Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Twitter#1
I don't know if you know about these things. I just learned and it is sort of rad in terms of gathering info, resources, etc.
So with this in mind I am posting the twitter group 'homeschool mothers'
wander around in it. i think you will find it is a good resource
http://www.twittermoms.com/group/homeschoolingtwittermoms
So with this in mind I am posting the twitter group 'homeschool mothers'
wander around in it. i think you will find it is a good resource
http://www.twittermoms.com/group/homeschoolingtwittermoms
Interesting Economic Slideshow
This is somewhat long and heady, but there is still wisdom in it for us hippy types.
http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on-startups-and-the-economic-downturn-presentation?type=powerpoint
http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on-startups-and-the-economic-downturn-presentation?type=powerpoint
Schedule Rough
Dec.- finish B. plan and first four classes in full
- book meetings with potential finance people
Jan. - take meetings with financing folks
- market first workshop
Feb. - first workshop (every sat or sun of the month)
Mar. - 2nd workshop
Apr. - 3rd workshop
May. - fine tuning for launcc/plans for summer
- book meetings with potential finance people
Jan. - take meetings with financing folks
- market first workshop
Feb. - first workshop (every sat or sun of the month)
Mar. - 2nd workshop
Apr. - 3rd workshop
May. - fine tuning for launcc/plans for summer
Monday, October 20, 2008
Rhythm Archtypes
1. Follow the Drummer- In this exercise the kids are lined up in a single file line behind one or more of the leaders. The leader(s) then distributes the sticks to each participant. (see note) As a steady rhythm begins to play the leader starts to go around the room drumming on anything he/she sees in a cadence—stomping his/her feet in a steady rhythm. Once the leader has drummed on something it is then the task of each student to copy the leader. Everyone in the line follows this act until the teacher can then move on to something else. This process is continued until the train has gone around the whole room and drummed on everything that can be drummed on.
2. Bodily Movements/ Sarah Says- Combining the ideas from ‘Simon Says’, ‘Follow the Leader’, and ‘The Hokey Pokey,’ this exercise uses no instruments except the body, arms, eyes, and legs. As a steady rhythm begins to play, the children are put in conglomerate formation (a conglomerate formation is one whereby the participants form one group and the leader forms another) the leader goes through a series of exercises that are then mirrored by the children. Examples might include sticking your arm in the air and shaking your leg, etc.
3. Fast-Slow-Fast-Stop- Using shakers or some easy percussion instruments the children are again put in a conglomerate formation. Using the limberjacks the teacher explains that one of the limberjacks represents a fast beat and the other represents a slow beat. When the fast beat limberjack dances the kids shake the shakers as hard as they can, and, similarly, when the slow beat limberjack dances the kids shake their shakers as softly and quietly as they can. Once this dynamic has been established you can begin to bring in the third element/cue, which is that of a rest. Once you have all three components in place this exercise works on the dynamic qualities important to recognizing and assimilating to music.
4. Shake it Up- This is a very loose lesson plan that essentially amounts to free dance. Kids form a circle and we play an assortment of different musical styles allowing/showing the kids where the beat and rhythmic pattern lies during each one. When the music stops, the kids are to freeze. Those not frozen go to some sort of penalty box in the middle of the circle for the duration of one musical snippet. This exercise intends to expose kids to a variety of rhythms and styles while working within the ideas of rest and movement.
Pow-Wow Druminators- Split the group into two and have those groups form circles. Once this is done give the kids beaters and place a drum in the middle of each circle so that each kid has a place to beat the drum. Once in this configuration, play a simple rhythmic track and have the kids beat on the drums in basic ways. Depending on how good one feels, the teacher can try to bring in more poly-rhythmic beats. The key here is to try to get the whole class to land on the top beat together, in effect creating one tone for each beat.
2. Bodily Movements/ Sarah Says- Combining the ideas from ‘Simon Says’, ‘Follow the Leader’, and ‘The Hokey Pokey,’ this exercise uses no instruments except the body, arms, eyes, and legs. As a steady rhythm begins to play, the children are put in conglomerate formation (a conglomerate formation is one whereby the participants form one group and the leader forms another) the leader goes through a series of exercises that are then mirrored by the children. Examples might include sticking your arm in the air and shaking your leg, etc.
3. Fast-Slow-Fast-Stop- Using shakers or some easy percussion instruments the children are again put in a conglomerate formation. Using the limberjacks the teacher explains that one of the limberjacks represents a fast beat and the other represents a slow beat. When the fast beat limberjack dances the kids shake the shakers as hard as they can, and, similarly, when the slow beat limberjack dances the kids shake their shakers as softly and quietly as they can. Once this dynamic has been established you can begin to bring in the third element/cue, which is that of a rest. Once you have all three components in place this exercise works on the dynamic qualities important to recognizing and assimilating to music.
4. Shake it Up- This is a very loose lesson plan that essentially amounts to free dance. Kids form a circle and we play an assortment of different musical styles allowing/showing the kids where the beat and rhythmic pattern lies during each one. When the music stops, the kids are to freeze. Those not frozen go to some sort of penalty box in the middle of the circle for the duration of one musical snippet. This exercise intends to expose kids to a variety of rhythms and styles while working within the ideas of rest and movement.
Pow-Wow Druminators- Split the group into two and have those groups form circles. Once this is done give the kids beaters and place a drum in the middle of each circle so that each kid has a place to beat the drum. Once in this configuration, play a simple rhythmic track and have the kids beat on the drums in basic ways. Depending on how good one feels, the teacher can try to bring in more poly-rhythmic beats. The key here is to try to get the whole class to land on the top beat together, in effect creating one tone for each beat.
http://www.silverlakeconservatory.com/
This is a music school in LA started by Flea (RH C Peppers) and D.Barry. check it out and notice that there are no early child programs.
Mostly Mozart for Kids
Something to think on
“Music, the rhythm, tone and vibration of sound, serves to organize matter- to create structure in space and time. Its effects are clear and measurable, not only on physical objects, but on biological entities as well. Reaching the human brain via the ear, music interacts on an organic level with a variety of neural structures. In fact, scientific research now indicates tha this interaction has left its mark over the millennia on human physiology. The fact that a full two-thirds of the cilia in the inner ear- the thousands of tiny hairs that lie on a flat plane like piano keys—resonate only at the higher ‘musical’ frequencies (3000-20,000 hertz) suggest that at one time human beings communicated primarily with song or tone. One hypothesis is that human communication evolved from singing to primate-like grunts before finally arriving at what we recognize as modern speech.
Perhaps this is why infants, newborns and even fetuses universally display a remarkably high receptivity to music. Research has shown that a baby’s brain arrives fully capable of recognizing such building blocks of music as key, pitch and tempo. The system that the brain uses to process music are either identical to or fundamentally entwined with the systems used in perception, memory and language.”
“Music, the rhythm, tone and vibration of sound, serves to organize matter- to create structure in space and time. Its effects are clear and measurable, not only on physical objects, but on biological entities as well. Reaching the human brain via the ear, music interacts on an organic level with a variety of neural structures. In fact, scientific research now indicates tha this interaction has left its mark over the millennia on human physiology. The fact that a full two-thirds of the cilia in the inner ear- the thousands of tiny hairs that lie on a flat plane like piano keys—resonate only at the higher ‘musical’ frequencies (3000-20,000 hertz) suggest that at one time human beings communicated primarily with song or tone. One hypothesis is that human communication evolved from singing to primate-like grunts before finally arriving at what we recognize as modern speech.
Perhaps this is why infants, newborns and even fetuses universally display a remarkably high receptivity to music. Research has shown that a baby’s brain arrives fully capable of recognizing such building blocks of music as key, pitch and tempo. The system that the brain uses to process music are either identical to or fundamentally entwined with the systems used in perception, memory and language.”
Mostly Mozart for Kids
Something To Think On
My own formal introduction to the Mozart Effect began with a meeting in the early 1980’s with the famed Parisian physician, psychologist, and educator Dr. Alfred Tomatis. The son of a musician, Dr. Tomatis became a specialist in hearing disorders, particularly those that affected professional instrumentalists and singers. Early in his career, he defined what came to be known as the Tomatis Effect—that is, the fact that the voice can only reproduce what the ear can hear. Having noticed that a group of French factory workers he was treating for environmentally caused hearing problems also had difficulty with speech, Tomatis soon realized that his opera singers’ voice troubles were also often caused by hearing, or, more accurately, listening, problems. His success in improving his patients’ expression by helping them listen better soon won him a wide following in the educational and musical community.
Dr. Tomatis continued his study of listening and its fascinating relationship to a wide variety of skills—including balance, posture, musicality, attentiveness, language ability and expressiveness. “Likewise because of he ear he is able to express himself, listen and think.” Tomatis’s second breakthrough came when he focused on the proximity of the hearing and emotion centers in the brain, and discovered that hearing disorders are often a reflection of emotional difficulties, and vice versa. To treat one effectively, he concluded it was necessary to treat the other.
Following the trail of inquiry, Tomatis began working with children with psychological and learning disabilities, as well as children and adults with severe head injuries. Treating their disabilities vian their hearing, he learned that different frequencies and rhythms of sound had remarkably different effects on this patients’ state of being. High frequency stimulation tended to reap the best results, increasing energy levels and creating a feeling of calm, whole low-frequency sound often proved disorienting.
A third breakthrough in the 1960’s—the recognition of the highly efficient effects of Mozart’s music in particular—came when Dr. Tomatis combined what head learned about the physical effects of sound with what he had learned from his study of embryology. He knew that the ear is the fetus’s first organ to hook up to the brain’s developing neural systems, and that the fetus begins to hear by the second trimester in the womb. Understanding that the mother’s voice must serve as a kind of alternative umbilical cord for her developing baby, a prime source of environmental nurturing, Tomatis theorized that interference with hearing in utero and in the first years of life could lead to listening, learning and emotional disabilities later on.
This would explain, Tomatis realized, why using high frequencies (such as those heard in the womb and, after birth, from mothers using baby talk) has such a helpful effect on the emotionally and developmentally challenged. With this in mind, he set about experimenting with all kinds of high-frequency sound for his young patients—as he put it, “ all that could be acoustically recorded.” His patients listened on headphones to both noise and music—classical, modern, traditional, and contemporary. He worked with music from Asia, India, and Africa. After all his experiments were completed and all data compiled, it turned out that two sound experiences were far and away the most effective in the children’s treatment: the voice of the child’s mother, filtered to omit all but the high frequencies the child once heard in the womb, and the music of Mozart.
My own formal introduction to the Mozart Effect began with a meeting in the early 1980’s with the famed Parisian physician, psychologist, and educator Dr. Alfred Tomatis. The son of a musician, Dr. Tomatis became a specialist in hearing disorders, particularly those that affected professional instrumentalists and singers. Early in his career, he defined what came to be known as the Tomatis Effect—that is, the fact that the voice can only reproduce what the ear can hear. Having noticed that a group of French factory workers he was treating for environmentally caused hearing problems also had difficulty with speech, Tomatis soon realized that his opera singers’ voice troubles were also often caused by hearing, or, more accurately, listening, problems. His success in improving his patients’ expression by helping them listen better soon won him a wide following in the educational and musical community.
Dr. Tomatis continued his study of listening and its fascinating relationship to a wide variety of skills—including balance, posture, musicality, attentiveness, language ability and expressiveness. “Likewise because of he ear he is able to express himself, listen and think.” Tomatis’s second breakthrough came when he focused on the proximity of the hearing and emotion centers in the brain, and discovered that hearing disorders are often a reflection of emotional difficulties, and vice versa. To treat one effectively, he concluded it was necessary to treat the other.
Following the trail of inquiry, Tomatis began working with children with psychological and learning disabilities, as well as children and adults with severe head injuries. Treating their disabilities vian their hearing, he learned that different frequencies and rhythms of sound had remarkably different effects on this patients’ state of being. High frequency stimulation tended to reap the best results, increasing energy levels and creating a feeling of calm, whole low-frequency sound often proved disorienting.
A third breakthrough in the 1960’s—the recognition of the highly efficient effects of Mozart’s music in particular—came when Dr. Tomatis combined what head learned about the physical effects of sound with what he had learned from his study of embryology. He knew that the ear is the fetus’s first organ to hook up to the brain’s developing neural systems, and that the fetus begins to hear by the second trimester in the womb. Understanding that the mother’s voice must serve as a kind of alternative umbilical cord for her developing baby, a prime source of environmental nurturing, Tomatis theorized that interference with hearing in utero and in the first years of life could lead to listening, learning and emotional disabilities later on.
This would explain, Tomatis realized, why using high frequencies (such as those heard in the womb and, after birth, from mothers using baby talk) has such a helpful effect on the emotionally and developmentally challenged. With this in mind, he set about experimenting with all kinds of high-frequency sound for his young patients—as he put it, “ all that could be acoustically recorded.” His patients listened on headphones to both noise and music—classical, modern, traditional, and contemporary. He worked with music from Asia, India, and Africa. After all his experiments were completed and all data compiled, it turned out that two sound experiences were far and away the most effective in the children’s treatment: the voice of the child’s mother, filtered to omit all but the high frequencies the child once heard in the womb, and the music of Mozart.
Bibliography
- A Music Learning Theory for Newborn and Young Children, Edwin E. Gordon, 2003 Edition
- Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship, Harvard Business School, 1999
An Intro to Music
p>An Introduction to Music in Early Childhood Develpoment by Joanne Greata, 2006 Thomson Delmar Learning
Note: She has a big section on "Edwin Gordon and Music Aptitude". Along with "Howard Gardner and Music Intelligence", these are the only two researchers she references in the Chapter on current research in the field.
Survey Results
p class="MsoHeading7">Survey Stats
In February we distributed a set of questions to young parents, in hopes of understanding what parents and children want and need from music awareness/education. Thus far we have received over one hundred responses. The following information reflects 101 submissions. 91% of the parents that participated had at least one child five years old or younger.
Percentage of Families Involved with a Music Program of Some Sort:
69%
Percentage of families who have had a positive experience in their program:
90%
The average parent considers themselves a 7.8 out of 10 in terms of their musical interest.
Percentage that play music proactively at home for their children:
90%
Percentage of families that play only children’s music around the house:
7%
Over half the families play a mix of children’s/ adult music at home:
60%
Percentage of families that play only adult music: 20%
Percentage of families listed an Adult artist or song as their child’s favorite music:
47%
Specific Children’s albums with the most votes:
The Sound of Music 4
HSM 7
Hannah Montana 5
Dan Zanes 4
Others:
Music Together 1 vote
Wiggles 2 votes
Barney 1 vote
Backyardigans 1 vote
The top three artists pleasurable for both parents and children alike:
Jack Johnson
Dan Zanes
Ralph’s World
Percentage of parents that listen to their (adult) music when driving:
54 %
Percentage of parents that listen exclusively to children’s music when driving:
8%
Percentage of parents had some sort of musical education growing up:
58%
Seven Musical Elements (importance based on a 1-10 scale) average score:
Upbeat 7.8
Silly Lyrics/Performance 5.5
Theme Driven 5.3
Interactive 6.2
Storyline 5.2
Instrumentation 6.4
Length 5
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