Hello Everybody!
We’ve been having a great Winter so far, and are loving Bells (in some cases for the second time!). Many families that have joined us this year are doing amazingly, as are our old friends who have been welcoming to the newcomers.
Coming weeks
Over the next few weeks we’ll be continuing to talk about watching and listening to encourage growth. Our focuses are intended to stimulate your thinking about ways to engage and encourage at home. Remember: your 45 minute class represents .004% of your week! Engaging your kids at home is a must to stimulate growth, and a core reason why we explore different topics, ideas, and strategies to engage at home.
We recently had a great question in class from Rachel, who wanted to know why we use a pitch pipe (the round harmonica thing) to get our starting note for songs. This is a great question – and one that has us thinking about focusing on talking about why we do what we do in class, and what your take-aways can be for that for home use.
So why do we use a pitch pipe? There are a few different answers to this:
• Your children have a specific vocal range that is limited, and high compared to those of adults (and men!). Using the pitch pipe puts us in the correct range and…
• …the right note for the tonality (or key) that the song is in. Unlike a lot of other programs, Music Together explores many different keys/tonalities that are helpful in developing the listening flexibility of your children, and these start on a variety of different notes, depending on the song. In traditional western music, there is an 8 note scale (octave), but we also explore pentatonic (5 note), and hexatonic (six note) tonalities/scales, along with some other things, like major and minor tonalities.
•Together, the above factors are put together revolving around the pitch (note) that we start on and use the pipe for. You can see why having a consistent reference point is important!
We may spend the last few weeks focusing on why we do certain things, so if you have questions (at any time) please let us know. We love to talk about what is happening, and keeping you well informed will help you to do best for and with your children.
Spring Registration
We are now accepting spring registration for classes. We will have openings in all of our classes, but only a couple for the Sunday classes. Mondays we are still short. Please remember that we will happily reduce your monthly costs by 20% for any new families you refer, and that you can do this multiple times! We appreciate all of your kind consideration when sending us your friends.
More details on the total spots available will be sent again shortly.