Grownups, please be sure to see my introduction page to learn more about me and how you can support your child in music class. Even if you’re not a musician!
This week, we are getting to know each other. I’ll be establishing routines and expectations for our class, including a warmup song that we’ll sing each week at the beginning of class. I’ll also introduce the students to some of the rhythmic notes and even clap a few rhythms.
The song for this week is Swimming Down and Up, which illustrates directionality and is a fun song to move to and imagine the kinds of things that swim up and down.
Grownups, please be sure to see my introduction page to learn more about me and how you can support your child in music class. Even if you’re not a musician!
This week, we are getting reconnected with each other and welcoming new friends. I’ll be establishing routines and expectations for our class, including a warmup song that we’ll sing each week at the beginning of class. We’ll also review rhythmic notes and even clap a few rhythms.
The song for this week is Ode To Joy, which is a song we covered last year, so it will serve as a small review. It’s a classic by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Each week, I will post an overview of the lessons we do in class along with a link to a full lesson page, complete with pre-recorded lesson and materials, sheet music, and whatever else your child will need to complete their assignments. I created the lesson videos and materials during the 2020-2021 school year when my classes were fully remote. You’ll find sheet music for piano, which is the “native language” for the music that makes up my curriculum, and other instruments, including ukulele, recorder, guitar, on-screen, (iPad) piano, and xylophone. All of these are viable options for playing and performing in my class. There are support materials and information in the menus for all of them.
It is important for musicians to perform and to share with each other in order to collaborate and learn to analyze their playing and improve. To facilitate this, I will be using FlipGrid. I’ll include a link to each week’s grid in the assignment for each week. Students will log in to FlipGrid using their @nycstudents.net log-ins. This will begin in the coming weeks, so be on the lookout!
This year will have challenges all its own because we will not be meeting in the music room. Music class will take place in your child’s homeroom. Obviously, this limits the instruments that we can use and play in a sanitary way. While I will do everything I can to facilitate playing in class, it is very important that the children practice the songs and material at home.
This is another great movie soundtrack composed by the inimitable John Williams. We’ve played his music before, but if you don’t know who he is, check out this podcast about him.
Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most famous musicians ever. When he was alive, he was not very well known, but he worked at a church and had to write new music for every week’s service and because of that, he ended up writing a lot of music. Years after he died, his music was discovered and people realized how special his music was.
Today, most people think of Bach as one of the greatest classical composers of all time.
This song was written in something called, Notebook for Anna Magdalena, which was a book of tunes Bach wrote for his wife, Anna.
