Newsletters

Music and the Brain Newsletter No. 10 – Fall 2002

This new school year started out with 10 new Music and the Brain schools. Your ideas and experienced advice and needed, as always, and some have started to tricklein. Please email us your observations, stories, teaching suggestions orproblems and new music ideas.

MATB is involved in another exciting research project involving the Hunter College Psychology Department and District 24. Kindergarten classes at PS 16 and PS 19 have been randomly divided to compare the effects of MATB Music or art lessons on other areas of learning. Irene McByrne-Pepe is the music teacher. We'll let you know all information that comes out of the study.

Theater Row, which funds Music and the Brain, had its grand re-opening party on November 4. The event included a tour, dinner and show and was a lot of fun. We were very pleased that several interns and teachers (and their "better halves") showed up.

PS 87, one of our MATB schools, was recently cited by the Department of Education as one of the city's most successful schools in pursuing the inclusion of disabled students in the mainstream culture of the school. Principal Arlynn Brody has made it a priority to acquire many special programs for her school to help children with diverse styles of learning. Music and the Brain is one of their programs. Congratulations to PS 87!

Faculty and PTA Workshops

Lisha and music teachers from some of our schools have been giving music workshops for faculty and PTA members. It's a great way for faculty and parents to be introduced to music and Music and the Brain. They seem to have a lot of fun! Everyone learns to read music and leaves singing. If you can arrange for a workshop to happen at your school, Lisha will gladly come out and assist you.

Song Origins

We have started researching the origins of the songs in our three piano books. The results thus far are interesting and sometimes surprising and will made available to you soon. If you have any good sources for this kind of information or if you personally know the background of some songs, please let us know.

School Visits

Some teachers have expressed the desire to go to visit other Music and the Brain schools. It is interesting, inspiring and helpful to go out and watch other teachers. Please contact Lisha if this interests you and she will help to facilitate the trips.

Need Supplies?

Are you in need of supplies like most teachers in New York City public schools? If so, what do you need? If you had a wish list of supplies, what would be on it? What specific MATB materials need replacing?

Starting soon, Music and the Brain CDs, Piano Books and Teacher's Handbooks will be available to families. They will be sold at cost and we're hoping to keep that price way down.

TEACHING TIPS AND OBSERVATIONS

Be Patient and Steadfast When You Teach

Ø Be positive. Praise good behavior-it's much more effective than nagging about bad behavior. Encourage confidence by dealing nicely with right and wrong answers. Show respect and it will be returned. If you show that you care then they, too,will care.

Ø Many of our schools have inclusion and special ed. MATB classes. The great thing about our program is the variety of activities already built in. Inclusion classes tend to have a hard time sitting still for too long. Move quickly from one activity to another. You can always come back to an activity later in the lesson. Movement, singing, rhythm, there are endless possibilities for breaking you lessons into fast-moving and engaging chunks. It is sometimes hard to determine whether aclass is understanding a concept or not. Don't get frustrated because you think you're not getting through. Teach your lesson well and be patient about theresults. Children may exhibit their understanding in a way you're not expecting.

Ø At the start of the year it's normal for your beginners to seem a bit confused. Don't worry if the children don't understand everything right away. There are many layers of things to remember. We know how difficult it is to simply get past the concepts of right and left. Allow the children time to sort things out, especially at the keyboard. You will be amazed at how many things get worked out after afew weeks.

Ø PLEASE REMEMBER TO KEEP THE CLASSES AND CURRICULUM MOVING ALONG. Please do not wait for every child to perfect each song before going to the next. Don't worry- they will "get it" all in time. Every song uses the same notes and fingers and understanding both will come as you move through the book. Staying on one song for too long is also a bad idea because the children will get restless, bored and discouraged. Be happy with what they can do and know that their dexterity and understanding will only improve with time.

Rhythm and Rhythm Cards

Ø Maria Schwab at PS 150 is trying something new with rhythm cards. She is having her classes sing them on a specific pitch to see if it will carry over and make their playing more musical.

Ø Michelle plays an imitation game combining the rhythms from the cards with various body percussion and noises. The children have to remember the sounds while reproducing the rhythms from the cards.

Ø Krista Wozniak at PS 149 sometimes plays rhythm cards on the keyboard or on a drum. It seems like a good way to make the connection that music is rhythm and melody.

Ø Many children have trouble playing in rhythm and see it as secondary to the melody. They will often sacrifice the rhythm when playing, in order to have time to"grab" the correct note. At the same time, most teachers have found that it is actually the reading of rhythm that comes most easily to the children and that the kids can actually understand and reproduce very complex rhythms.

Ø Always demonstrate the steady beat by conducting and/or tapping it. Do this at and away from the keyboards - whenever the music is being heard or performed.

Ø Teach the children to conduct and you will never have real problems with them understanding time signature.

Right and Left Hand Dilemmas

Ø It takes time to learn the difference between the two hands - the hands themselves and then again on the music. There are many activities that will help the learning process.  1) Sing the numbers of the notes when you introduce the song on the rug.  2) Have the children sing the numbers while they are playing.(This is the best way to make a smooth transition from rug time to keyboard time.)  3) Put red and yellow dots (stickers or drawn) on the music. (The LH and RH that is on some of the early songs may not help and could actually confuse some children.)  4) Put red and yellow dots on the children's hands.

Ø Cybele noticed that some songs might be easier to learn if they actually appeared on the correct side of the book. (Left hand songs on the left side of the book andsongs for the right hand on the right side.) It is too late to reprint thebooks with this improvement (maybe next time) but you can experiment bypunching new holes in the paper and switching some songs around. This requires quite a bit of extra work but it might help.

Ø Michelle at PS 36X was teaching "Martin Luther King" and found some children having trouble switching hands. Rather than relying on the arrows she hit upon the concept of "connecting the dots" to guide them from one staff to the other. To clarify the concept she gave each child a copy if the song and asked them to connect the dots/notes with crayons.

Ø Kirsty designed a game of "unlocking the treasure chest" where a child would try to point and follow all the notes of a (complicated) song while the class sang it. If they succeeded, they would receive the treasure (sticker). She used this at the end of a lesson on "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" to reinforce following the melody from staff to staff.

Accompaniments

Ø Robin,at Midtown West, often plays or has her children play simple ostinato patterns to accompany songs. This is partly inspired by her Orff background and the results are lovely.

Ø Sharon regularly has her children improvising the blues while she plays a standard I,IV, V, I blues/rock progression. The children love the powerful feeling that they get creating the funky ensemble.

Ø Consider pairing the children, from time to time, to allow them to either accompany eachother, improvise together or compose.

Ø Maria,from PS 150, wrote: "I've been doing some accompaniments with my 3rd grade recorders that I extended to one of the keyboard classes and it started with The Monster mash. I had the recorder players playing the four eighth notes section the background singers do ("he did the mash") on G, A and B. After using the song as a movement warm-up with the keyboard classes furing Halloween week, I had them figure out and write the rhythmic figure. One class wanted to play along, so I gave them the first note and had them figure out the rest. (They found that G and A worked for the most part.) They also figured out which note to play for the "ooo's" in the background. I might try this as an "extra"with some other pieces." Kirsty, in visiting Maria, enjoyed the extended Halloween lesson especially when she saw Maria's note chart with Halloween characters (easily adapted to other holidays):  Whole note: Ghost  Half notes:Pump-kin Pumpkin  Quarter notes: Cree-py Craw-ler  Eighth notes: Witch-es Witch-es Witch-es Witch-es

Children assisting other children is an idea working very well in several schools. In some cases it is older kids coming in to help younger ones, but in other cases it is children who have completed the work helping others in the class who are having trouble. In both, it seems that children like having other children next to them.

Number your keyboards and assign children to specific ones This will save you an enormous amount of time in the end. If you see a lot of classes it is also a very good idea to take the time to write their names on the back of the music stands, so that you'll know who is playing. List the children in the order that you generally see them (or color code each class).

Children don't always carry a concept well from the rug to the keyboards Don't worry. Concepts take time to really sink in. Singing while playing the keyboards is an excellent way to transition. If, for example, they are not holding the half notes in Halloween, when they sing it they will be more apt to hear that it doesn't sound or feel correct.

STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A third grader in one MATB classroom only has the use of one arm. He tends to get into trouble and never goes to the keyboards. When his teacher sent the class to their keyboards, she took a moment to gather the roll book and a pencil before looking up and expected to she this boy sitting on his favorite chair as always. He wasn't there. Instead she found him playing the right hand song perfectly! He was obviously proud when told he could play any other songs in the book he liked.

One kindergartner at PS 163 wondered why we were saying goodbye (Sayonara) to the bear. This could lead to a wonderful extended lesson with music and storytelling.

Sharon Golub, from PS 11, wrote: "I was talking to a kindergarten class about what it meant to practice at home on their keyboards or paper keyboards, and I said "about how many times do you think you should play a song for it to sound better?" and this little boys says "for the rest of your life"; It was so funny to me because he was really sincere and the class was agreeing with him. I could barely contain myself because they were so serious."

Sharon also reported that a lot of her kids are getting keyboards for the holidays at her "suggestion" in a note home.

Have a restful and wonderful winter break and best wishes for the New Year!  See you in January.