Needleman-Laskey Feb Event General Music Flyer

 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF KODÁLY EDUCATORS presents...

New Perspectives on Folk Songs: Exploring the American Folk Song Collection a workshop with

Gail Needleman and Anne LaskeyA good folk song is a perfect masterpiece in itself."  Zoltán Kodály  

The online American Folk Song Collection is a free, interactive site featuring hundreds of authentic folk songs, including field recordings, scores, and musical and pedagogical analysis.  This unique resource (http://kodaly.hnu.edu), containing a wealth of untapped cultural treasures, was created by the presenters to help teachers and parents find quality materials for teaching.   
In this workshop, participants will learn and perform folk songs and games from this online collection suitable for elementary and middle school students.   We will explore ways of learning and teaching folk songs, listen to original field recordings from the archives of the Library of Congress and learn how to use the site to create exciting lessons for our students.  If you are new to the Kodály Approach, come and be introduced to several aspects of this fascinating curriculum by two of our most experienced teachers.  Even first-timers will come away with a wealth of new insights and teaching materials.  Handouts will include songs, game directions and lesson plans.

Anne and Gail are nationally-recognized mentor teachers who are at the forefront of the international Kodály movement.  Anne is director of the Kodály Center for Music Education at Holy Names University in Oakland, where she supervises student teaching in neighboring schools. Gail teaches courses at Holy Names that integrate solfège, theory, stylistic analysis and cultural context.  Anne and Gail received a Parsons Fellowship in 2000 from the Library of Congress for research in American folk songs for teaching, and are currently creating music textbooks for children based on the philosophy of Zoltán Kodály. 

Join us for a morning of joyful music making and inspirational teaching with potential applications to many disciplines and settings. Don't miss this opportunity to experience why, as Kodály said, "only the best is good enough for children."   

Saturday, February 2, 2008

9:30 am - 1:00 pm

Registration: 9:00 am

Knuth Hall

San Francisco State University

1600 HollowaySan Francisco

For directions and parking information, 

go to _http://www.sfsu.edu/~parking/text/parking.html

Bring your own bag lunch to stay andmeet our membership  after the presentation!

OAKE members:  $35 

Non-members:  $55

Student OAKE members:  free

Student non-members: $10

For more information:Gemma Arguelles (510) 836-5435, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Nancy Linford (510) 524-7392, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it /

“I Can’t Miss That!” Yes, you are right — you can’t miss this year’s CMEA BAY Section Winter Conference! There are some once-in-a-lifetime workshops this year that you really don’t want to miss!

First off you will find Friday’s sessions enriching as well as inspiring. Linda Covington, amazing music teacher from San Jose, will lead us in folk dances that teach music concepts. She will also incorporate the use of Orff Instruments with the folk dances. Mrs. Covington has been trained in both the Kodály and Orff approaches and believes in using all the tools and training available to open the hearts and minds of young people through music. Her National Board Certification in Early and Middle Childhood Music served to ignite new ideas for engaging students, and fine-tune her teaching strategies.

Diane Lister, Pacific Region Music and Art Curriculum Specialist with Pearson, will lead us on an exciting adventure of interactive listening exercises. Diane taught Elementary and Middle School General Music for 22 years, and served as Fine Arts Curriculum Facilitator for the Tacoma, Washington School District. She has shared her knowledge of and creative approaches toward all aspects of general music through teacher in service training in California, Washington, Texas, Oregon, and many other states.

The most amazing South Indian Classical Music (Carnatic Music) vocalist in the Bay Area, Harini Krishnan-Jha, will compare Western and Carnatic Music –— teaching us how to use Carnatic music in the classroom and perform (with other top Carnatic musicians) beautiful Indian music. Since 1979, Harini and her sisters, Padmapriya and Subhapriya, have given several Carnatic music concerts in India, Europe and the United States. They have been featured in both Doordarshan (Indian Television) and All India Radio, and received considerable praise for their debut album “Jagajjanani”, released in India in 1990. You cannot miss this concert!

Saturday starts with Dr. Rochelle Mann from Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO brought to us by Pearson Making Music! She is a specialist in the Kodály concept, and she teaches Kodály certification courses at Arizona State and Portland State Universities. She currently conducts the Durango Children’s Chorale, and her publications include several works for children’s voices as well as articles promoting innovative teaching techniques.

Finally, Elizabeth Balzano, music therapist from New York City, will bring her expertise in using music to teach special needs children and teach strategies for music educators to ensure that their exception students are engaged and developing musical skills. Elizabeth currently hosts Bounce the new PBS Kids weekend show that encourages children to connect with their emotions, thoughts, and words through music and works with children in the New York City Public School System. This workshop is sponsored by Spectrum Connections and Brandissimo!
News in General Music: New Youth Bell Choir is starting called Rising Ringers. There web address is: www.risingringers.org If you have students that are interested, please share with them the website address.

At this year’s conference you will dance, play, sing, and learn some innovative multi-cultural and diverse strategies that you can incorporate directly into your classroom. You don’t want to miss any of these presentations! Mark your calendars — January 11 and 12, 2008! Send in your registrations today!

Welcome back! It’s that time of the year to organize, regroup, and get excited about enriching the musical minds of our wonderful students! I hope you all had a wonderful, restful and inspiring summer! It is going to be an amazing fall!! Th e AOSA (American Orff - Schulwerk Association) is in town! Yes, the 2007 AOSA National Conference The Art of Play is November 14–17, 2007 in San José, California! Go to www.aosa.org to sign up and get details! It is always fabulous when a general music organization is holding its National Conference right in our own backyard!

We all work hard each year to teach the musical concepts outlined in the California State Music Education Guidelines — but have you ever felt that you need to put those standards on hold while you prepare for a concert? It can be difficult to manage the short amount of time you get with your kids. Often as general music education teachers we need to put together a performance or two (or three….) together for the parents and administration. These performances are rehearsed during your music class — probably starting anywhere from 6–10 weeks before the concert. It’s a struggle that we all tackle each year.

I have the following suggestions to help plan for these concerts, without loosing the important music education elements that you teach in your music classes:

1. Sit down with a 2007–08 calendar — and plan exactly when your concerts will be. Make sure to check with your school calendar to avoid scheduling issues with sports, school board meetings, field trips, and other school activities. Request that your concert date(s) are put on the school calendar (in the offi ce, school newspaper and on-line).
2. Read through your resources and pick out the repertoire — making notes of which concepts are taught in each piece and which methodologies are highlighted in that piece. Don’t forget to pick extra songs for those special concert situations that come up (celebrations — birthday, retirement, grandparent’s day, patriotic days, harvest festivals, and even a song to help heal during sad times).
3. Plan out how you want to present your music education program to the parents, community and school administration. When I was at a workshop many years ago, I learned about “Informances” — where you use your classroom materials to present songs, instruments and dance — citing examples of the music education philosophies. Th e students speak to your audience before each song (or group of songs) about the benefi ts of the philosophy they are about the present in music. Th is kind of concert can help educate your community about the values of music education.
4. Begin the music in the fall, pepper it through out the year — leading up to the concert — so that you only need to do more intense, specifi c practice for the presentation a few weeks before the concert. If you decide to present a musical or composed themed unit — you can still incorporate these songs into your weekly music classes and teach the appropriate musical concepts to which each song lends itself.
5. Have an organized music class. Start and end the class the same each day — start with singing a greeting song/dance — and end with a bow — a bow that they must all properly do together. Make sure you remind the students through out the lesson to smile, clear diction, and have proper posture. Th ese small, easy to insert exercises (smiles, bowing, diction, posture) will make the performance incredible!
6.  It is very important to give specifi c feedback to your students. For example, “John, I like the way you smiled during that song. I could also understand the words you were singing — great diction.” (Instead of, “Good job, John.) With using clear, descriptive feedback, you not only told John what he was doing right, so he will do it again, but your just taught the whole class how to improve on their skills. It is important that is your student is doing something that is not working — to tell them specifi cally how to fi x it. “John, I like the way you are smiling during this song. I can see you really enjoy the music. Would you try one more time, and this time relax your shoulders, stand tall and take a deep breath and you will sing stronger!” (Instead of, “Louder, John.”) Again, you are not only teaching John, but also the whole class in a helpful, supportive fashion.

I encourage all of you to consider the National Board Certifi cation process for your next professional development project. Stanford University has an amazing support program through their resource center. Th ere is a new an exciting way to begin the process of your National Board Certifi cation by doing the take one. Program. Th is program allows you to start with only one portfolio — really dive into the process — but only have the responsibility to fi nish one portfolio. Learn more about this program by emailing me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or checking it out on the National Board Website www. nbpts.org. You may also want to look at Stanford’s support program at http://nbrc. standford.edu. I wish you all an amazing school year! I look forward to seeing you at the Bay Section CMEA Winter Conference this January at San José State University. 

Whew! We did it again, we made it through another wonderful year guiding our students to achieve excellent muscianship. Another year of teaching the building blocks of music to future orchestra instrumentalist, band instrumentalist, jazz muscians, choir members, and audience members and patrons of the arts; instilling a Life Long Love of Music in our students. Great Job!