Let's Play Music Red Balloons Lesson #5

Thanks for coming to class today! You are a vital part of your child's music education. At home this week, focus on the Lesson 5 home study. Next week students attend class on their own. As a reminder, this year, classes are 45 minutes long. Thank you so much for your prompt arrival to drop off and pick up your child from class! As always, you are welcome to arrive 5 minutes before the start of class. After class you are welcome to come into the studio to pick up your students or I will walk with them together out to my driveway. 

You'll notice that the bulk of new concepts and skills are presented on parent attended days. We want you to see how we execute the activities so you'll be able to play along at home. If ever you have questions however, please do contact me.

The Red Balloons semesters is FILLED with repetition to really develop intangible musical skills that some people seem to just come by naturally. Their thirsty young minds will internalize and develop around the repetitive exposure we provide them -- in years to come they won't even know how they received their musical skills, knowledge and aptitude. Here are a few highlights from today's class:

May There Always Be Me
We taught the kids to feel their heartbeat and introduced the concept of keeping a steady beat. This is important when you're teaching a child to internally feel the value of notes.
A-Hunting We Will Go
We identified the MI RE DO pattern and sang it independently. The solfeg patterns are important in training the ear. All the patterns we will learn in Let's Play Music have a strong cadence pull to DO. When the ear hears these patterns over and over again they aurally can start predicting where the music is heading. Patterning plays a major role in the construction of music.
Chords in Pieces
We actually read music today! Well, our eyes followed a chord map, and we sang the broken chords. I'm feeling so smart....yeah!
Ding Dong, Ding Dong
Correctly imitating pitches is important in learning to sing in tune, which puts us on a path to becoming a complete musician.
The Staff
It was so fun to identify the 5 lines and 4 spaces on the staff today!! We are taking time to let the kids visually familiarize themselves with the single staff. This is one of the repetition things that seems simple to grownups but when given repetitive exposure gives the child spacial awareness, and later on they feel comfortable and confident reading music. 

We LOVE having our parents come to class on parent day. It was so much fun singing our lullaby and rocking back and forth feeling the steady beat of the music. Music can help us feel and express emotion. It can also promote healing. Music is powerful and every child needs music in their life. And not just for the reasons and benefits we normally think of as music educators. 
 
 Read Carson's story and witness how the power of music aided in healing a traumatic event in his young life