn during our time in Let's Play Music. All of our scales have taught us finger technique and strength, but also allowed us to understand key signatures and scale compositions. Just as our Magic Keys Song will tell us, Do is G because the F# is a ti-- so don't forget to play that F# on ti!!!
Even Disney's Aristocats know how important it is to practice their scales (and arpeggios)!
Also, it's in the book, but you can also download the coloring pages for our new Circus Puppet Show in "Online Resources" when you go to the student portal of my website!
Here is a link to all the skills videos as well as the link to be able to purchase a class video to make up for a missed class. (tap or scan)
Have a musical day!
-Ms. Bethany :)
Blue Bugs #9
Tuesday, March 4, 2025 | Blue Bugs Lessons
Lesson #9
Thank you, parents, for coming to class! We enjoy having you here and bonding with your child. What a gift you are giving them!
SPIRIT WEEK IS UNDERWAY! Let me know if you need any substitutions for any of the squares. The BINGO card is in the Student Portal, if you lose yours and need to make a copy! As a reminder, some of the drawing prizes are some instruments and an MP3 player that you can put your class music on!
One of the items on the BINGO card is to leave a Google review. I'm striving for a 5 star rating. If you don't plan to give me 5 stars, please talk to me BEFORE you post a review so I can address any issues you may have. Unfortunately, negative feedback has much more impact than positive feedback does, so please give me the chance to earn 5 stars if I'm not already there. Thanks! Here is the link to post a review on Google: https://g.page/musikandmebethany/review?gm
Registration is now open for current students! Please go to https://www.musikandme.com/Registration for instructions of how to enroll your student and purchase their 2nd year materials. There is a $20 registration fee, but you won't need to pay it if you register by March 28th! (You can earn 20 extra tickets by registering by March 15th!) My 2nd Year class will be Tuesdays at 5:30pm. I can possibly adjust this if necessary, but please register as soon as you can.
Tuition is due this week if you are making payments. Thank you!
On Top of Spaghetti
Learning to hear chord progressions as well as each part of a chord is a vital skill when becoming a musician. This song and activity is very rich in it's musical lessons. We play the autoharp which allows us to have our hands doing two different things, and our eyes are looking at the chord map and reading music. We are hearing the chord progressions and then we sing each piece of the chord as each student points to their triangles. It's so fun!
Drunken Sailor
This folk song is a famous sea-shanty, a song which sailors sang while they worked. They sang to keep the beat as they worked together. Our dance teaches the children to feel and recognize musical form, which is the repetition, balance, phrasing, and construction of a song. You hear a theme that repeats a few times and we do the same dance movement back and forth. Then at the end of the phrase "...early in the morning" you hear a strong cadence pull to DO. A cadence is found at the end of a musical phrase. This cadence has a strong pull to our ears that indicates the musical sentence has finished. This cadence trains the ear how music sounds when it is complete or finished: it feels like we have come back home.
Fox Hunt - NEW puppet show!
New puppet show! This fun song teaches us to identify rhythmic patterns and learn about classical form. Classical form is when you identify the reoccurring melodic themes and label them. Understanding this concept will help your student in 3rd year to compose their own music! I've attached the new puppets as well as put them in the student download portal!
Jungle Rhythms - spatial skills
As your child sees how the Jungle Rhythm chart divides space and hear how the music divides time, they become aware of how the two correlate. This develops their spatial awareness.
Subdividing rhythms: abstract notation
Seeing the Jungle Rhythm chart exposes children to what the written form of subdividing looks like.
Can't Bug Me
This week in class we clapped bug rhythms without seeing the bug cards. That’s right! We clapped our rhythms today only using the ‘real’ music notation, without the help of our musical bugs. They’re smart little cookies!
Our new puppet show was written by Gioachino Antonio Rossini, who was born on February 29 (leap year!), 1792 in Italy to a family of musicians. His father played the horn and his mother was a singer. He was just six years old when he joined his father’s band – he played the triangle. When he was only 10 years old, he was asked often to play the piano and sing at their church. At that age, he began composing and soon became the most celebrated composer of Italian Opera. Our puppet show, “The Fox Hunt” is from the William Tell Overture. This famous piece has been imitated (top video) and heard in various "rock-n-roll" forms (bottom video) all over the world!
Here is a link to all the skills videos as well as the link to be able to purchase a class video to make up for a missed class. (tap or scan)
Have a musical day!
-Ms. Bethany :)
Yellow Arrows #8
Thursday, February 27, 2025 | Yellow Arrows Lessons
Lesson #8
Parents come next week, tuition is due, and it's SPIRIT MONTH! (See separate email with details.)
1st Year Registration & Enrollment
If you have a child you want to go through 1st year and aren't on my waiting list, or you know someone who wants to do Let's Play Music, email back and let me know their name and email address so they can get registered ASAP. After next week I'll open registration up to the general public.
Enrollment for next fall begins this SATURDAY at NOON!
Please go to https://musikandme.com/Registration-LPM-return for instructions of how to enroll your student and purchase their 3rd year materials. There is a $20 registration fee, but you won't need to pay it if you register by March 28th! (You can earn 10 extra tickets by registering before March 15th!) My 3rd Year classes will be Thursdays at 4:00pm and 5:30pm. Please let me know if these times won't work for you and we'll discuss solutions. I can possibly adjust this if necessary, but please register as soon as you can.
Celebrate Connection
A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
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Alpha-frogger:
Pretend each alphabet foam piece is a tiny frog. Have your child choose an alphabet frog, then hop it across the keyboard helping froggie find all keys of that letter. These frogs don't croak- each time the "frog" lands on one of her special lily pads, sing the letter (on pitch!).
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Hiss:
Place one letter on the keyboard as a starter snake. Each player takes turns drawing a letter and checking to see if they can add it to the head or the tail with baby steps to make the snake longer. If not, start a new snake somewhere else on the keyboard. Anytime someone makes a snake with 8 or more segments, they get to remove it from the keyboard and keep the points (1 per segment)! Play until the pieces run out. It's pretty cool if you are able to join 2 snakes by drawing the missing link between them, and win a really long snake! You might enjoy non-piano Hiss, too.
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Silly Songs:
Have your child draw out 5-10 alphabet notes and line them up along the music stand. With her right hand in C position, play each note with the finger touching that key. If the note is a B, slide the thumb down to yellow position to reach it; if the note is an A, slide the hand into blue position to reach it. This might be a wacky song, or it might be something cool. If you like the tune, play it again!
Oh, When the Saints & Lullaby and Goodnight
D-O-W-N and that’s the DOWN-BEAT! The downbeat is the strong beat that tells us when to begin playing a song. Sometimes the downbeat is on the first word of a song, sometimes it is not. Ask your child what word the DOWNBEAT is on in both of these songs!
Tinga Layo:
Our toe-tapping donkey, dances a shaky, stylized rhythm called CALYPSO. See if you can hear this fun rhythm while singing along!
I am Robin Hood
It’s duet time! While your child plays the melody, you or a sibling can clap or pat drumbeats on lap in a repeated slug pattern. Then switch! Once your child is confidant playing the melody by themselves, invite them to pat their own leg while playing. Impressive harmony!
When listening to Don't Put Your Trash encourage your child to do the actions to the part he hears during the harmony. It is also creative to change up the lyrics especially when encouraging chores: Don't put your SOCKS (insert any noun) in my BEDROOM (insert any place) my bedroom's full!
Here is a link to all the skills videos as well as the link to be able to purchase a class video to make up for a missed class. (tap or scan)
Have a musical day!
-Ms. Bethany :)
Pink Piggies #8
Wednesday, February 26, 2025 | Pink Piggies Lessons
Lesson #8
Sound Beginnings curriculum consists primarily of American folk songs and chants, nostalgic songs, nursery rhymes, and well-known classical pieces. You likely recognized a few of the songs or rhymes on our album!
Next week we'll sing these songs in class:
- Ten Little Pennies
- Hey! Hey! Look At Me!
- DO Pentatonic Scale
- My Little Rooster
- To Market
- Zoodeo
- Count Your Blessings
Tuition is due next week, and March is SPIRIT MONTH! We'll have lots of prizes you can win by showing your class spirit! (See the separate email with details.)
1st Year Registration & Enrollment
If you have a child you want to go through 1st year and aren't on my waiting list, or you know someone who wants to do Let's Play Music, email back and let me know their name and email address so they can get registered ASAP. After next week I'll open registration up to the general public.
Enrollment for next fall begins this SATURDAY at NOON! There is a $20 registration fee, but you won't need to pay it if you register by March 28th! (You can earn 10 extra tickets for the Spirit Month drawing by registering before March 15th!)
Folk music is rich in history and became an informal way to pass on traditions, commemorate personal or communal events, and bond communities. Because it originated with common folk, untrained in the musical arts, it’s melodies are easy to learn and sing. By incorporating folk music into the curriculum, Sound Beginnings is keeping tradition alive and helping preserve the stories of those that came before us. It is believed that the tradition of reciting nursery rhymes began for similar reasons, an oral tradition meant to preserve and pass on stories. Our use of them in class promotes listening to speech patterns, understanding rhyming words, increased vocabulary, and preparation for further literacy skills.
Optional home fun activity: Color the ‘Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks’ on page 16
(Remember, these activities are optional but can be a great bonding experience to do with your child during the week.)
While this isn't actually one of our semester instruments, I think this is a very fun video of playing rocks. Yes, I said rocks. The instrument is called a Lithophone and it is similar to the xylophone, but made from rocks, rather than wood! If you would like to see the difference between other barred percussion instruments, here's a link to some good info!
Have a musical day!
-Ms. Bethany :)
Orange Roots #8
Tuesday, February 25, 2025 | Orange Roots Lessons
Lesson #8
Parents come next week, tuition is due, and it's SPIRIT MONTH! (See separate email with details.)
1st Year Registration & Enrollment:
If you have a child you want to go through 1st year and aren't on my waiting list, or you know someone who wants to do Let's Play Music, email back and let me know their name and email address so they can get registered ASAP. After next week I'll open registration up to the general public.
Thank you for sending the Marco Polo videos this week. It really helps us get through more fun things in class when we don't need to take the time for each student to play their song during class.
We started working on the A minor scale and cadences this week! The best part about A minor is that the scale feels just like playing a C Major scale, with no sharps or flats! We did have to change our solfege words though. A minor scale is DO, RE, ME (pronounced "may"), FA, SOL, LE (pronounced "lay"), TE (pronounced "tay"), DO. Our cadences are almost the same, but when we play the yellow chord, we do have to remember to play the G#!
Our dictation exercise was different today. We had all the same notes, but we had to listen to the rhythm and write the rhythm we heard. We also practiced drawing a bass clef, which is also called the "F clef" because the big dot is on the F line and the two dots are on both sides of the F line.
Next week we will do Showtime as a class with New World Symphony. Have your child practice the part they want to play in class and we'll all play our parts at the same time to make a beautiful ensemble!
Students should now have all orange rhythm flashcards unbanded so they can practice all 16 cards! They can also use Quizlet from my website to practice the same things!
Optional: if you'd like to have your student practice more rhythms in a super fun way, you can print off the orange counting cards. They are in the student portal (www.musikandme.com) in the online resources section. There are 3 sets with 2 pages each. You can print them front-to-back and you'll have the same rhythms with bugs to help on one side and no bugs on the other side!
Russian Sailor Dance
This song is ALWAYS a student favorite. Another great repertoire piece that reinforces ABA form, improvisations, and provides a study in legato and staccato themes. But it's the the accelerando at the end that will have your student BEGGING to practice it all the time!
Bridge is a really fun class for Let's Play Music graduates that is a great "bridge" between Let's Play Music classes and private lessons. I will be starting a new Bridge class next year, teaching it as a 2-year program. The kids will learn lots of new songs, scales, musical concepts, and so much more! It is more self-paced than LPM, so it's perfect for if you feel like your child has missed out on some musical concepts or skills in Orange Roots. If you are interested, let me know and I'll get you more information.
Here is a link to all the skills videos as well as the link to be able to purchase a class video to make up for a missed class. (tap or scan)
Have a musical day!
-Ms. Bethany :)
