Down Down Baby.... all over CFS!

Indulge me... I just have to share a proud moment as a teacher. Last week I taught some of the LS a singing game called "Down Down Baby." As I was teaching, I noticed that some of the students already knew the song and the exact same motions I was teaching. I asked where they had learned it, thinking a previous music teacher had taught it. But they had learned it from older siblings and friends in the Middle School who weren't in my classes but had learned it from other MS students in my Worlds of Music class and First-Year rotation the previous week. Oral traditions in action!

So here are the words! Have your child teach you the motions, and prepare to laugh yourself silly as it gets faster and faster:

Down down baby, down by the roller coaster
Sweet sweet baby, I don't wanna let you go
Shimmy shimmy coco pop, shimmy shimmy round
Shimmy shimmy coco pop, shimmy shimmy break down!

Two big kids, sittin' on a fence
Tryin' to make a dollar out of eighty-five cents.
She missed, she missed, she missed like this.

Chamber Choir Performs!

This past Thursday, my Middle School Chamber Choir performed during Toni's Dessert Theater night at the Middle School. I am so proud of them--I wasn't sure if I would be able to create 3- and 4-part harmonies with a group of just eight middle schoolers, but boy did they rise to the challenge! Congratulations Aliza, Cecily, Darius, Henry, Julia, Lillian, Maeve, and Olivia! Here they are...

Yonder Come Day

How Can I Keep From Singing

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Riu Riu Chiu

Hello from Asheville!

This week I am participating in a retreat in Asheville on Mindfulness Coaching for Educators. Charlie is assisting our leader, coach Doug Silsbee. Also here from CFS are Mary, Alex, Rachel, Willy, and Guillermo.

The retreat is being held at Bend of Ivy Lodge, which is owned and operated by Doug and his wife. It is a completely transformed old barn... a metaphor for the transformation that can take place within the lives of those who visit.

I never expected to feel so peaceful on Nov. 4.


Who wouldn't feel revitalized in this setting?

Yesterday, Rachel tried her hand at building a rock sculpture:


I look forward to seeing everyone Thursday! I hope some of you can make it to hear the MS Chamber Choir perform at Toni's Dessert Theater show Thursday evening at 7, at the MS building.

And today, of all days, stay calm...

The last couple of weeks... and school song audio!

Oops, so much for my resolution to blog at least once a week! It's been a great month for technology at CFS, as we had our tech-focused staff development day Oct. 9 and now many of the staff are maintaining blogs, wikis, and all sorts of other fabulous technological goodies. I had a blast leading a YouTube/TeacherTube class followed by a blogs and wikis workshop. As a parent, I especially appreciate the many ways to keep track of what my daughter is and will be doing at CFS.

Many parents have asked me for the tune of the song based on the school's philosophy, so I recorded each LS class singing a verse last week. The day after I finished this, I received my spiffy new USB microphone, so I'm afraid this is recorded at very low quality through my laptop's built-in mic. Stay tuned for gorgeous hi-fi recordings! Click here to go to the song. Here is the order of verses, all pasted together with GarageBand:

Chorus: River 1
"Silence": Sky 1
"Spirituality of Life": Mountain 1
Chorus: Sky 2
"Peace": Forest 1
"Simplicity": Mountain 2
Chorus: Mountain 2
"Uniqueness": River 2
"Truth Continually Revealing Itself": Forest 2
Chorus: Forest 1

Forest and Mountain were very excited to pick out their new recorder colors last week. Unfortunately, the recorders are on backorder and may not arrive for another week or two. You wouldn't believe the hard time the kids are giving me about this. :-)

In the Middle School, the first trimester is nearly over! Our World Music wiki is really shaping up. We will be adding our last information and polishing it up during the next two weeks.

The Chamber Choir sounds incredible, singing in 4-part harmony (with only 8 singers). We tested out my new microphone, but I promised the choir not to post a recording to the blog until they are performance-ready. That will be soon, as we're performing at Toni's Dessert Theater show November 6.

First-year music rotation is rounding out the Melody unit by composing pieces for xylophone and assorted instruments/voices. I recorded and videotaped some truly inspired performances, to appear later. A class of talented musicians... and comedians! Next week we will be starting 3-ball juggling (we've all gotten very good at two balls). I will be sure to provide that promised post about why we're juggling in music class before the trimester ends.

The Middle School is buzzing with excitement over the upcoming musical, The Music Man! I am delighted to be musically directing my first show at CFS, and look forward to working with Henry and Toni. Auditions coming soon!

Finally, I just found out that the newest issue of Health & Healing in the Triangle has hit the stands, with an article I wrote on practicing mindfulness with children. Health & Healing is free at many health care locations as well as some restaurants and other places you find free periodicals.

More singing and playing

The first week of music, I promised Forest and Mountain classes that they would be singing some songs in at least 3-part harmony by the end of the year. Well, here is half of Mountain class singing a 3-part round plus vocal ostinato. And it's barely October!

Mountain class sings!

I love this song. It's called "Dance For the Nations," and here are the lyrics:

Round and round we turn, we hold each others' hands and
Weave ourselves in a circle.
The time is gone, the dance goes on.
The first three weeks of Middle School First-Year Rotation were devoted primarily to rhythm. Now we're focusing on melody and harmony. Right now we're working on our technique on the xylophones, learning to play some melodies, and figuring out harmonies to familiar songs. Here they are working on cross-hand technique. To keep track of the rhythm, they're thinking "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
First-years play "Peter Piper"

Middle School Monkeys

The first-year music rotation students were so interested in the Balinese Kecak (see video in previous entry) that I found some resources to help us create our own monkey chant. We read an abbreviated version of the story from the Ramayana that is depicted in the Kecak, then tried out a variety of vocal parts to creating our own interlocking monkey rhythm. To try our hand at some gamelan-style playing, we then transferred our parts to percussion instruments.

We also created a Monkey Chant in our World Music class, as part of our study of the gamelan. Check out some of our jams!

First-year Monkey Chant

First-year Monkey Jam on instruments

World Music Monkey Jam on instruments (same rhythms, very different sound!)

Rhythm in MS First-year Music Rotation

First-year music rotation has been all about rhythm this week and last. We collaborated to form complex rhythms in drum circles and a "vocal drum circle," created our own rhythm instruments out of found objects, learned to read and write some basic rhythmic notation, played rhythm games, and learned some lopsided Dave Brubeck rhythms.

Yesterday, I showed the class parts of three videos from YouTube showing some rhythmic traditions of Asia. The students asked me to post them to the blog so they could watch the whole thing and share them with their families. They really are fascinating!

The first is excerpts from the Malaysian World Drum Festival of 2008. This one caught my attention because my husband Jos just returned from a trip to Malaysia. There are unfortunately no captions describing the different groups, but you will see an incredible variety of percussive performances!



Here is an example of a Balinese gamelan, known as gamelan gong kebyar. Gamelan is a primary form of Indonesian traditional music. The gamelan consists of many instruments always played as an ensemble. Traditionally, the gamelan is sacred and may house spirits. Gamelan gong kebyar is performed on gamelans of primarily metal instruments, and is characterized by rapidly changing tempo (speed) and dynamics (volume).



Finally, an impressive performance of the Gamelan Kecak, or Ramayana Monkey Chant. This is a vocal gamelan tradition from Bali that is based on stories from the Ramayana. There are no instruments used--just voices!