It's certainly starting to feel autumnal now and I do enjoy cosy evenings wrapped up in an extra extra large hoodie!
I have been to some great musicianship sessions by Helen Russell who is the person who wrote the Doremi curriculum I have been teaching. She did a Zoom session this week and my 3 year old, George, stole the show: "Can I sing you a song?". He sang Black Crow to Helen and the other teachers that attended the session. He was perfectly in tune, sung it with a steady and even beat and everyone gave him a round of applause. When Helen suggested he play it on the piano, he jumped at the chance remembering to put his hands in a cat paw shape and showing a big beaming smile afterwards! Black Crow only has two pitches (so and mi) like a lot of the songs we start with, but he can play Black Crow anywhere on the piano because he knows the pitches so well. Even more importantly, he sings and plays it with an excellent steady beat, which is one of the first elements children hear, experience and identify in the Kodály approach. Obviously he has a teacher on hand all of the time (me!), but the reality of day to day life is most of his music education is in my 4pm Wednesday class. He sings the songs at home, sometimes with me and sometimes spontaneously just like other parents have told me their children do; practising without realising! On a side note, a "music and movement" class comes to his nursery but I have never heard him sing any of their songs - I'm guessing this is because he only listens to them passively (no singing), they're too hard for a preschooler to sing and, to be fair to them, movement is the main focus, not music. I really do believe children learning this method is excellent for lifelong learning music on any instrument. I'm developing this part of my teaching further with Kodály methodology, technique and repertoire classes and I observed two fantastic Kodály inspired classes in a primary school. It has been a busy September and October! I will be grateful to hear from anybody to help me on my continual path of self-improvement! What do you like or dislike about music classes and what would you like classes to be like for your children? This could be about my classes or any other music classes -no need to name anybody! I'll be very very grateful for any feedback from you to help me to develop my group classes and make them successful. Also, if you'd like to come along to the 4pm Wednesday classes, I have an early bird offer of £33 for 8 weeks on my classes for next term here: https://joanne-raffle-piano-tuition.live.baluu.co.uk
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