Newsletters

Music and the Brain Newsletter No. 8 – April 2002

Lisha has produced a large collection of theory papers to accompany the Music and the Brain material. This impressive volume will soon be delivered to you. There are about 160 different pages, one copy of each. (You will need to make copies for your students as needed.) They are organized into 12 different sections to make it easier to find a page that addresses the concepts you want to address. You may want the children to do the worksheets during music class, as homework or perhaps in their own classroom with their homeroom teacher. If you have no use for the book, PLEASE return it. Again, it is and expensive resource and should not be wasted.

Many thanks to teachers that send in comments and observations or call! Your contributions to this program are invaluable! There are still several of you we have never heard from. I'm sure you have things to contribute and we would benefit from you experiences. Please call or email.

Comments from Peter Kaufman about his new situation as an intern at PS 163: "Working at James Ross' school has been an incredible experience so far.The kids are beyond intelligent. With one of James' first grade classes we played "My Momma's callin' me" and had them singing: right,right...right right right right.......left, left...left left left left and one of the little girls said, "why don't the girls sing 'right' and the boyssing 'left?'" I was so impressed!! One 1st grade worked on Kumbaya and another worked on "Duerme Pronto" from book 2 with the left hand playing C. One of the girls, Ellie, was playing a C major triad in the left hand while she played the melody with the right. I showed her an F Major triad 2nd inversion to add in there also. So anyway, at the end of class James brought up a few kids to play anything on the keyboard they wanted and a few kids came up and played a few tunes perfectly. Then Ellie comes up and plays "DuermePronto" playing the 1 and 4 chords with her left hand!! She took what I gave her and memorized it! These kids are soo smart! I look forward to working with these kids and James Ross!"

Richard Johnson had a good point about approaching a new concept. He says, "I try to encourage all the kids and tell them it's easy to do, even if they don't getit right away. I think if you approach a new concept with worry for their success the children will pick up on that vibe from you and then it will be difficult. In my own private trumpet teaching experience, I've had beginning students memorizing all their major and natural minor scales within their first 6 months of playing. I think the biggest reason is because I never told them it was hard and they weren't supposed to know until college like I was taught."

Stories from the Field

The children at PS 11 are taking the next step in recognizing and understanding musical language and symbols. Sharon Golub tried "human tic-tac-toe" by setting up nine chairs to represent the game board and asking the questions verbally without any visual symbols to choose from. The children who answer correctly get to choose a seat and become either an "X" or an"O". "What made this game more difficult, however, is that no symbols were written on the board - all the answers came straight form the kid's brains." Observed intern Ted Hearn.

Vermell Rhodes at PS 46 has been working with her classes on ear training. Everyday the class begins with singing solfege with hand signals. After waking their ears up to the major scale, she plays patterns on the keyboard, some of them mirroring ones just sung on the rug as a guide, and has the children tell her the solfege. They are amazingly good at it! Ear training, like language, is easier to learn the earlier you start. The children also enjoy the challenge and appreciate it as a different kind of activity using different skills.

The students at PS 207 have been learning the selection from Beethoven's 7th Symphony. At a first listening they said it sounded like "a funeral"and "sad". Intern Shinya Muto explained a little about Beethoven's deafness and the fact that he continued to compose beautiful music they were surprised and seemed touched. They thought it was so cool that Beethoven heard music in his head!

Krista Wozniak at PS 149 introduced her students to the story of Don Giovanni in as lightly modified version (excluding the parts about going to hell at the end and various other unsavory things) by telling them he was a suave guy with a million girl-friends. In the duet "La ci darem la mano" he wants one more and tries to convince Zerlina to go on a walk with him and hold his hand, but she takes a lot of convincing. The children thought the story was funny and could picture the characters in their heads. One boy was convinced Don Giovanni had a goatee and that Zerlina looked like Miss Krista. She asked to children to listen and raise their hands when the couple finally began walking and all the children got it. "Andiam, Andiam mio bene". Some classes get squeamish about "love" and I thought this was a good way to help the children relate to the song.

During a class at PS 163 about "When the Saints Go Marching In" intern Liza Gibbs asked the children if anyone knew what kind of music they were listening to. One little girl said, "a jazz band." Next she asked if anyone knew what famous jazz musician was singing. Another girl said, "Louis Armstrong." Liza was surprised and asked how she knew. She said matter of factly, "it sounded like him." Pretty cool.

At Midtown West, Robin Casey makes Xeroxes of the songs her classes are learning and uses them as worksheets. Especially for book 3, having the children figureout the fingerings and chords in advance really helps them when they try to play the songs at the keyboard. Individual time spent reading the music is also good because children have time to figure things out and understand them attheir own pace. During a regular lesson, some concepts are inevitably passed over quickly before everyone grasps them.

Krista Wozniak at PS 149 has a good way of introducing "The Grand Staff". She draws a single, plain staff on the board and explains how "he's"just a little staff and wants to become the Grand Staff someday. She puts the music poster up on next to the plain staff and asks the children what"he" needs to do to become the Grand Staff. They then get to identifyall the things that are missing. At the end they celebrate "his" new status!

Sharon Golub at PS 11 has been playing a game where the children talk or move in alegato, staccato, forte, piano, presto, largo etc. fashion. The other children have to guess the Italian word for what they are doing. Apparently the children get "hysterical" playing this game. It sounds like fun!

At PS 36x Michelle Turner picked ten kids to stand next to the song board for"Ten in a Bed". As the class sang, the first child pointed to the notes on the music. At the end of the first verse he sat down and the next child pointed. Finally all the children were out of the "bed". After practicing the song at the keyboards, she talked about time signature and meter. She gave each child a sheet of paper with a note on it and she played the recording while the children had to find a partner to make a four beat measure like in the song. After the second round the children caught on and had no trouble finding their rhythm partners.

One 1st grade class at PS 149 has finally graduated from Book 1! Krista Wozniak gave them a graduation party and special certificates to recognize their accomplishment. Now they are extremely proud to move on to Book 2 and beyond!

"Kindergarteners and first graders love opera and can sing in Italian!" (A report from PS 207)