December 10, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Mbube" on Putamayo Presents: African Playground

"Do, Re, Mi" in Japanese

December 3rd, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Jingle Bells" John Denver's Christmas Celebration Concert

"Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker

"Chappa Chappa"  from Aditya's Dum Dum Diga

November 19th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Baisabi" - Xiomara Fortuna from Latinas: Women of Latin America

November 12, 2012

Today we listened to:

"Zip-a-dee-doo-dah" on Swinging in the Rain with Maria Muldaur

We heard the poem "In the Fashion" by A.A. Milne

November 4th, 2012

Today we listened to:

The Black Lodge Singers "Old MacDonald" on More Kids' Pow-Wow Songs

"John Kanaknaka" from Dan Zanes and Friends Little Nut Tree 

"Dil Lay Gayee" Bhangra: Original Punjabi Pop

October 22nd, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Jamming" Bob Marley from B is for Bob

Cuban Dance -- Feet on Fire "La Lizeta"

October 15th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"The Rainbow Connection" - sung by Sarah McLachlan from Gather Round: Songs for Kids and Other Folks

"The Hokey Pokey" from Dan Zanes and Friends Family Dance

Chinese Lullabies "Clear Moon, Quiet Winds" #2

October 8th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Clic-Clac Oh C'est Beau!" - Dominique Dimey Putamayo Presents French Playground 

"Merrily we Roll Along" Lord Invader With The Calypso Orchestra on the Smithsonian Folkways Children's Music Collection

October 1st, 2011

Today we listed to:

"Singing in the Rain" on Maria Maldaur's Swingin' in the Rain

"Battu" - Angelique Kidjo

"Jambo Bwana" - Them Mushrooms

from Putamayo presents African Playground

Gabrieli: Canzon Septimi Toni #2
Mozart: Concerto for Pianos, K 365 - Mvt. 3

September 24th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Flor De Huevo" by Los Lobos

"La Bruja"  by Conjunto Jardin

on Putamayo's Mexico

"Zip-a-dee-do-dah" sung by Maria Muldaur on her Swingin' in the Rain album

September 17th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Mambo Yo Yo" by Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca from Putamayo's Afro-Latino

"Flying Machine" by Father Goose with Sheryl Crow & Dan Zanes from his album It's a Bam Bam Diddly!

Music and Language

Why playing a musical instrument 'can help children learn with language skills'

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 7:28 PM on 21st February 2010

If you spent hours learning a musical instrument as a child only to lose interest when you reached your teens, it may not have been a complete waste of time after all, according to a leading expert.
Learning to play an instrument has major advantages for a growing brain and should be a key part of school education, says neuroscientist Professor Nina Kraus.
She points out there is strong evidence to show that music lessons help children improve their language skills. Prof Kraus has led the first research to demonstrate that playing a musical instrument significantly enhances the brain's sensitivity to speech sounds.

Playing an instrument may help children better process speech in a noisy classroom. (Posed by models)

The benefits could help normal children as well as those with developmental problems such as dyslexia and autism, she argues.
‘Playing an instrument may help youngsters better process speech in noisy classrooms and more accurately interpret the nuances of language that are conveyed by subtle changes in the human voice,' Prof Klaus told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, California.
‘Cash-strapped school districts are making a mistake when they cut music from the curriculum.’
At her laboratory at Northwestern University in Everston, Illinois, researchers developed a way to show how the nervous system responds to the acoustic properties of speech and music sounds with sub-millisecond precision.
They found the effectiveness with which the nervous system interprets sound patterns is linked to musical ability.
‘Playing music engages the ability to extract relevant patterns, such as the sound of one's own instrument, harmonies and rhythms, from the "soundscape",' said Prof Kraus.
‘Not surprisingly, musicians' nervous systems are more effective at utilising the patterns in music and speech alike.’
Previously her team found that sensitivity to sound patterns correlates with reading skill and the ability to hear speech against background noise.
‘People's hearing systems are fine-tuned by the experiences they've had with sound throughout their lives,’ said Prof Kraus.
‘Music training is not only beneficial for processing music stimuli. We've found that years of music training may also improve how sounds are processed for language and emotion.
‘The neural enhancements seen in individuals with musical training is not just an amplifying or volume knob effect. Individuals with music training show a selective fine-tuning of relevant aspects of auditory signals.’
Her research indicates that playing a musical instrument affects automatic processing in the brainstem, the lower part of the brain that joins onto the spinal cord.
The brainstem is an evolutionarily ancient brain region that controls many vital functions such as breathing and heartbeat, as well as responses to complex sounds.
‘Now we know that music can fundamentally shape our sub-cortical sensory circuitry in ways that may enhance everyday tasks, including reading and listening in noise,’ said Prof Kraus.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1252652/Learning-play-musical-instrument-helps-young-brains-develop-language-skills.html

August 13th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Madame Bonapart" from Fire in the Kitchen (Irish)

Kirkland Summer Concerts

Don't forget about the Kirkland Summer Concert Series this summer. There are still lots of concerts to see. Check out http://kirklandsummerconcerts.org/ for a list of performers and times.

August 6th, 2011

Today we listened to:

Bakongo! Drumming Music For Dancers track #3 "Gahu" 

"The Hokey Pokey" Dan Zanes' version from his Family Dance

"Jamming" from B is for Bob [Marley]

This is my right hand, I'll hold it high,
This is my left hand, I touch the sky,
Right hand, left hand, roll them around,
Left hand, right hand, pound pound pound!

July 30th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"The Banana Boat Song" - Taj Mahal from Gather Round! Songs for Kids and Other Folks

July 23, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Battu" by Angelique Kidjo from Putamayo's African Playground

"Flight of the Bumlebee" by Nikolai Rimsky- Korsakov

We also read the book "Aninmals Speak" by Lila Prap

July 16th, 2011

Today we listened to the songs "Activity" and "Here We Go Zudio" from the CD Many Hands, Family Music for Hati

"Merrily We Roll Along" from the Smithsonian Folkaways Children Music Collection

We moved our bodies to the rhyme:
Tall as a tree, Wide as a house
Thin as a pin, small as a mouse!

Kindie-Rock

The local Seattle band Recess Monkey was recently featured on KPLU. You can listen to songs on their website http://www.recessmonkeytown.com/
For more videos of the band see the link: http://kplu.org/post/recess-monkey-kindie-rock-fun
Here is the article:

Recess Monkey is kindie-rock fun

By Florangela Davila

Enlarge image

Recess Monkey -- Jack Forman, Daron Henry and Drew Holloway -- perform at Auburn Kids Day 2011.

Photo by Florangela Davila

 

What inspires bands to make music? For Recess Monkey, it’s the lives of kindergarteners and grade schoolers.
All three musicians – Drew Holloway, Jack Forman and Daron Henry – in the band teach at Seattle elementary schools. And they're having anything but a sleepy summer: playing gigs and promoting their latest CD, "Flying" is on their agenda.

Funk and booster seats
You've heard of indie rock? Recess Monkey is a kindie rock band.
Think funk songs about booster seats. Or catchy songs about sack lunches, head lice and bandaids.
The genre has taken root in Seattle as well as Portland, LA. Kansas City and New York.

Kindie Rock: A gentler kind of rock music whose concerts don't incite the audience to throw certain unmentionables on stage.

At a Recess Monkey concert "a couple of pacifiers, a half-eaten lollipop. But nothing of the likes that Tom Jones might see at one of his concerts," band member Drew Holloway says.
Formation of a kindie band
The band formed the way most bands do: three guys were at work. They found out they all liked playing music.
So they got together.
They tried making indie music for an adult audience.
But that didn’t feel right.

"It was weird to make music we couldn’t share with the kids that we knew. We spend 50 hours with kids. We're surrounded by kid energy all the time, so naturally, of course, the music followed our surroundings just like any art is a function of where you live and what you do," Forman said.

Playing for adults was also a logistical nightmare. They’d play clubs and get out at 2 or 3 a.m.. Then they’d have to start work at 7.
Holloway also ended up writing a bunch of songs for a grad school project in children’s literature. So the teachers got the idea to make kids music that adults would also like.

"We would never put a song on the record that feels schlocky or pandering. That would drive parents insane because we have to play these songs 400 times, " Forman says.

Concert time
It’s Kid Day in Auburn and Les Gove park is packed with bouncy houses, food booths, and games.

Recess Monkey is on stage. The audience on the grassy lawn ranges  in age from a toddler with his sippy cup to a girl about six years old in face paint. Then there are the parents.

The concert lasts an hour. The band sings about flapjacks, swimming pools and the feat that is swinging on the monkey bars.
Lesson-based songs
The bands that influenced them while growing up were the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Sha Na Na, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen.
You can hear all of it in Recess Monkey, which aims to make music that isn’t preachy to kids but is still lesson-based: Like taking a stand for something even when it’s hard.
It’s happy music with a purpose. Recess Monkey wants kids to have fun and wants adults to remember and celebrate the joy of childhood.

Yo Gabba Gabba!

Happy Father's Day tomorrow! Thank you to the fathers who bring their children to my class. It is great to have you there!

 There was an interview today on NPR of the creators of Yo Gabba Gabba, a popular music/television show for kids. Here's the link:
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/18/137205935/yo-gabba-gabba-tv-for-kids-and-music-lovers

Go to the link to see a video of The Roots performing "Lovely, Love my Family."

Here's the transcript:

June 18, 2011
Yo Gabba Gabba! began on the Nick Jr. TV network as a show to entertain and educate the pre-kindergarten set. But now, with its fourth season in production, the show's popularity is stretching demographic boundaries, in part because of its musical content. Popular bands such as The Killers, The Roots, The Shins and Weezer appear regularly, performing original songs in colorful costumes — and these psychedelic segments have snagged the program some older fans.
The show was created by Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz. They tell Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon that when they got the idea, they were both new fathers who felt that there was something big missing from children's entertainment.

Enlarge Courtesy of Nick Jr. Scott Schultz and Christian Jacobs (bottom left and right) pose with characters from the show.

"We were thinking, 'Wow, there's so much more music that's not being represented here,' " Jacobs says. "We wanted to make something that we felt was a little more reflective of what we were into, and what our kids responded to at home — we were listening to all kinds of different music. And so we thought, 'Why don't we make a kids' show?' "
"We felt like we could take a band that we love and ask them to play a song that had lyrics kids would understand and relate to, and that kids would like it," Schultz says.
That logic has led the pair to book some guests, like rapper Mos Def or comedian Sarah Silverman, who don't immediately register as family-friendly. But Schultz says that most guests rise to the occasion once they're on set.
"We didn't want to pander to kids or talk down to them," Schultz says. "These people that aren't traditionally kids-show-friendly, when they come to the table, they bring sort of a fun awe. I guess they're in awe of being a kid again. We get to celebrate in this idea that we're being kids together, and we're just doing something that kids can relate to."
"[Rapper] Biz Markie was in the pilot," Jacobs says. "He said, 'I want to be Mister Rogers for kids,' and we were like, 'Of course you should be! Why not?' "
Still, Yo Gabba Gabba! was a gamble, and not just conceptually: Both Jacobs and Schultz took out loans on their houses to finance the show's early stages. Jacobs says he finally knew they were on to something during the second season, when they pitched hip-hop group and Late Night With Jimmy Fallon house band The Roots to appear on the program. The realization hit him during a conversation with drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson.
"I was telling him about the show, and he was like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' I thought, at first, that he was kind of brushing me off," Jacobs says. "Then he said, 'Christian, we watch the show every day at our house. We can't wait to be on.' I realized, wow, this show has touched a lot of people — people who have touched us."

June 18, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Azanga" track #1 from local group Shumba Ya Rira, the Lion that Roars, (Zimbabwe) by the Shumba Youth Marimba Ensemble. Recorded and mixed in Port Townsend, WA


From the liner notes: "Music and dance traditions have been deeply ingrained in Shona Culture from ancient time and are passed down from oral tradition. Much of shona music is based on the mbira, a hand-held ideophone with 22-28 metal reeds attached to a board that are plucked when played. The mbira plays a prominent role in many types of ceremonies, including traditional rituals for communicating with ancestral spirits. Some of the pieces on this recording draw upon traditional mbira music from Zimbabwe, and have been translated for marimba.
Marimbas are finely crafted xylophones made from hardwoods such as vermillion, mahogany and paduak. The keys are fine-tuned to reflect the tones played in African societies. Each key has a resonator which amplifies the sound, producing a unique musical effect --- from the clear, bell-like tones of the soprano to the deep, percussive tones of the bass. Marimbas are about five feet long, and their heights vary from two feet to more than five feet. The ensemble of instruments creates music that is exciting to listen to--and wonderful for dancing! The music has a universal quality that appeals to all ages and backgrounds."
http://www.shumbamarimba.org/

Mozart's Concerto for 2 pianos, K.365, 3rd movement

"Flying Machine" from Father Goose's It's a Bam Bam Diddly!

June 11, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Gahu" (Nigeria, Ghana) from Bakongo! Drumming Music for Dancers and played our triangles.

"Here we Go Zudio" performed by Rani Arbo and daisy mayhem from the album Many Hands, Family Music for Hati

One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
then I let it go again,
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
which finger did it bit?
The little finger on the right!

June 4, 2011

Today we listened to:
 "Kudi Kudi" from Bhangra: Original Punjabi Pop

Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 2 k. 417, 3rd movement

Preschool class also listened to:

Camille Saint-Saens' "Aquarium" from his carnival of the animals

May 21, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Kpatsa" (Ghana) track #1 from the album Bakongo! and played along with our drums.

"Jig Jog Gee" track #7 from Father Goose's album It's a Bam Bam Diddly!

This is my right hand, I hold it high,
This is my left hand, I touch the sky,
Right hand, left hand roll them around,
Left hand, right hand, pound pound pound!

Silence: Music to My Ears

When was the last time you listened to nothing? No kids, iPods, dvds, phone calls; just quiet. It may it hard to remember. Our ears and brains are always engaged in listening to something. Children are also constantly bombarded with sound. In our attempts to keep them learning and entertained, they too aften have little chance to appreciate silence. Quiet time can be valuable for children.children in the pre-language stage can have a chance to practice sounds and words, children who are talking can have a chance to practice new words, and it gives all children the chance to quietly reflect on their day.

Silence can help to direct behavior as well. Often, using a quiet voice to speak to children will calm them down, or at least get them to use quieter voices. If they need to be quiet to hear something interesting they will. Think about how quiet they get when we sing the verse on "Wheels On the Bus" when the parents say "shhh, shhh, shhh." Children can easily be overstimulated by noise, causing them to act out or to cry. Silence gives their ears a break and maybe yours too!

May 14th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Pa Manen Fanm Nan" by Michel Martelly with Haiti Twoubadou from Putamayo French Carribean

"Croque" by Thomas Ferson from Putamayo's French Playground

Sing to Your Baby

I heard this review on the NPR. It may be interesting for parents who need a music confidence boost!



May 11, 2011
If you'd like to sing to your baby this Mother's Day, but think your voice is enough to make a small child cry — or an adult, for that matter — fear not. A new CD just might boost your confidence. Sing to Your Baby is a collection of simple songs for parents who are convinced they're singing-impaired.
The songs were written by Grammy winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer. The collection features 11 songs, but each one appears twice: once in a key intended for moms and once adjusted for dads to sing. Cathy Fink says most of the tunes are what's known as "zipper songs," written so it's easy to zip out a line and zip in one of your own.
"It's really important for parents to realize that your baby is not judging your singing voice," Fink says. "You are a rock star from day one, so as long as you're having fun and enjoying the moment, the baby's going to have fun and enjoy the moment."
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/136028850/sing-to-your-baby-fighting-parental-stage-fright

April 30th, 2011

Today we listened to:


#4 "Danza de Concheros," #5 "El Chivo" from San Patricio by the Cheiftans and Ry Cooder


Baby class:


“Zamba Malato” by Susana Baca (Peru) from Putamayo’s Latinas: Women of Latin America

March 12th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Polly Wolly Doodle" feat. Sheryl Crow from Rocket Ship Beach by Dan Zanes and Friends

"Do, Re, Mi" from The Sound of Music in Japanese. (I don't know the name of the CD in English)!

We said and acted out the rhyme:

Tall as a tree
wide as a house
thin as a pin
small as a mouse!

March 5th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Mbube" - The Mahotella Queens from Putamayo's African Playground
Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee"

We also sang "five green and speckled frogs" and counted the frogs on the felt board

I sang "Going to the Zoo" by Tom Paxton

February 19th, 2011

Today we listened to:

"Jama Day" from Novelties by Peter Mayer

Various drums: tracks #8, 9, 10, 11, 12 from Toys I Make, Trips I Take" by Kindermusik

#2 "Kunze Kwadoka" and #3 "Mutserendende"  from Paivepo by Oliver Mtukudzi (Africa -- Zimbabwe)

#4 "Danza de Concheros," #5 "El Chivo" from San Patricio by the Chieftans and Ry Cooder


We read the book One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root & Jane Chapman
When we read this book we hear lots of new sounds and can practice them.
This story is also rhythmic -- music and reading together!

January 29th, 2011

Today we listened to

 Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns, The Carnival of the Animals,

"I Introduction and Royal March of the Lion,"
"V L'éléphant (The Elephant),"
"VI Kangourous (Kangaroos),"
"VII Aquarium," toddlers
"X Volière (Aviary)," infants
"XIII Le cygne (The Swan)" infants

Rhymes

"Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill,
one named Jack and the other named Jill.
Fly away Jack, fly away Jill!
Come back Jack, come back Jill!"


"There was a little turtle
Who lived in a box.
He swam in the puddles
And climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at the mosquito,
He snapped at the flea.
He snapped at the minnow,
And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito,
He caught the flea,
He the minnow,
But he didn't catch me!"