German Christmas Carols

We went to a concert of Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols this past weekend. Not only did we get to hear the lovely piece in an old church, but after the presentation the audience got to sing along with the women's choir some Christmas Carols. Some I knew pretty darn well - O Come, All Ye Faithful, Joy to the World, and even Stille Nacht (auf Deutsch).

But there were two in German that I did not know, so I can add them to my repertoire.

The first is O Heiland Reiss de Himmel Auf. You can listen to a version of it here. A little internet searching led me to find out that it is by Brahms, and the translation is here.

The second is Es Kommt ein Schiff, Geladen. This is one of the oldest known German-language Advent Hymns. This youtube video is particularly lovely.

Catching Up and Fiddle Camp

I have been remiss in posting. I have not been remiss in making music integral to my life. The end of the school year brought the usual concerts - the fruition of our work. Vista Orchestra and Recorders performed, the EIMP of CUSD performed, and my private studio students were in a recital. The Women's Choir at church sang in the big music service.

However, right now on the forefront of my mind is the amazing, transformative week I spent at Sierra Fiddle Camp. My mind is swimming with tunes. Scottish tunes, Swedish tunes, Old Time USA tunes, and a few from other places.  Tunes on my fiddle, tunes in my voice.

I learned how to learn tunes by ear on the fiddle. This is big for me. I know that it has created new synapses in my brain, and I think I may spend a good deal of time on our upcoming sabbatical in working on fiddling. I wondered how I would continue learning by ear. In camp it's set out for you. The teacher plays a tune in full, then breaks it down into chunks and we repeat small chunks and add them to others until we have a whole A or B section, then we end up knowing the whole tune.

(Interesting fact. Although I felt as though I knew the tunes really, really well, when I played them by myself at home, I needed to relisten to the recordings I made to clear up some fuzzy places. It's very helpful to be playing in a group (which is one reason I love teaching string classes).)

So, someone suggested that I make my own recordings of tunes to learn. I can play the small chunks for the looping. I will have to try that. I also have some recordings from Peter Cooper's book with work on ornamentation, so that will come with me on sabbatical.

If I Had a Hammer

The recent death of Pete Seeger has brought this childhood hero of mine to the forefront of my thoughts lately. I decided that the kids at Vista need to sing If I Had a Hammer again, and I have pulled out my guitar and started introducing it to the kids. Of course, they immediately take to the song.

I'm surprised (but maybe not so much) that some of the teachers do not even know who Pete Seeger was. But today, in the teacher's room during lunch, I started talking about the song, and the teachers who know the song started singing it, clapping along, with great gusto. The office manager and one of the teachers just looked on, watching us. There was even mention that teachers need to sing this in the talent show in June. For sure, we are going to sing this as a whole school in the next month or so.

This reminds me of the time that I had to introduce Puff, the Magic Dragon to the students. It's probably time I dusted that one off, too.

Singing on Pitch

As we start in earnest this week on preparing for Winter Sing, I have been looking at videos online to get ideas for choreography for some of the songs we're performing. While I have seen some very cute costuming and moves, I have noticed that the quality of singing leaves something to be desired with kids not distinguishing between singing and speaking voices. (Or even shouting voices.)

I have noticed, though, that my own students are not particularly good at listening and matching pitches. They start singing along when I am presenting the song for the first time. Then we stop and I have them close their eyes and break down the song into small sections, sometimes just two or three notes so that we can match the pitch. It improves immediately.

So, I will make sure to have the students practice pitch-matching before working on any choreography.

Theme for the New School Year

I always get excited at the beginning of a school year. Last year I was all gung-ho for learning every student's name, and I did okay, but this year I am going to do it better. I've already blogged about seating charts. I think I am going to go old-school on this one and have use post-its on paper inside folders.

Anyway, I think my theme for this year is IMPROVISATION. While I think it is important for kids to have note-reading basics, I really want them to work on creating their own music and feeling comfortable with it.

AOSA has a newly revamped website with a great little video on the homepage for anyone to see. (They also have videos online for AOSA members only.) This one is called "Scat, Sing, Ring-a-ding" with a great lesson for learning scat singing. I already have ideas about how to use this with recorders....

Hymn Singing

This weekend I attended a church service in rural Kansas where my grandfather was minister of the Bergthal Mennonite Church in the 1950s. I love singing in a Mennonite community where bold four-part harmony comes easily and joyfully. I videoed the singing with the idea that I would use it as a soundtrack for a slideshow from the church service.

It reminded me of a paper I wrote for my anthropology class in college about the role of singing in three kinds of religious services: Appalachian, Kansas Baptist, and Mennonite. I wonder if I can find that paper and reread it to see what I think now....