Music Mondays May 25th

• Instrument Play – We hope you’ve been enjoying trying out all different kinds of improvisations each week with your instruments at home. Continue to build off of the last few week’s improvisation exercises.  Start again with  Play and Play as a warm up. Use body percussion (clapping, tapping your knees, stomping etc.) or shakers if you have them in the house. Now play along with Oren to O’Keef’s Slide. Grab your shakers, drums, sticks (whatever you have on hand) and play to this lovely Irish melody. Is it presto or lento?  Are there forte or piano moments, or both?  Once you’ve tried that, try playing along with Oren again to Spanish Romance. How does this song feel different from O’Keef’s Slide? 

 

• Movement Game – Part of developing musicianship is spent on learning and embodying different sets of musical opposites. Below you will find the musical exercises for 2 sets of opposites: High/Low (illustrating the directionality on the piano keyboard) and Staccato/Legato (short & choppy/smooth & connected). Each week build upon these skills at home with different recordings that support the musical opposites. Play these new audio recordings for your child to move around the house to the music. Piece #1: High/Low – Chopin A minor Waltz; Piece #2: High/Low – Schumann Bear Dance

 

• Lullaby with a Book – Walter and Stephanie sing you Somewhere Over the Rainbow. 

 

• Listening Exercises – One of the most important skills we hone as musicians is our ability to listen.  In class, one of the ways we do this is by listening to a piece of music and then having a discussion afterwards. Finding the words to articulate our thoughts about music is a cultivated skill. Some of the questions we ask our students are:  Did you like or dislike the piece?  What did you like  or dislike about it?  How did it make you feel?  Did it make you think of anything?  What kind of sounds did you hear – short, long, loud, soft, big, little, high, low?  This week EC Pianist Eri Yamamoto performs Wave by famous Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim.  We hope it transports you this Memorial Day to the beach! Remember when Sherrine shared a Bossa Nova with you called Triste ?  That song is also by Jobim.  Also, this week Sherrine brings you a new style, a ballad called Detour Ahead by Kurt Elling. How is this style different from the other styles we have learned about – Swing, Blues, Samba, Bossa Nova?  Is it faster or slower? How does it make you feel?  Presto or lento? Do you know any other ballads? 

 

• Go Climbing Up the Ladder with Kirsten

 

 

• Meet the Electric Guitar with Oren! 

 

• Plant A Seed with Marissa 

 

• Play – Here Comes a Bluebird Game with Danielle 

 

• Fly Like a Butterfly – with Kirsten and her Flute – Telemann Fantaisie – Music for butterflies