Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Just one case for raising a child to be a musician:

Preparing for life....

Here's an article written by the dean of music at Lawrence Conservatory (Appleton WI) and posted on his blog.

When hiring employees, Microsoft and every other successful company looks for an underlying set of skills that will bring the most benefit to the business. These skills are easy to list, but very hard to find in a single individual. For this discussion I will focus on four of these traits. The perfect employee should be:

Focused
Self-motivated
Collaborative
Communicative

So let's start by taking away our musician's instrument, and putting aside all of our own preconceptions about music being concerned only with the expression of emotion and beauty. We will now take a cold hard look at what goes into creating a successful musician.

Read on to see how these skill are developed, honed to develop a very capable individual and one that's creative and artistically expressive.

But come back and watch this great storytelling musician, David Holt. Click on the picture of his washboard to hear (among his many wonderful stories) his personal story of how he came to love music and choose it as a career. Pay special attention to his demonstration of his invention of "Thunderwear".




I'm tellin' ya. With Kindermusik you give your child the best start (beginning at newborn through 7yrs.) then take it from there! Keep going...put an instrument in their hands.

Email me to come visit a class to get an idea about all the great work we do.

singandtwirl@gmail.com

Monday, March 30, 2009

Finding Order in Chaos....

Patterns, patterns everywhere......
The human mind searches for pattern. Patterns help us frame and share our understanding of the world. We see, hear, and feel patterns in the rhythms and routines of our daily lives. Patterns are anything with a unit - a shape, design rhythm, or motif - that repeats in a predictable and organized manner. (from the Brooklyn Children's Museum website.

We search for auditory patterns too. Can you figure out the pattern for "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"?

Here's a fun
Kaleidoscope pattern drawing game.

Spring Break

Here's the word on what's up at the Asheville Arts Center for spring break which is April 13-17th!So NO REGULAR KINDERMUSIK CLASSES THAT WEEK.

April 13-April 17 , 9am-12pm, $125

Spring Break Camp- Once Upon A Time!
Ages 2-4, 4-6
Once Upon a Time explores the wonderful world of fairytales and make believe. Using costumes and props the children will create their own stories as well as explore some of the most popular fairytales ever told. On Friday, come and watch your child perform in the land of make believe. For more information and registration call 828.253.4000 or visit our website www.ashevilleartscenter.com

April 13-April 17 , 9am-3pm, $210

Spring Break Camp- LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!
Ages 6-8, 9-12, 13-15 Ever wanted to star in your own TV Show, movie, or write and make a commercial? Now s your chance! During this week, learn how to write scripts, act on camera and edit your work. At the end of the week, invite your family and friends to a private viewing of your on-camera experience. For more information and registration call 828.253.4000 or visit our website www.ashevilleartscenter.com

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Does your child manipulate you?


Babies are only ever doing one of two things: GIVING LOVE or ASKING FOR LOVE.

Parenting is the hardest job I know. While babies do not come with the instruction booklet, online advice abounds!! One category of advice piques my attention. That's where the issue of manipulation comes up. Judging a situation in which you are not emotionally involved is usually pretty easy. Looking at the pictures below it's easy to see how each child is giving love or asking for love but fill in with the "whole story" and your emotions will take charge. The child's purpose will be hidden behind your interpretation.


The baby above is clearly Giving Love! Everyone's happy. Baby's fed and diaper is clean. Ah, the livin' is easy.

The baby below has just given you a real work out. You've followed her through the house picking up things as if you were following a tornado and she giggled as you shouted your frustration. One more act, drawing on the wall, is the last straw and you loose it! Now you both are in a heap.




Believe it or not you both are Asking for Love. Who will break the cycle and answer with love?




If you are not taking care of yourself you can't fill the need of the child in a mature way.
Here's a suggestion for filling a child's need for love....(and yours too) efficiently:

You might find it interesting to see the author's website.











Come on in for a free visit....to our Kindermusik class. Summer is coming up and our summer class schedule will be listed soon but in the meantime do come for a sample class. Call 253-4000 to schedule your time.




Peace,
Yvette

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Happy Birthday JS BACH

Today Anne (my daughter who's soon to be a teen!!!) performed with her cello teacher and studio in a concert for a local nursing home. Music has healing and calming qualities especially music from the baroque era (including the genius JS Bach). Baroque music is very complex mathematically (not emotionally like Stravinsky) and with it's often 60 beats per minute it invites the listener's heart to slow down and relax! This is a little Bach Minuet, not so complex but just right for these students. Hope you enjoy listening. Anne is in the middle of the back row of cellists.



Peace,
Yvette

Kindermusik Village Class Home activities:

Below is the link for the new "Rhythm of My Day" theme.

This is week #3 and the home activity is about creating and weaving rituals into your day. The suggestion is one I love: When Daddy comes home sing "Hey Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. Hey Daddy, Daddy-O..." (tune: Hey Lolly) Do that for the older siblings coming home from school or in the morning when you first wake up! Other times for rituals would be diaper changing time, meal time, bath time, story time...etc. These wonderful rituals convey security and deep love between child and adults and siblings.

Becky Bailey (author of Conscious Discipline) describes the important basic elements of a loving ritual:
1. touch
2. eye contact
3. your presence
4. playfulness

Here's a perfect example for a "loving ritual" as we did today in our Saturday (9:15) Kindermusik Village class:

Wash the dishes. (rub baby's tummy)
Dry the dishes. (rub baby's back)
Ring the bell for tea. (tweak nose or push belly button and add sound effects!)
Three good wishes and three good kisses (rock, tap, or someway keep the beat)
I will give to thee. (Give the kisses!)

Go here to find out the home activities for every week:

http://www.kindermusikeducators.com/Lounge/Rhythm-Home%20Journal.pdf

If you are not enrolled in one of our Kindermusik classes I invite you to email me or call the Arts Center to visit a class this week!! Do come and see the magic for yourself.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Ready for school:


Camilla counts the ringing steeple bell.

Have you noticed when children first know how to count to ten (oh, we are so proud!) they know really only the poetry of
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten!

You can tell this for sure if they point to their fingers while counting and assign 2 or more numbers per finger and skip some fingers to land on the last finger with the right number. They are missing the one-to-one ratio. So we are practicing just that right now by putting up one finger every time we sing the word EAT: I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas!

And how about counting with our ears? With this we are refining our listening skills. Listening is different from hearing--we hear it all and choose what to really listen to. So this week we count things we can hear like microwave beeps, telephone rings, footsteps....what will you listen to?

In music we are always counting. Eventually these young musicians will count with their ears and by feeling the patters of beats. I think this is a very special skill. We are not saying 1,2,3,4 for every measure of a concerto! (some tough measures, yes....) Someday do you think the researchers will recognize that sensing the beats and the numbers is what develops our brains in special intelligent ways? I have a hunch!

Scultptures! 1,2,3, CLICK!!!!















Here I am with one of my favorite statues! I am adding myself into the statue!
















Here's Dylan's statue of a horse. It is made of pinecones, pine needles for a mane and very carefully cut sticks for legs. Two of the legs are off the floor like the horse is prancing. The horse in our "Cities" poster has one leg off the ground. Here is Dylan posing next to his statue.









This is Will's statue of snakes and a lovely butterfly.














Here's Will posing as a sssssnake!!!
















Now here the guys are posing as cool modern art statues.
































Camilla, We'll get yours on today!

These fun games we play encourage creativity and also the important school readiness skill of "inhibitory control" which is education jargon for being able to follow directions to stop on cue (maturing their ability to control their body!) But all that aside, we're having fun and that's tops!

Monday, March 16, 2009

RIDDLE:


What's the difference between a Violin and a Fiddle?












(the fiddle player smiles!)

Here's our story time this week!




Part two:




What cute little "piggies".

Music for the brain: Start NOW










  • A 2000 Georgia Tech study indicates that a student who participates in at least one college elective music course is 4.5 times more likely to stay in college than the general student population.
    – Dr. Denise C. Gardner, Effects of Music Courses on Retention, Georgia Tech, 2000











  • The part of the brain responsible for planning, foresight, and coordination is substantially larger for instrumental musicians than for the general public.
    – “Music On the Mind,” Newsweek, July 24, 2000






  • A research team exploring the link between music and intelligence reports that music training - specifically piano instruction - is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children’s abstract reasoning skills necessary for learning math and science.
    – Dr. Frances Rauscher and Dr. Gordon Shaw, Neurological Research, University of California at Irvine, February, 1997



  • Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. He found that sixty- six percent (66%) of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. Forty-four percent (44%) of biochemistry majors were admitted.
    – “The Case for Music in the Schools,” Phi Delta Kappan, 1994



  • College students majoring in music achieve scores higher than students of all other majors on college reading exams.
    – Carl Hartman, “Arts May Improve Students’ Grades,” The Associated Press, October, 1999






  • Music students demonstrate less test anxiety and performance anxiety than students who do not study music.
    – “College-Age Musicians Emotionally Healthier than Non-Musician Counterparts,” Houston Chronicle, 1998












  • On the 1999 SAT, music students continued to outperform their non-arts peers, scoring 61 points higher on the verbal portion and 42 points higher on the math portion of the exam.
    – Steven M. Demorest and Steven J. Morrison, “Does Music Make You Smarter?,” Music Educators Journal, September, 2000










  • Researchers at the University of Muenster in Germany have discovered that music lessons in childhood actually enlarge parts of the brain. An area used to analyze the pitch of a musical note is enlarged 25% in musicians compared to people who have never played an instrument. The earlier the musicians were when they started musical training, the bigger this area of the brain appears to be.
    – Pantev et al., Nature, April 23, 1998








  • Research shows when a child listens to classical music the right hemisphere of the brain is activated, but when a child studies a musical instrument both left and right hemispheres of the brain “light up.” Significantly, the areas that become activated are the same areas that are involved in analytical and mathematical thinking.
    – Dee Dickinson, “Music and the Mind,” New Horizons for Learning, 1993












  • The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania School District analyzed its 1997 dropout rate in terms of students’ musical experience. Students with no ensemble performance experience had a dropout rate of 7.4 percent. Students with one to two years of ensemble experience had a dropout rate of 1 percent, and those with three or more years of performance experience had a dropout rate of 0.0 percent.
    – Eleanor Chute, “Music and Art Lessons Do More Than Complement Three R’s,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 13, 1998
These quotes I found here at UAH's Music auditions webpage. It's this article: Why Study Music? by Dr. Don Bowyer and the whole page is fun to read.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

On this day

A window will appear between two armies
on a battlefield. Instead
of seeing their enemies
in the window the soldiers
see themselves as children.
The stop fighting and
go home and sleep. When
they wake up the land
is well again.

Cameron C. Penny--4th grade.

March 15th is the 6th year anniversary of the War in Iraq.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Lost Generation

Thought for the day......

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Laughter, the best medicine!

"Laughter increases white blood cell activity and changes the chemical balance of the blood. This is believed to boost the body's production of chemicals needed for alertness and memory. Laughter reduces stress, and low stress enhances the brain's receptivity to learning. According to researchers, laughing (having fun) also boosts the body's immune system for three days-the day of the fun and the next two."
-Start Smart!: Building Brain Power in the Early Years, by Pam Schiller

Yes, laugher and fun help build neural pathways to the frontal lobes of the brain where creativity, problem solving and thinking happen. Conversely, cortisol, the horomone of flight or fright (stress) build and strengthen the neural pathways to the brain stem where attention to and action for survival is paramont. Activity in the brain stem controls heart rate, respiration, digestion, and systems that are important for survival of the species. It's not where thinking and learning happens.

By stern reprimands, arm shaking, swats to the bottom , etc, gives the average toddler a good dose of cortisol about every 9 minutes of his waking life. Adrenaline takes about a day and a half to neutralize.

By the way, adrenaline deters frontal lobe brain growth, directing growth to the brain stem instead.

This amazing information comes from an article I read by Joseph Chilton Pearce and his book The Biology of Transcendence. See my post below to watch a video of Pearce.

Peace,
Yvette

Educating the Whole Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce

When my older two children were young I stumbled on this author. I read his book "The Magical Child". It took me a long time to get through, I put it down for a month or more to think between different sections... I've been to two events where this wonderful person presented his ideas. We all sat on the edge of our seats. That was years ago. Now there's so much more popular media to help us understand about the brain and a child's brain development. But I'm amazed that in general our society doesn't take it more seriously. There are two parts to the video clip. The second should show up off to the side after you watch the first.