� Music as a Language with Victor Wooten

�  Embrace mistakes �  Jam with professionals �  Play and practice �  Language works best when you have

something to say �  Too many rules at the onset slow them

down

�  Babies hear the language, spoken by experts

�  Parents talk, tell stories, and teach about the world around them

�  John the librarian is an outstanding storyteller

�  What does that look like in music?

�  Parents sing to their children

�  Most music teachers are their students first “expert” models, but we don’t see them until kindergarten

� Any song sung for the class is a great opportunity to demonstrate expressiveness

� Dewey decimal number for these books: 782.4

�  Bibliography of many songtales located in the back of the handout

�  Babies are exploring all of the sounds that they can make that may or may not sounds like the language around them

�  Babies try to repeat sounds, words, then short sentences

�  Musical babble can happen when children are given the opportunity to play with sound and create

�  An example of musical babble

�  Another example of musical babble

�  Thomas (3 year old nephew) said, “Her do that?”

�  Mom replied, “Yes, that’s right, she does that.”

�  We acknowledge, correct, and teach the structure.

�  Students need the opportunity to express themselves musically by themselves, just like they talk by themselves

�  Musical conversation can happen engaging both convergent and divergent thinking

�  Students can sing songs by themselves �  Students can create songs or fill in the

blanks � Any response is the right response, and

so there is only positive feedback. The wonderful thing is that they are singing by themselves.

� Certificates are a great way to reward the students and communicate with parents

�  Parents (and others) label things in the child’s life – first simple things like body parts, and then more complicated things (like places and ideas)

�  Parents converse with children

�  Patterns – the smallest musical morsels that provide syntax/meaning

�  Here is another way to have musical conversations that engender both convergent and divergent thinking

�  In language, Syntax is the study of the rules that dictate how the parts of sentences go together.

�  In music, syntax comes from what we expect to hear in music based on past experiences. It can include melodic, chordal, rhythmic, tempo, and other expectations

�  Students learn two different ways, phonics and “whole language.” In order to be able to read unfamiliar words, they need to have at least some phonics skills (not just whole language). Still, in learning to read, students are taught what the sound is and not the part of speech

�  This is what it sounds like. This is what it looks like.

�  They don’t need to know too many details about music theory yet.

�  The most important part is what it sounds like and what it looks like.

�  Flash cards to read familiar patterns �  Look at songs they have sung to read both

familiar and unfamiliar patterns �  Look at musical examples from famous musical

works to read familiar and unfamiliar patterns �  Mystery listening – which one of these two

patterns did I say/sing? �  Take these patterns and put them in order to a

known song. �  Take dictation �  Create a song!!

�  rrq rrq rrq q. �  rq Q q rq � &ghjg � &jwjg � Matthew Hindson has free music fonts!

�  Music Centers for Differentiated Instruction �  Presented by CIKE Board �  Saturday, April 18 from 9:00 a.m.—noon �  Trinity Lutheran School in Bloomington �   $20 for OAKE members/$40 for non-

members �  Learn techniques for differentiated

instruction and experience centers in the music classroom. Then you will make a set of centers that you can take home! 3 cpdus