Make Way for Music – Week 9: Ensemble

This Week…

Making music together is powerful! Our final two lessons together will focus on music ensembles, two or more playing or singing together. Cultures all around the world value the experience of ensemble, in all kinds of forms—drumming circles, marching bands, folk sing-a-longs, and symphony orchestras each offering their own unique musical experience.

In Family Time, we’ve made music together, and participated in the creation of many ensemble experiences. What more natural ensemble than a family and the community around it? We played resonator bars in an instrumental ensemble during “I Like to Sing.” Birds’ Chorus” brought us singing together in a vocal ensemble.

Your Child Is Learning…

1. Sequence Development: Sequencing is the ability to remember an order of events, such as the steps for the cuckoo movement. A good guide to follow is that young children are able to remember a sequence with approximately as many steps as their age. For example, a two-year-old can likely complete a two-step direction, three-year-olds can often sequence three steps, and so on.
2. Relaxation Techniques: “Children begin to experience stress at a very early age, and they are often more vulnerable to stress than adults because they have not yet learned effective ways to cope with it.” Relaxation skills help children release tension. Encourage the children to use their imagination to recall positive and relaxing images (e.g. playing outside, being at the beach). Teach children to systematically tense and relax various muscle groups: “Tighten the muscles in your toes as I count to 10, then release; breathe deeply & slowly.’ The specific relaxation technique you choose is not critical. What is most important is that it be comfortable for your families (Zolten and Long).