Saturday, November 14, 2015

Pumpkin Pumpkin - October 2015

October Greetings,
It's been a busy fall as I'm sure you have been also.  Not much time to even think about sending out a note although I did find time to fix up a couple of Halloween themed solfege tunes that I had laying around. 

Halloween and Pumpkin Pumpkin are not my original tunes. I just put them down on paper so I could easily read them (I need glasses now to read) and each tune includes a few little activities to do with each song.  They are free for the month of October.  They were first put up about a week ago on Solo Time Facebook page so if you haven't liked it yet please do so to take advantage of early listings.
My students are loving Wendy Stevens Halloween  
pieces of ComposeCreate. For some of my students the songs are fairly simple but what I appreciate is that the pieces introduce new concepts; like first and second endings, codas (etc.) and my students love the tone clusters and the use of the very last key on the piano! Loads of fun, easy success with lots learning.  
Before I give a Halloween piece to students I make sure it's okay with the parents to play the piece as some families do not participate in Halloween.  Every parent I shared the pieces with said they were okay with them. Until the next week. One family decided that they were not going to play the piece.  I was a little surprised and I said that was fine but then they left the studio when the other students started playing the piece! 

What to do?   I decided that the rest of the class would still carry on with the Halloween piece as I had gained permission from all the other parents but next year I'll be more conscientious about this family. The reason I choose Wendy Stevens' pieces as they are well written word wise and not offensive. 
My friend, Claudia is ahead of me on the technical side of things (I just am a little competitive.) Our recent Music for Young Children meeting was her home  and afterwards we had a tour of her studio and in it was a TV. That was fine but then she took out her iPad and showed us how it was hooked up wirelessly to her TV and now she had no need of a white board! She just writes everything on the iPad and it shows up on her TV.

What a great idea! Her iPad is programmed with a few different templates with whiteboard, keyboard and grand staff and she writes on it and teaches her lesson and theory concepts from there.
Now I'm on the hunt for a TV  to replace my white board.  Claudia uses Apple TV and an app called Delori but if any of you are already using your iPad this way let me know what you do or use.  I would like to hook up to the TV without having to purchase the Apple TV package.
Thank you for your recent purchases large and small. I'm so glad they help you make a difference in teaching music and its concepts to your students.
Have safe and colourful October!
Musicallyours,

Lois Dicknoether 
Solo Time Music Games
info@solotimemusicgames.com 

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