Music and singing are an inherent part of children's lives and offer a wonderful opportunity to promote young children's learning and development. This how-to guide is full of useful information to support musical understanding and assist practitioners in developing their knowledge, skills and confidence in planning and leading successful and enjoyable musical activities in a range of early years settings. Focusing on the role of singing and children's musical learning at various stages of development, Music and Singing in the Early Years aims to demystify music by providing practical tips, ideas and information on the integration of musical activities in the early years curriculum and environment, and provides clear explanations of musical concepts. Chapters consider topics such as: vocal strategies and development using song, rhyme and movement integrating instrumental accompaniments observation and assessment planning and delivery resources for music making. This book is essential reading for all early years practitioners looking to improve their musical understanding and plan successful musical activities with young children.

Welcome to the world of Mirabelle, a young goldfinch who loves to sing and dreams of becoming a musical star. She lives with her family in the backyard of a piano teacher, and she is quickly intrigued by Mr. Starek's newest pupil. Michael Jin is an eleven-year-old keyboard sensation, but lesson after lesson, he refuses to play. With the prestigious Chopin Festival looming at summer's end, how will he be ready in time? Mirabelle is responsible for Michael's breakthrough-to her own astonishment, she sings the Chopin piece he is beginning to play at the piano. It is their first duet. Thus begins a secret adventure that will take Mirabelle and Michael further than they ever imagined-in music, in friendship, and in solving the mystery of a lost piano that could be worth millions. A house full of treasures holds the clues. There, Mirabelle, Michael, and their friend Emily will make an important discovery that links the great composer Frederic Chopin, the trailblazing author George Sand, and the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix. A fast-paced, history-rich mystery will have young readers hooked as they root for boy and bird in this beautifully told novel, full of emotion and suspense.

Popular music and digital media are constantly entwined in elementary and middle-school children's talk, interactions, and relationships, and offer powerful cultural resources to children in their everyday struggles over institutionalized language, literacy, and expression in school. In Schooling New Media, author Tyler Bickford considers how digital music technologies are incorporated into children's expressive culture, their friendships, and their negotiations with adults about the place of language, music, and media in school. Schooling New Media is a groundbreaking study of children's music and media consumption practices, examining how transformations in music technologies influence the way children, their peers, and adults relate to one another. Based on long-term ethnographic research with a community of schoolchildren in Vermont, Bickford focuses on portable digital music devices - i.e. MP3 players - to reveal their key role in mediating intimate, face-to-face relationships and structuring children's interactions both with music and with each other. Schooling New Media provides an important ethnographic and theoretical intervention into ethnomusicology, childhood studies, and music education, emphasizing the importance-and yet under-appreciation-of interpersonal interactions and institutions like schools as sites of musical activity. Bickford explores how headphones facilitate these school-centered interactions, as groups of children share their earbuds with friends and listen to music together while participating in the dense overlap of talk, touch, and gesture of their peer groups. He argues that children treat MP3 players more like toys than technology, and that these devices expand the repertoires of childhood communicative practices such as passing notes and whispering-all means of interacting with friends beyond the reach of adults. These connections afforded by digital music listening enable children to directly challenge the language and literacy goals of classroom teachers. Bickford's Schooling New Media is unique in its intensive ethnographic attention to everyday sites of musical consumption and performance, and offers a sophisticated conceptual approach for understanding the problems and possibilities of children's uses of new media in schools.

The Practice Process is an inspiring and empowering look at the crucial topic of practice. Paul Harris explores the key role the teacher plays in developing a psychological and holistic approach for pupils. Packed with clear advice, innovative ideas and principles such as the Integration-Representation-Connection cycle and the Simultaneous Practice Map, this book is firmly rooted in Paul Harris's highly successful Simultaneous Learning approach.

Fully updated in light of the latest research and practice in primary education, Teaching Music Creatively offers all teachers a comprehensive understanding of how to develop, deliver and enjoy a creative music curriculum. It is inspired by the belief that all those concerned with primary education have a deep interest in creativity and supports teachers in developing the confidence to teach and celebrate creative music teaching throughout school. With groundbreaking contributions from international experts in the field, it offers well-tested strategies for developing children's musical creativity, knowledge, skills and understanding. This edition includes a brand new chapter on teaching interculturally, showing how children can reach their full creative potential and not be constrained by cultural stereotyping. Key topics covered include: Creative teaching, and what it means to teach creatively Composition, listening and notation Spontaneous music-making Group music and performance The use of multimedia Integration of music into the wider curriculum Musical play Assessment and planning. Teaching Music Creatively is packed with practical, innovative ideas for teaching music in a lively and imaginative way, together with the theory and background necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of creative teaching methods. It is an invaluable resource for all those training to become primary school teachers, as well as practicing teachers looking for support and inspiration and undergraduate students of music and education.

This edited volume explores how selected researchers, students and academics name and frame creative teaching and learning as constructed through the rationalities, practices, relationships, events, objects and systems that are brought to educational sites and developed by learning communities. The concept of creative learning questions the starting-points and opens up the outcomes of curriculum, and this frames creative teaching not only as a process of learning but as an agent of change. Within the book, the various creativities that are valued by different stakeholders teaching and studying in the higher music sector are delineated, and processes and understandings of creative teaching are articulated, both generally in higher music education and specifically through their application within the design of individual modules. This focus makes the text relevant to scholars, researchers and practitioners across many fields of music, including those working in musicology, composition, performance, music education, and music psychology. The book contributes new perspectives on our understanding of the role of creative teaching and learning and processes in creative teaching across the domain of music learning in higher music education sectors.

This is the Black and White interior version. The Colour version is ISBN 978-0956954725.

Guitar for Kids is a fun guide on the first steps of learning to play Guitar with over 70 photographic examples, purpose-made diagrams and cartoons. Starting with advice on buying your first guitar, how to hold the guitar and how to tune it, the music then begins with easy-to-play melodies using only open strings (open strings means only the plucking hand is used), before moving to simple pieces in which the fretting hand is also used. The book goes into detail for some basic techniques because you're better off getting it right from the start rather than develop bad habits.

Tablature Based: Guitar for Kids uses mostly guitar tablature making this popular instrument more easily accessible for beginners (as do most adult guitar method books). The rhythmical aspect of Sight-reading is covered within the Chords section which eases-in the later Sight-reading section because the only new thing to learn will be reading different notes from the musical staff.

Audio Tracks: Guitar for Kids comes with 47 downloadable audio tracks with musical pieces in styles such as Rock, Blues, Pop, Flamenco, Jazz and Reggae. Each piece has a full band demo track and accompanying backing track with guitar part removed for you to play over.

What Else?: EZ chords are covered (easy chords with less notes) and are accompanied with diagrams of the full versions for later on, or if you feel like a challenge. There's an introduction to Power chords with Rock pieces to play named after healthy greens "Broccolli Rockilly" and "Rocket Salad." There's a Blues and Rock duet with backing band tracks to play with a friend, and at the end there is a Quiz, no cheating!

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In Why Beethoven Threw the Stew, renowned cellist Steven Isserlis sets out to pass on to children a wonderful gift given to him by his own cello teacher - the chance to people his own world with the great composers by getting to know them as friends. Witty and informative at the same time, Isserlis introduces us to six of his favourite composers: the sublime genius Bach, the quicksilver Mozart, Beethoven with his gruff humour, the shy Schumann, the prickly Brahms and that extraordinary split personality, Stravinsky. Isserlis brings the composers alive in an irresistible manner that can't fail to catch the attention of any child whose ear has been caught by any of the music described, or anyone entering the world of classical music for the first time. The lively black and white line illustrations provide a perfect accompaniment to the text, and make this book attractive and accessible for children to enjoy on their own or share with an adult.

Redefining Music Studies in an Age of Change: Creativity, Diversity, Integration takes prevailing discourse about change in music studies to new vistas, as higher education institutions are at a critical moment of determining just what professional musicians and teachers need to survive and thrive in public life. The authors examine how music studies might be redefined through the lenses of creativity, diversity, and integration. which are the three pillars of the recent report of The College Music Society taskforce calling for reform. Focus is on new conceptions for existent areas-such as studio lessons and ensembles, academic history and theory, theory and culture courses, and music education coursework-but also on an exploration of music and human learning, and an understanding of how organizational change happens. Examination of progressive programs will celebrate strides in the direction of the task force vision, as well as extend a critical eye distinguishing between premature proclamations of "mission accomplished" and genuine transformation. The overarching theme is that a foundational, systemic overhaul has the capacity to entirely revitalize the European classical tradition. Practical steps applicable to wide-ranging institutions are considered-from small liberal arts colleges, to conservatory programs, large research universities, and regional state universities.

New music teachers often struggle to find a way to connect the content learned in college classes with the content that will be taught in the classroom, since the nature of their work demands a high level of both musical and educational ability, while also the skills to switch from tuning an orchestra to leading a marching band or practicing voice parts with a chorus. Becoming a Music Teacher: Student to Practitioner focuses on making the connections between the college music classroom and public school music classroom transparent, visible, and relevant. Award-winning music educators Donald L. Hamann and Shelly Cooper have created a versatile text for music teacher education, and one that will provide a significant resource for music education students across the US. Based around an innovative organization and approach, Becoming a Music Teacher is made up of 40 short modules that focus on increasing a teacher's comfort and confidence level when instructing or leading groups. Each module is broken down into four individual components that demonstrate real life transfers from classes to classroom through the components of Personal Awareness, Personal Musicianship, Pre-Conducting, and Professional Knowledge. The Personal Awareness component gives a lesson on good teaching skills by focusing on body awareness, body language, and communication styles rather than abstract theories of education. Personal Musicianship provides a guided learning approach to teaching sight-singing and opportunities to create both vocal and instrumental accompaniments with the songs that are included in the modules. Pre-conducting discusses ways in which certain gestures or concepts could be used in rehearsing a school ensemble through the development of hand/arm independence, posture, and gestures. Professional knowledge links the module to the real world and places it in the context of the workplace, offering advice on how to work with other teachers and administrators, and includes characteristics of successful teachers, the role of schools in contemporary society, and diverse learners. When taken together, these components help the student develop a genuinely rounded skill set for the classroom. The lessons are activity-based and interactive, allowing readers to experiment, communicate, and provide feedback. The modules are also flexible and have been designed to be easily integrated into a music education classroom and applied to specific age groups, includingadult learners, a demographic many music education students encounter but one rarely discussed in music education classrooms. Each module stands alone, allowing instructors to customize their lesson plans by selecting or highlighting the modules most relevant to their class. This text also includes exercises that promote reflection on professionalism, collegiality, and legal factors that affect both students and teachers, not found in most education texts.

This book offers compelling new perspectives on the revolutionary potential of improvisation pedagogy. Bringing together contributions from leading musicians, scholars, and teachers from around the world, the volume articulates how improvisation can breathe new life into old curricula; how it can help teachers and students to communicate more effectively; how it can break down damaging ideological boundaries between classrooms and communities; and how it can help students become more thoughtful, engaged, and activist global citizens. In the last two decades, a growing number of music educators, music education researchers, musicologists, cultural theorists, creative practitioners, and ethnomusicologists have suggested that a greater emphasis on improvisation in music performance, history, and theory classes offers enormous potential for pedagogical enrichment. This book will help educators realize that potential by exploring improvisation along a variety of trajectories. Essays offer readers both theoretical explorations of improvisation and music education from a wide array of vantage points, and practical explanations of how the theory can be implemented in real situations in communities and classrooms. It will therefore be of interest to teachers and students in numerous modes of pedagogy and fields of study, as well as students and faculty in the academic fields of music education, jazz studies, ethnomusicology, musicology, cultural studies, and popular culture studies.

Music and Music Education as Social Praxis is a brief introduction to a praxial theory of music education, defined by author. It is grounded in an interdisciplinary approach, for undergraduate and graduate students in music education. Drawing upon scholarship from a range of disciplines, including philosophy and sociology, the book emphasizes and highlights thinking of music as an active social practice and offers an alternative to existing approaches to music education. This text advocates for an alternative approach to teaching music, rooted in the social practice of music, and will supplement Foundations or Methods courses in the Music Education curriculum.

This is an essential text on an important area of the music curriculum consistently judged weak or inadequate by school inspectors in Britain. It covers social, physiological, musical, and pedagogical aspects of young adolescent singing, with focus on Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14) and the progression from primary school. Grounded in extensive research and authoritatively written, it uses case studies to illustrate best practice, and introduces the principles of cambiata, a dedicated approach to the adolescent voice. Other chapters contain practical and proven advice on repertoire, technique, and the motivation of reluctant singers, boosting the confidence of teachers for whom choral work is not the main specialism.

How to teach Secondary Music presents 100 inspiring ideas to support every aspect of music teaching in secondary schools. The ideas are concise, easy to implement and tackle everything aspect of music teaching. In this invaluable handbook for teachers, the authors present 100 inspiring ideas to support every aspect of music teaching in secondary schools - from lesson planning, behaviour management and recordings through to ensembles, music tours and examinations. Spanning Key Stage 3 to A-Level, How to teach Secondary Music provides fresh and inspiring ways to invigorate music in your classroom and in the wider school. The How To Teach series offers anyone involved in music education a kaleidoscope of quick and practical ideas, tips, advice and activities to improve specific areas of their teaching - all presented in an accessible, 'dip in' format.

Today's choral directors are faced with the dilemma of how to teach music literacy within the demands of a school system increasingly focused on testing outcomes and high-level performances. Many teachers feel they simply do not have the classroom time for adequate sight singing and ear training instruction, and those who do set aside the time for it face a dearth of engaging teaching materials. Solfege and Sonority is a guide for teaching music literacy in a choral rehearsal, with a focus on the needs of teachers who work with young singers. The book lays out teaching sequences for melodic and rhythmic concepts, lesson plans, and concise strategies for introducing key techniques. The graduated progression of topics starts from teaching basic concepts, such as "do-re-mi," and ends with more complex subjects, such as minor modes and the sight reading of more advanced music. The individual lessons themselves are short (no more than 4-6 minutes) and comprehensive, encouraging singers to develop a literacy of rhythm and melody together. By developing 18 easy-to-use lessons for teachers and conductors and tying the lessons to the teacher's current repertoire, longtime choral director and teacher David Xiques has created a practical and viable solution to the challenges of many conductors. The book features a comprehensive companion website that includes videos of exercises, worksheets, and teaching materials.

Well-known songs, including "Oh Susannah" and "Row Row Row Your Boat," are presented with new words and titles, such as "I'm So Carsick" and "Go Go Go to Bed.

The easy and fun guide to 30 sing-along favourites for guitar and voice. Abracadabra Singalong Guitar makes learning the guitar simple and fun. Bursting with songs from pop classics to traditional campfire favourites, the book includes full teaching notes, chord diagrams, lyrics and two easy-to-follow CDs. It is the perfect resource for use during classroom singing, at small guitar groups, in assemblies or for individual learners.

World Music Pedagogy, Volume I: Early Childhood Education is a resource for music educators to explore the intersection of early childhood music pedagogy and music in cultural contexts across the world. Focusing on the musical lives of children in preschool, kindergarten, and grade 1 (ages birth to 7 years), this volume provides an overview of age-appropriate world music teaching and learning encounters that include informal versus formal teaching approaches and a selection of musical learning aids and materials. It implements multimodal approaches encompassing singing, listening, movement, storytelling, and instrumental performance. As young children are enculturated into their first family and neighborhood environments, they can also grow into ever-widening concentric circles of cultural communities through child-centered encounters in music and the related arts, which can serve as a vehicle for children to know themselves and others more deeply. Centered around playful engagement and principles of informal instruction, the chapters reveal techniques and strategies for developing a child's musical and cultural knowledge and skills, with attention to music's place in the development of young children. This volume explores children's perspectives and capacities through meaningful (and fun!) engagement with music.

A treasury of 169 all-time favorite songs for children and young people! Nursery rhymes, campfire songs and folk tunes plus traditional game and activity rhymes all gathered together in one great collection. Songs include: Baa Baa Black Sheep * Dry Bones * Humpty Dumpty * Jack and Jill * Mary Had a Little Lamb * Pop Goes the Weasel * The Farmer and the Dell * The Wheels on the Bus * and many more.

A super fun sing-along board book from the number 1 kids channel in the world! JJ and his friends are all dressed up and ready to learn about dinosaurs! Stomp and stomp and ROAR! JJ and his friends are at school singing all about Triceratops, T.rex and Pterosaurs! Join in at home naming your favourite dinosaurs. Singing along to The Dinosaur Song is a great way to share a first learning experience with young children.