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Complete Guide for Continuing Music Learning at Home
Every day, music should be a part of every home, for the entire family to enjoy and learn about together. Here are some resources for parents to help make that possible for their household. Whether your child is a student at Open School, enrolled in private or group lessons, both, or none of the above, you will find many tools and ideas here to make music learning fun for the whole family.
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The Value of Being All-In
Thirty-some years ago when I was in elementary school, I was what you might call overbooked. Let’s see, there was gymnastics, swim class, math club, cub scouts, church functions, school band, school orchestra, piano lessons, trumpet lessons, homework, and the list goes on. On one hand, I am surprised I had time to be a […]
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Honoka & Azita: An Incredible Ukulele Duo
Starting the week of September 12th, I will be announcing our third and final topic of the year, “Playing Music”. Students will be introduced to the instruments they will be playing with their cluster. Red & Silver clusters will be playing beginner level mallet percussion instruments (xylophones, glockenspiels, and metallophones). Indigo & Orange clusters will […]
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Introduction Ukuleles, Recorders, & Mallet Percussion
Starting the week of September 12th, I will be announcing our third and final topic of the year, “Playing Music”. Students will be introduced to the instruments they will be playing with their cluster. Red & Silver clusters will be playing beginner level mallet percussion instruments (xylophones, glockenspiels, and metallophones). Indigo & Orange clusters will […]
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From A Capella to a Marble Machine, Thinking Outside the “Music” Box
This week, my students are being introduced to the second of three themes we will cover this year: “Music is Connected“. The specific lesson topic is “Thinking Outside the ‘Music’ Box”. Students will be encouraged to think differently about music. Our lesson will connect music to science. And, we discover the idea of inventing new […]
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First “Great Musician” of the Year: Arturo Sandoval
The first week of school, students were introduced to the first theme of the year “Great Musicians“. We discussed traits that make a music great. We played a game to help us learn the rules for the music class. We learned that this year students will have an opportunity to earn musicianship awards (more on […]
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Man Makes Magic by Using a Marble Machine to Play Music
I used to love playing with marbles as a child. One of my favorite toys was a marble run, where you could fit pieces together in whichever way you wished and then placed the marbles in the top and watched them roll down. The marbles passed through a series of bridges, loops, swirls, and jumps. […]
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Collection of “Little Big Shots” Musicians
Update: Season 2 is on now! Check out all new episodes Sundays at 8pm on NBC. Update 2: NBC has removed a number of episode clips from YouTube, so I can no longer claim to have the full collection. I will keep the below playlist up-to-date as best as possible with all available videos from […]
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4-Year-Old Boy Starts Piano, Learns Flight of the Bumblebee in 6 Months
As an instructor who teaches students of all ages, I have truly come to appreciate the value of learning music at any age. The beauty of music is that it is such a broad concept, beyond just learning an instrument. Anyone can learn music, regardless of talent, intellect, maturity, or attention span.
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Taylor Swift – Safe and Sound
It seems as though I’m a little late to the game on this song as it was part of the Hunger Games soundtrack (a movie I still have yet to see), but when I first heard this song I had to share it. “Safe and Sound” has a very delightful mix of Celtic-style tunes blended […]
