The Great Pumpkin

Did you watch the Peanuts specials on holidays when you were a kid? Does it still feel like a luxury that you can pop in a Peanuts DVD any time you want to? After trick or treating with my two children, candy counting, story telling, Skyping with Grandma and Grandpa in Washington state to show them their costumes, and coaxing them into bed, my husband Justin and I watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Still as good as it ever was.

I was put in mind of it because I caught a part of a radio interview with David Michaelis, the author of this new book: Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography. Sounded like Charles Schulz was a very complicated man as well as an amazing artist whose work has endured--it also sounds like a good read, with Peanuts strips liberally sprinkled through the text to illustrate how autobiographical his work was.

There's a bit in "Great Pumpkin" where Snoopy leans on Schroeder's piano and reacts with great emotional highs and lows to the music he's playing. I love that part.

Quote of the Week

I always have a quote, usually about music, on the white board as you come into class. Just in case you didn't see it (or you're in my Young Child class, in which I use the white board for other purposes), here it is:

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley

I especially like this quote for this week, as we're exploring in Our Time (the toddler class) how silence is an important part of music. Silence builds our anticipation for what will come next!

Listen to this -- Little Bird, Little Bird

I'm on the lookout, more or less all the time, for songs, especially songs I can use in a class. This particular song, I feel, captures a pure, childhood joy that I treasure. I've used this song in a couple of my classes, and it seems that everyone responds to it like I did. It's a classic children's game song, re-interpreted here by the wonderful singer/songwriter, Elizabeth Mitchell. Here she is with her husband and little girl, who also play and sing on her new CD. When you open this link, click on "Little Bird, Little Bird." Enjoy!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6210683

Watch This

This short video made me laugh. Enjoy!

http://www.bakeru.edu/faculty/smrha/misc/William_Tell_Overture.wmv

Beautiful note

I just wanted to share this note from some of the Kindergarteners I did a sound story with at McKinley Elementary school. Love them!

Everyone is musical

I just read a fantastic book by Daniel Levitin, who is a neuroscientist/musician. He's done tons of research on the way music affects our brains (and our how our brains affect the music we make), and he's engagingly written about it in a book called "This is your brain on music." I thoroughly enjoyed both this book and his presentation at the Kindermusik International conference. A really interesting guy.

He repeatedly makes the point in this book that there is a strange, enormous gap between musicans and non-musicians in modern western culture, a gap that other cultures simply don't have. He relates a story about an anthropologist friend of his, who was spending some time with a village in the tiny country of Lesotho in southern Africa. There was a celebration one night and the villagers invited their visitor to join in. "I don't sing," he said--something we hear people say all the time here in the west.

But the villagers in Lesotho just stared at Jim in shock. "'What do you mean you don't sing?! You Talk!' Singing and dancing were natural activities in everybody's lives, seamlessly integrated and involving everyone." [italics mine]

I feel that in every Kindermusik class, we chip away at that unnatural gap. We show our children that they have a singing voice, and a musical nature, and we invite them to claim it and relish in it.

And adults get to sing in a Kindermusik class, too.

The Sound Story

Here's me, teaching about the sense of hearing in a sound story to the wonderful Kindergarteners at McKinley Elementary School. My daughter is a Kindergartener there, and I had the chance to go into all four K classrooms and play sound games. We had a good time. This photo was taken by Mrs. Bates in her classroom.

Very Sweet Indeed

Last week I went to the Kindermusik International conference in Chicago. WONDERFUL. Almost 500 music educators in one room is a powerful experience. I'll be telling you lots about it in this blog.

For starters, SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK gave us a concert. SWitR is an acapella, African American women's ensemble. They lit my hair on fire. They travel extensively, but they are from DC--if you ever have the chance to go to one of their concerts, run, don't walk. No, here, take my car.

Read about them at http://www.sweethoney.com/

Welcome to my Kindermusik blog

Hi, Kindermusik families,

Like to follow blogs? Hope you'll enjoy stopping by this one now and again. I'll post info on music, parenting, child development, as well as funny stuff I like and think you'd like, and stuff you can share with your children.

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