Tuesday, September 17, 2024 | Red Balloons Lessons

Lesson #4

Class was so fun this week. I love interacting with your students and teaching them through play. I have the best job in the whole world!

Just a reminder next week is parent week and tuition is due for those of you paying monthly! You can scan the QR code to the right in your banking app to pay via Zelle (or just use my phone number).

Also, are you having fun listening to the music? (Please let me know if you still haven't gotten the app working!) When you expose your student to the music, and sing a lot, the child experiences fun repetition at home so they learn faster and internalize the concepts and skills in class more rapidly!

Learning to sing harmony     
In class we listened and sang the song Hear How the Bells. The kiddos got to sing the melody while the ostinato played on the bells. We’re reinforcing hearing layers of sound as well as the importance of keeping a steady beat.   
     
Music staff training     
They are also learning how the music staff works. Notes are on the lines and spaces, and when they go up, our bodies and voices go up, when they go down, our bodies and voices go down! This exposure is prepping them to read music!    
     
Autoharp   
Playing the autoharp helps the children gain strength in their hands, helps them to "anticipate" the beat when they strum the strings, and primes their brain to do different right hand and left hand movement. It's the perfect prep work for playing the piano.

Hickety Pickety w/Mi, Re, Do on Tone Bells

Check this article about practicing the Autoharp at Home...even if you don’t have one! Our LPM app now has that feature! It works better on a tablet, rather than a phone because of the size. 

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 :)

Tuesday, September 10, 2024 | Red Balloons Lessons

Lesson #3

Next week, just drop off your kiddo with their completed homework and we’ll be ready 45 minutes later! :) They really do just fine without the parents in class...I promise!
   
I’m so thrilled at how good the kids were this week. Thanks for participating and enjoying your time together with them. Keep in mind, when you come to class, the children do act slightly different. Just remember to be actively engaged in what I’m doing and don’t force their participation, just encourage. What a gift to spend quality time with your precious child, bonding and creating fun music memories! This is SO much fun!!

Barnyard Boogie
This peppy song is even more fun when you realize we are imitating and identifying complex rhythmic patterns! The brains of young children are designed to extract patterns from complex layers, making more connections with each exposure. Start with playfully clapping the animals separate from the audio track at a slower speed. Soon they will clap right along as the music plays!
   
Primary Chords Song
The three chords in our song make up about 90% of all the music we listen to. Developing an ear for them is so important! Learning to describe how they sound will help us do this! (For those of you with a musical background: red=I, blue=IV, yellow=V)

DO is Home
Our purpose here is to match pitch, and eventually, to accurately pull that middle C out of thin air with no cues! WOW! We are developing perfect pitch! Some are born with this ability, but it can be developed with enough correct exposure and if taught from a very young age. This process will take six months to three years, so we'll work on it every week during our three years together.

Staff Awareness
In Let's Play Music we experience things before we label them. Experiencing and playing with the music staff is a great way to understand how it functions. When we start to add things to the staff like notes, and key signatures, the students will have information stored in their brains that they can connect it to, so identifying lines/spaces on the staff is the beginning of our visual love of the staff.

Play an ostinato on the bells - harmony training
An ostinato is a repeated musical pattern that is played at the same time as a separate melody. We did this today as we played DO SOL on the bells while singing the song “Hear How the Bells”. Our ears are getting SO SMART!

Three Blind Mice
Audiation means hearing musical sounds in the head. Audiation is the foundational ability that precedes all harmony skills such as singing in harmony, aurally distinguishing two or more notes sounded at the same time, harmonizing a melody. The ability to audiate is the focus of most of the activities in the first year of Let’s Play Music. Unfortunately, we can’t be positive if the children are audiating, but the results of audiation will reveal themselves down the road.

Why do we use folk music in Let's Play Music? This question is an important one. Read HERE to find the answer! Also, Click HERE to read about one of our Let's Play Music graduates!  

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 :)

Tuesday, September 3, 2024 | Red Balloons Lessons

Lesson #2

Parents come next week! Don't forget your tote bag, bells, and home fun activity book! Also, be sure to initial that you did the home fun activities with your child so they can get a sticker or stamp in their book! As a reminder, the home activity you do each week is the one for the lesson we just did in class. So this week you will be doing #2 in your book. 

What a fun 2nd week we had! Your students are amazing!! They were so brave to go to class without their mom or dad. We are looking forward to our  parents coming this next week. ( Reminder ...if you can’t come, please send your child anyway. It would be ideal if you found a replacement, i.e. grandmas, grandpas, aunts, etc.)

PLEASE be sure that you and your child are able to absorb all of this amazing curriculum by coming to class on time, which means we START at the time your class is scheduled to start. My sign is on the door 5 minutes before class starts, which means I’m ready for you to come in and come downstairs! 

Hear How the Bells
We are teaching your student to hear harmony by using the singing part and combining it with the bell part. Singing solo doesn't develop the ear like singing with counter parts. The opposition to the melody trains the ear in beautiful ways! This song is the powerful beginning to singing in four part harmony!   

Three Blind Mice
We are helping the kids to "audiate" a melody. Audiate means to hear music 'inside' when there is no sound actually present. We must be able to hear music first in our heads before we learn to sing in harmony, perform different rhythms, play the correct chords, compose a song, etc. It is a vital piece to our developing a complete musician!
   
Major Scales
Today we introduced the term "major scale." We learned this term as we sang our DO RE MI song! The kids heard a major scale go up and down, it's just the beginning of understanding that every piece has a correlating key signature and scale, music theory 101 started today and it was accomplished through PLAY!

Click HERE to read part 1 of the Master Ear-Training Tool!

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 :)

Tuesday, August 27, 2024 | Red Balloons Lessons

Lesson #1

What a great class this week! Thanks, parents, for coming and supporting your students. I can tell we are going to have a  great year, great students and great consistent parents that make it happen! Thank you for singing along and doing the hand actions during class, this helps the students stay focused and builds a musical bond between you and your child. When they see that you enjoy music, they do too! 
  
Just a reminder for next class…

1. Parents don’t come next week (because it's an even numbered lesson), which means totes & bells don’t either. Just send your kids in WITH THEIR HOMEWORK BOOK and they will be ready 45 minutes later.
2. Remember in 1st year the practice process is all about fun and ongoing practice through play. Forget about the typical rigid "we are now practicing" approach to teaching children music. Put out the bells and let your child play with them. Listen to the music everyday in a natural way (bedtime, while in the car, etc.). Once a week sit down and do the theory homework. That's it! It's a piece of FUN cake.
    
3. Listen to the class music! The kids get so much more out of class when they are fully participating (which includes singing)!
   
4. Tuition is due this week and is $280 for the Red Balloons semester. You can pay via Zelle using my phone number (preferred, so I don't have to pay Venmo transaction fees). Zelle is a way to transfer money from your bank account to my bank account without needing to wait or pay extra fees. It's easy to set up through your bank and even easier to use once it has been set up. You could pay via Venmo @musikandme if you really can't set up Zelle. If you need to make monthly payments, rather than paying for the semester, it will be $75/month. (You will save $20 by paying for the semester up front!) 

Melodic Patterns             
Many activities in the first semester will concentrate on repetitions of certain melodic patterns. The first is MI-RE-DO. We will sing it, do solfeg hand signs, play it on the bells, see the notes on the staff, and feel it with our full body! The songs this week that have this pattern in it are: Let’s Play Music, Red Balloon, Do Re Mi, Three Blind Mice, and Frog in the Middle.
             
Steady Beat
A steady beat is an essential part of becoming a complete musician. We learn to hear, feel, identify and then reproduce a steady beat with every song in Let’s Play Music, but it is specifically addressed this week in Tambourine Train and Echo Ed. Establishing a steady beat is the precursor for hearing and playing different rhythms. You can’t read rhythms if you can’t keep a steady beat.
             
Minor 3rd Interval (helps to sing in tune)
Hickety Pickety and Echo Ed are key pieces in learning to match pitch. For a child to play and create music they must be able to hear and then reproduce what was heard. Using the minor 3rd SOL-MI and simple rhythmic variations we train the ear to identify what is being heard. 

Magical Lamp
Puppet shows use different characters to guide the child’s ear to identify motives, phrases, and themes. Students gain an educated appreciation of classical music, creating an intelligent listener.

Playing the Major Scale on the Bells

Click HERE to read why ear training is important and why it should be part of your child's music education.

Also, I've added the Magical Lamp Coloring book for you to download. Log in at www.musikandme.com and you can download and print these two pages out and let your child color the characters as you discuss their favorite part about the puppet show! (Don't forget to listen to the music while coloring!)

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 :)