New Music Teachers will get lots of teaching tips from the video lessons at www.lynnkleinersmusicbox.com. See a variety of Lynn Kleiner’s workshops including Orff activities for 4-8 year olds, music for parents and their babies, beginning ukulele lessons, tips for music teachers using puppets, playing the sopranino recorder and more! Video lessons and video music workshops are free for Music Box members.
A great way to get new ideas and improve our teaching is by observing other Orff teachers. You might pick up techniques on classroom control, see how to encourage participation, when to limit the student “ideas”, how to set up the classroom, transitions and more. Sometimes, we observe things that don’t work, saving us frustration in our own future lessons. Even when my teachers are using the same lesson plan, because the teaching is from an Orff approach, no two lessons are the same. The children learn that their ideas are welcomed and valued. They are encouraged to create movement, instrumental accompaniments, even their own rhythmic or melodic motives, ostinatos or compositions. Their contributions have an effect on the outcome of the music making.
Video lessons in Music Box offer a chance for teachers to observe lessons and workshops.Big thanks to Music Box member and Music Rhapsody teacher Ute for sharing one of her Rhythm Readers after school classes.These children come to Music Rhapsody’s after school program because there is not Orff in their schools.Click Videos to see a Rhythm Readers class and a variety of classes from infants – elementary, lessons, concerts and workshops. www.lynnkleinersmusicbox.com.
Sometimes you just never know! My 4-6 year old introduction to Orff class was practicing their parts for “The Butterfly” from my book Jungle Beat. Each had decided on the part they wanted to play on their Orff instruments (the butterfly flying, the caterpillar down below, the spinning, the sleeping…) which were preset in C pentatonic. (Since this is a poem, it really doesn’t matter which pentatonic key you use.) One of 6 year old boys had decided to do a lullaby for the sleeping caterpillar on an alto metallophone, saying the week before that he was choosing this part because his mother sang a lullaby to him every night before he went to sleep. (AH! how sweet is that for his music teacher to hear!!) I observed as the children joyfully practiced their improvisations/compositions but noticed this particular boy was holding back tears. When I asked him what was upsetting him, tears started pouring down his face and between sobs he said “There’s no F! I cannot do it without an F!” I quickly went to the cabinet where I had stored the bars that were removed and placed the F in his instrument. He started playing. I asked if everything was working well for him and he sniffled and said “yes, I just didn’t want a skip there and now I can play my steps!” HA!
To avoid “mindless random banging” instead of thoughtful exploration/improvisation, I use terms such as steps, skips and repeats when describing what I heard someone play. I was happy to know this little musician was able to communicate his lullaby plan. Great moments in teaching. For first time Orff lessons, go to in Downloads at www.lynnkleinersmusicbox.com.
Ukulele is great but what age should you introduce it? Most of the instruments at Music Rhapsody’s Summer Music Day camp are just not age appropriate for our youngest campers, 5-6 year olds. We recommend the clarinet, trumpet, flute, saxophone, or guitar for our older students. Even piano, we find is more successful if waiting for a bit more maturity and fine motor skill. This doesn’t mean we don’t have fantastic music education classes for 5-6 year olds, we do, Orff classes! The xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels and unpitched percussion are presented in a way that is very successful for our little guys and the best way to teach beat, rhythm, harmony, form, improvisation skills. Ukulele has been requested by many of our students and this year, I decided to offer ukulele as an afternoon class option to the little 5 and 6 year olds. Now that we’ve had 6 lessons, I decided to introduce my energetic, entertaining strummers to you! I videoed a little summary of what we learned in 6 days. Then I will also share a video of my 10-12 year old ukulele students with the exact same amount of lesson time.
I did have a lot of laughs with the 5-6 year olds. There were many times in the class when I looked at one of them and said “Hold it like a guitar, not a dulcimer!”. Times when I said “Are you using that ukulele as a back scratcher?”or thought “How can you play when the neck of your uke is between your legs?”
There have been a few techniques that I learned that saved me. One is asking them to decide how many strums we will play or which chord. You will see a lot of me asking them questions in the class. I have learned that chord changes are very difficult for 5 year olds. I have found that teaching very easy chords and finding opportunities where they can strum on that one chord as I sing or play another instrument is the most enjoyable. I will also teach a 2 chord song with the children playing one chord and me doing the other chord or splitting the children in 2 groups,each group playing one chord when I indicate its their turn to play.
Go to www.lynnkleinersmusicbox.com to see the video of my funny little guys and see the download of the chord chart for the students. Soon to come, the older students after the same amount of lessons.
Baby Music Classes is a topic in the forum at www.lynnkleinersmusicbox.com. See what the favorites are from our classes. For teachers who are members of Music Box, please share your favorite baby music activity in the Music Box Forum and I will send you a new recording to use with one of our most popular floor games, FREE.