Hello Everybody!

We are firmly into our autumn collection, and your teachers hope you are enjoying Flute!  It is a lovely collection with lots of ‘ear worms’.

Ran Tin Tinnah – I made it my favourite

(A note from Barnaby…)

In addition to ‘Flute’ being our first taught collection, it had this ‘Mouth Song’ in it.  Not only were we freshly trained teachers, trying to get our class organization/management in-hand, and our best Silly-hats on for the kids, but here was this song that had a lot of twists, turns, and…I didn’t like it.

That is a hard thing to admit to parents, because we really want to convey our passion for all things musical, but I don’t like gangster rap either, so maybe not all is lost.  That being said, we were incredibly excited about Music Together.  So much so for my part, that I decided to teach the classes, even though that was not originally the plan.

That drive made me re-evaluate the song.  I couldn’t figure out what it was – if anything – that was turning me off.  I decided in the end that I was making the song the victim of excitement, pressures, stresses of getting our new classes up and running, and that I needed to throw myself into it.

It is a great song.  It has echoes of far away places, well-worn pubs, and celebratory group singing.  For me the best version of it (in class) is with drums, big hand slapping on the ground, and a change in the timber (sound quality) of my voice – almost like another character or person were singing it.

You have to make these more challenging songs take a front seat in your listening and singing.  Apart from being carefully chosen to provide diversity (cultural, historical, rhythmic, and tonal), they are truly amazing and have a way of making their way into the playlists of your heart, and those of your children.  One of the magical things about Music Together is that the music is real music, not pandering to children and boring their parents, but rather something that you can make your favourite, and which will open doors for you and your family for the rest of your lives.

We’re almost in the middle of our fall collection, and I already think sadly about how it will be another 3 years before we sing these songs again.  For some of you, your children will be too old in 3 years to be back, so take your least played songs this week and see if you can’t make them your favourite, too.  

Book/CD sets

You should have receive your Book/CD Set long ago.  If not, please call the office right away.  You should always receive your set at your first class (or your first class after registering, if you are new).  Do not be shy about asking for these if they are not there with your name on them.  We always keep spare sets on-hand, and we do occasionally miss getting someone’s name onto a set.

Saturday Wychwood Schedule Update

We would like merge our Saturday classes for November and December at 10:30 a.m.  This would be a temporary measure, as we try to beef up our class registration for January, at which time we hope to revert to the two regular class times of 10:00 & 11:00.  Please call the office with your feedback on this as soon as possible, if you have any.  We will update you specifically by Thursday, November 3rd if you are in these classes.

The advantage and reason behind doing this would be to give you a more ideal experience of our classes, which work best with 8+ children in them.

Holidays

There are no holiday weekends between now and our holiday break in December.

End dates for the Fall Collection are:

  • Saturday: December 10
  • Sunday: December 11
  • Monday: December 12
  • Tuesday: December 13

Start dates for the Winter Collection (Sticks!  Woo hoo!) are:

  • Saturday: January 7
  • Sunday: January 8
  • Monday: January 9
  • Tuesday: January 10

Registration Deadline for Winter: 3rd week of January.

Your spots are already saved, you don’t need to do anything, just show up!

New Email Series

We’re working on a new series of emails that will be for new families joining Music Together at ABC.  We’d like to ask you to help us.  If there is some thing or aspect of joining our classes you think would have helped you to know as a new family during your first collection, please let us know!

So many families don’t consider themselves ‘musical’ when they start, that we really want to help them change that perception as quickly as possible.  These emails will have tips and direction on how to integrate themselves, and to feel comfortable.  That is so important to us, and we want to be able to make our classes as welcoming as possible.

Once these emails are completed, they’ll be programmed in a sequence, which we will send out over an approximately 10-week period.

We’ll sign you all up for these partly so you can get the benefit of some areas that we think are important and maybe don’t dive into enough weekly, but also so you can give us your feedback on them as they come out.