Animal Songs and Parachute Joy!

In last night’s group music class at Arise we focused on animal songs, such as The Rooster Song, Crocky Crocky Crocodile, and Elephants Have Wrinkles. The children particularly enjoyed learning all the ASL signs in the first one. One highlight for me was when announcing the parachute song of the day, one child threw their hands up in excitement. She is a big fan of the singer Dua Lipa, (we danced to her song Levitating) and it was great to see her joyful reaction!

Performance Time!

In my 4 pm class this week at Stonegate we reviewed our rhythms and I introduced the group to Do Re Mi, the classic song from The Sound of Music. Next week we’ll be choosing between one of the three songs to perform for the group as we wrap up the session. The 4:45 pm class had its last class this week, and the children sang either The Elevator Song or Snowman Joe for their final performance. Everyone did a wonderful job, and we presented each child with their electronic certificate. In both classes there seems to be enthusiasm for continuing the program in the next session!

Finding the Music Everywhere!

Our student was all smiles today and full of enthusiasm, as always. We started with some solfege and scale work, then practiced large interval jumps, which was exactly the skill we needed in order to finish learning the end of Do You Want to Build a Snowman? His ear for note matching is improving a lot, which came in handy for our final exercise of the session: learning to figure out the melodies to songs by ear. We played Broken, a song he identified last week as being one of his favourites at the moment. He was so happy to play a song of his own choosing, and matched the song’s melody very quickly. Time flies, and it’s hard to believe this session is over so fast, but I hope to continue working with this student and seeing where his musical mind takes him!

Ready to Play

In order to get ready to play many songs on the ukulele, we have been focusing on learning the main chords on our instruments. This week we reviewed the four chords we know so far: C, Am, F, and G, and learned the song You Are My Sunshine, to practice them in a musical context.

New Chords!

This week we added two new chords to our repertoire: G and Am. Now we know the four main chords in the key of C, and we are ready to learn cool songs on the ukulele. We practiced strumming to a steady beat, and are now working on getting our chords changing smooth and fluent.

New Scales and New Songs

Our student was keen to share some of his new favourite songs to listen to this week, and was equally keen to get back on to the recorder. He had practiced the finger placement we worked on the previous week, and was keeping his rhythm consistent between notes. This week we focused more on melody and scales, devoting time to solfege, and then playing that same scale on the recorder. With our student playing in the full range of the recorder now, we brought in a new song: Do You Want to Build A Snowman, from Frozen. We got halfway through the song, and I have no doubt he will have it well-practiced for next week!

Changing Chords, Making Music

This week we reviewed all the fun chords we have learned so far (C, F and G), and learned a new chord from the key of C family, Am. We learned about how important it is to get used to changing between chords while keeping the rhythm in a musical context.

Fun with Rhythm Sticks!

Our Arise class this week was a lot of fun and included a couple new children and a new mom/baby duo! A highlight from this class was using rhythm sticks to practice making different rhythms as well as using them to explore dynamics. Using our sticks we also sang and played “My Grandfather Clock,” a great song that poses more of a challenge for the older kids. Other fun moments included the movement song “Walking, I’m Just Walking Along,” and the parachute, as always!

All Hands On Deck

Today our student was very musically minded. In our check-in, he shared a “musical moment” of tapping along to the music in a show he was watching. He had also practiced our song from the previous week, and we spent some time fine tuning the rhythm. Then we added the second hand to the recorder, and practiced some finger patterns up and down the clarinet with different rhythms. He is keen to fully explore the range of the instrument, and learn to play some of his favourite songs from TV. Even though he already plays piano, his enthusiasm for learning a new instrument is no less strong. I have a feeling he’ll be playing music for a long time!

Time flies when you’re having fun!

Yesterday’s vocal lessons with the Stonegate CHC just flew by! First we checked in with each group and did a physical and a vocal warmup. The kids are getting better at their lip trills and they were excited to demonstrate it to each other one at a time. Next we worked on our rhythm patterns using the rhythm sticks, and learned to read quarter notes and eight notes, using “ta”’s and “ti ti”’s. We finished off with learning and singing through the “Elevator” song, and even accompanied ourselves on the xylophone.