Blog
Spring Favorites
I've decided to ease back into blogging with a post all about my spring favorites. An as yet unidentified illness has kept me from working for the last two months, so I've been doing very little beyond sitting and watching TV. So you'll have your summer watchlist set...
Monday Morning Go to School for the Elementary Music Classroom
Monday Morning Go to School is a fantastic song for practicing rests and basic Solfége patterns such as do-mi-so and so-la-ti-do. In today's post you'll find two free downloads, one which includes visuals for the clapping game to reinforce rests and another which...
Valerie Coleman’s Umoja in the Elementary Music Classroom
Umoja by Valerie Coleman is a fantastic piece for introducing, practicing, or reviewing rhythms. My favorite recording of this piece is the one by Imani Winds, featured below. https://youtu.be/23Yx9gWHh0E Rhythm One of the things I looked for when choosing symphonic...
Green Sally Up for the Elementary Music Classroom
Green Sally Up is a fantastic clapping game for your elementary music students, with plenty of opportunity to practice steady beat. Bb is the only chord needed for this song, but because of the tricky fingering, I don't recommend it. Instead pull out your Orff...
Jackaroe for the Middle School Music Classroom
Jackaroe is a story song about a captivating heroine who poses as a man in order to follow her love into war. Unlike most of the folk songs that I come across, it portrays a strong female character who isn't thwarted by a male relative to live her own life (despite...
Sansa Kroma for the Elementary Music Classroom
You know I love a good circle game, and Sansa Kroma provides plenty of opportunities for steady beat practice using rhythm instruments. Sansa Kroma is a folk song and stone-passing game from Ghana. You can find this folk song and more from the book Let Your Voice Be...
