MUSIC INFORMATION:
Nicholas Strandberg
Liz Waskul-Wittman
Music Resources
Please click on the various gray sections for MANY GREAT MUSIC RESOURCES!!
- Getting to Know the Instruments
- DIY Instruments at Home
- How to Make a Musical Straw
- How to make Maracas
- Music Lesson Compilation for Kids
- Music Orchestra
- Notes Alive: Dr. Suess’ My Many Colored Days
- The Music Show Episode #1: The Beat Is the Heart of Music
- The Music Show Episode #2: I’ve Got Rhythm
- The Music Show Episode #3: Take A Rest
- The Music Show Episode #4: We’re Gonna Sing High, Low, and in the Middle
- The Music Show Episode #5: Presto Is Fast, Largo Is Slow
- The Music Show Episode #6: Lines and Spaces, Baby
Scratch Garden Songs! **I’ve done a few songs
with the kids & they LOVE them. There’s a lot more than this
from them**SCRATCH GARDEN SONGS
- Art Songs! | Learning Songs Collection | Scratch Garden
- Grade 1 Songs! | Learning Song Collection | Scratch Garden
- Grade 2 Songs! | Learning Song Collection | Scratch Garden
- Science Songs! | Learning Songs Collection | Scratch Garden
- Weenie Man & Friends! | Camp Songs Compilation | Scratch Garden
- English Language Arts Songs! | Learning Songs Collection | Scratch Garden
- Day to Day Learning Songs! | Learning Songs Collection | Scratch Garden
- Sight Words Part 1 | Reading Practice Video | Scratch Garden
- Sight Words Part 2 | Reading Practice Video | Scratch Garden
- Sight Words Part 3 | Reading Practice Video | Scratch Garden
- Sight Words Part 4 | Reading Practice Video | Scratch Garden
- The Itsy Bitsy Spider & Friends | Nursery Rhymes Compilation | Scratch Garden
- Syllables! | Scratch Garden
- A Musical Playground for Kids:Music Theory Lessons
- Music Lines and Spaces Basketball
- Note Name Invaders!
- Word Warrior Treble Clef
- Word Warrior Bass Clef
- Eek! Shark! Music Theory Game
- Treble & Bass Space Invaders
- “Bone Up” on the Bass Clef
- Penalty Shootout! Lines & Spaces
- Music Family Invaders
- Mighty Music Man ~ The Instrument Heist
- Instrument Scramble
Howlers In Music Education
These are stories and test questions accumulated by music teachers in the state of Missouri:
Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music.
Refrain means don’t do it. A refrain in music is the part you better not try to sing.
A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.
John Sebastian Bach died from 1750 to the present.
Henry Purcell is a well-known composer few people have ever heard of.
Aaron Copland is one of your most famous contemporary composers. It is unusual to be contemporary. Most composers do not live until they are dead.
An opera is a song of bigly size.
When a singer sings, he stirs up the air and makes it hit any passing eardrums. But if he is good, he knows how to keep it from hurting.
Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel.
Most authorities agree that music of antiquity was written long ago.
Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields and McCoys.
My very best liked piece of music is the Bronze Lullaby.
My favorite composer is Opus.
A tuba is much larger than its name.
Instruments come in many sizes, shapes and orchestras.
You should always say celli when you mean there are two or more cellos.
Another name for kettle drums is timpani. But I think I will just stick with the first name and learn it good.
A trumpet is an instrument when it is not an elephant sound.
While trombones have tubes, trumpets prefer to wear valves.
The double bass is also called the bass viol, string bass, and bass fiddle. It has so many names because it is so huge.
When electric currents go through them, guitars start making sounds. So would anybody.
Question: What are kettle drums called?
Answer: Kettle drums.
Cymbals are round, metal CLANGS!
A bassoon looks like nothing I have ever heard.
Last month I found out how a clarinet works by taking it apart. I both found out and got in trouble.
Question: Is the saxophone a brass or a woodwind instrument?
Answer: Yes.
The concertmaster of an orchestra is always the person who sits in the first chair of the first violins. This means that when a person is elected concertmaster, he has to hurry up and learn how to play a violin real good.
For some reason, they always put a treble clef in front of every line of flute music. You just watch.
I can’t reach the brakes on this piano!
The main trouble with a French horn is it’s too tangled up.
Anyone who can read all the instrument notes at the same time gets to be the conductor.
Instrumentalist is a many-purposed word for many player-types.
The flute is a skinny-high shape-sounded instrument.
The most dangerous part about playing cymbals is near the nose.
A contra-bassoon is like a bassoon, only more so.
Tubas are a bit too much.
Music instrument has a plural known as orchestra.
I would like for you to teach me to play the cello. Would tomorrow or Friday be best?
My favorite instrument is the bassoon. It is so hard to play people seldom play it. That is why I like the bassoon best.
It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and shake him in rhythm.
Source: Missouri School Music Newsletter, collected by Harold Dunn.
Taken from the Amusements Pages of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
A Choiristers’ Guide To Keeping Conductors In Line
The basic training of every singer should, of course, include myriad types of practical and theoretical emphasis. One important area which is often neglected, however, is the art of one-upmanship. The following rules are intended as guides to the development of habits which will promote the proper type of relationship between singer and conductor.
- Never be satisfied with the starting pitch. If the conductor uses a pitch-pipe, make known your preference for pitches from the piano and vice-versa.
- Complain about the temperature of the rehearsal room, the lighting, crowded space, and of a draft. It’s best to do this when the conductor is under pressure.
- Bury your head in the music just before cues.
- Ask for a re-audition or seating change. Ask often. Give the impression you’re about to quit. Let the conductor know you’re there as a personal favor.
- Loudly clear your throat during pauses (tenors are trained to do this from birth). Quiet instrumental interludes are a good chance to blow your nose.
- Long after a passage has gone by, ask the conductor if your C# was in tune. This is especially effective if you had no C# or were not singing at the time.
- At dramatic moments in the music (which the conductor is emoting), be busy marking your music so that the climaxes will sound empty and disappointing.
- Wait until well into a rehearsal before letting the conductor know that you don’t have the music.
- Look at your watch frequently. Shake it in disbelief occasionally.
- When possible, sing your part either an octave above or below what is written. This is excellent ear-training for the conductor. If he hears the pitch, deny it vehemently and claim that it must have been the combination tone.
- Tell the conductor, “I can’t find the beat.” Conductors are always sensitive about their “stick technique” so challenge it frequently.
- If you are singing in a language with which the conductor is the least bit unfamiliar, ask her as many questions as possible about the meaning of individual words. If this fails, ask her about the pronunciation of the most difficult words. Occasionally, say the word twice and ask her preference, making to say it exactly the same both times. If she remarks on their similarity, give her a look of utter disdain and mumble under your breath about the “subtleties of inflection”.
- Ask the conductor if he has listened to the von Karajan recording of the piece. Imply that he could learn a thing or two from it. Also good: ask, “Is this the first time you’ve conducted this piece?”
- If your articulation differs from that of others singing the same phrase, stick to your guns. Do not ask the conductor which is correct until backstage just before the concert.
- Find an excuse to leave the rehearsal about 15 minutes early so that others will become restless and start to fidget.
Make every effort to take the attention away from the podium and put it on you, where it belongs!