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This page was updated
November 7, 2008

Workshops

Workshops Notes

Kodaly Regional Conference - Wichita, KS
Fri - Sun, Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2008

Dear Participating Teachers,

Mary Alice and I had a wonderful time at your conference, thank you for your enthusiastic participation in our workshops.

Special thanks to Kirk Olson who was our main contact person from the start, who took great care of us while we were at the conference, and who provided his own sound system for our presentations.

Thanks also to Lisa Simmelink who helped out with many details of our visit.

We really enjoyed their "Kansas History through Folk Songs" presentation.

The notes below are in three sections - you can skip directly to the section of interest to you by clicking on the title:

* * *

Mary Aice and I are teaching at Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT

Rich Traditions and New Creations:
Dance, Song, Storytelling and Literature in the Music Classroom
Information on that course will be posted at the Hartt Summerterm website probably in January:

http://harttweb.hartford.edu/summer.php
or e-mail dehansen@hartford.edu for more information.

You can keep track of upcoming Amidon workshops by checking out our workshop schedule at:

http://www.amidonmusic.com/workshops/index.html

or you could subscribe to the Amidon e-mail list. I send postings maybe once a month - the classic format is Dance Workshop - Announcements - Musings. Here is the most recent one:
http://www.amidonmusic.com/newsletter/12_2008.html

* * *

COMMUNITY HARMONY SINGING

(Friday night)

Mary Alice and I are involved in a few different
but overlapping singing communities and traditions.
We are members of and I am co-director of a small
church choir, we are leaders in the Vermont-based
Village Harmony/Northern Harmony network which
leads harmony singing camps for teens and adults
around the world, we are longtime American shape
note (Sacred Harp) singers and organizers, and
we are members of and I am musical co-director
of Hallowell, an a cappella SATB hospice singing group.

Here are some relevant upcoming workshops and camps:

Here is what we did in our singing workshopin Wichita:

My Heart is Ready
This is our favorite new instant singalong for
group harmony singing. Mary Alice and I are
longtime fans of Cindy Kallet's singing. You can
hear her singing this on her CD "Heart Walk"
http://www.cindykallet.com/music/1568
Check out her other music.

Birds in the Dawning
Another great instant singalong.
GiveMeBirdsAtTheDawning.pdf

Silver Rain
We like singing this with a combined childrens'
and adult choirs. Have the children sing the
song once through (unison melody) as the
adults hum their parts; the second time through
everyone sing the words. You can hear a sample
of this at
http://cdbaby.com/cd/peteramidon
(Scroll down and click "Silver Rain".)
This is in the book and companion CD:
"Beatitudes - (25) Amidon
Choral Arrangements"

Now It's Time to Go
We know music teachers who use this simple
round to end a class or an all-school sing.
You can hear our (then 6-year old son) Sam
sing it with us on our CD "All I Really Need".
NowItsTimeToGo.pdf

Psalm of Life
Although I wrote out some suggested harmonies
for this; we almost always just harmonize it by ear.
Mary Alice and I sing this song on our
"I'll Never Forget" CD.

Love Call Me Home
Please get permission from Peggy Seeger if
you want to copy or perform this. She is
generous, but also appreciates it whenever
anyone can pay for using this great song.
You have my permission to use my arrangement.

Sheep Sheep
We learned this from someone who learned it
from Bessie Jones. This can be found on
Rounder Record's CD "Southern Journey -
Volume Six" which is titled, appropriately,
"Sheep, Sheep, Don'tcha Know the Road."

Here is My Home
We often sing this by ear, but we loved
our family's harmonization so much (especially
Stefan's bass line) that we often sing it from
this printed arrangement.
You can hear a sample of this at:
http://www.amidonmusic.com/mp3/beatitudes/12_Here_Is_My_Home.mp3

Bid You Goodnight
My arrangement of this classic Bahama's spiritual
is in our "Beatitudes - Amidon Choral Arrangements"
book and companion CD. You can hear a sample of
it at:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/peteramidon
(Scroll down and click "Bid You Goodnight")

Solstice Song
This is also a great song for children.
Listen to Mary Alice and Peter sing this
on their CD "I'll Never Forget" at:
http://amidonmusic.com/mp3/I_ll_Never_Forget/03_Solstice_Song.mp3
Here is a unison/chords version:
SolsticeSong.pdf

* * *

COMMUNITY DANCE

(Friday Night)

Your homework:

Go dancing!

You will be that much a better dance teacher if you
experience the joy of dance as a dancer.

Here is the Kansas contra dance website for
finding dances in Kansas:

Here is a great website for finding dances in
other parts of the country:

For a resource of contra dance websites go to:

 

The Friday night dances:

Blaydon Races
in NEDM's Chimes of Dunirk collection
We like using jigs for this: try Broken Lantern
from NEDM's Any Jig or Reel
We did this is a mixer, but you can also do it with
younger children without changing partners.
We often call this at weddings. /We always start
teaching this, as we do with any circle mixer, by
having the dancers promenade and defining the
gents/moons/peanut butter/inside partners and the
ladies/stars/jelly/outside partners.

Grumpy March
in NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection.
This could also have been in the 'Fostering Middle
School Dance Mania' workshop; it is a great dance
for upper elementary, middle school and high school.
I have changed one figure from the book: right after
the "grumping" across/clapping figures I have everyone
take hands in a long skinny circle to circle right. THEN
they drop hands and skip back the other way.
Remember to specifically teach the students not to
clap too hard.

Sashay the Donut
In NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection
Use any reels for this. I like doing it to 'Flying Tent' in
NEDM's 'Other Side of the Tracks' CD. If you use
this music for the dance note that you have to call pretty
strongly and rhythmically in the beginning to help the
dancers define the phrase, but later on the musical
phrasing gets much more clear and the dance goes great
with the music.
A great! dance for 4th grade and up.

Sicilian Vowel Dance
In NEDM's Sashay the Donut collection
We used 'Golden Keyboard' (actually, the piano only comes in
at the end of the cut) from NEDM's 'Any Jig or Reel' for this.
Do this with 5th or 6th graders who have a fair amount of dance
experience, and who have already learned the grand right and
left ('Lucky Seven' from our Chimes of Dunkirk collection
is a good teaching dance for the Grand Right and Left figure).
It can work at a community dance if you have all the younger
children dance with an adult or older experienced child partner.
The main teaching point is, once folks are in the formation
of couple facing couple (Sicilian circle formation), having
everyone point to the left. Those pointing to the inside of
the circle say "I am an insider." Those pointing to the outside
say, "I am an outsider." That is the direction they start going
when they do the big, no hands, stay-with-partner grand
right and left.

Step It Down
In NEDM's Jump Jim Joe CD
We actually do this more often with adults
than with children; we love singing this great
song with singers like you.

Circle Waltz Mixer
In NEDM's 'Sashay the Donut' collection.
We used 'In Continental' Waltz from the 'Sashay' CD for the music.
This is a wonderful dance for a wedding, where you can have folks
do the waltz with waltz position instead of the two hand turn.

* * *

LITERATURE, STORYTELLING AND MUSIC

(Saturday afteroon)

Tree Song
in NEDM's Down in the Valley collection
I introduced this with a story that I made up. Elements
of the story came from this singing game, the singing
game "Roger is Dead" (NEDM's Down in the Valley)
and the traditional song "Chiney Doll" (the traditional
Missouri song that our (then) 2 1/2 year old Sam sang
at the end of the workshop).
Lorraine Hammond, who composed this wonderful singing
game, is a songwriter and musician, and the best known
Appalachian dulcimer player in the country. She is in the
greater Boston area. The piano arrangement on the CD
is Peter's. We find this to be a calming, centering dance,
both for the children and for ourselves.

Anansi and His Six Sons
Mary Alice and I developed this story from the
Gerald McDermott Owlet picture book of the same name
which you can purchase at:
http://www.amazon.com/Anansi-Spider-Tale-Ashanti-Owlet/dp/0805003118
Mary Alice used two cuts from Mickey Hart's CD "Planet Drum" for the musicwhich you can purchase at:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=planet+drum&x=0&y=0

Picture Books and Music
Mary Alice doesn't have an organized system
for matching music with books: she just experiments
with her favorite music. On Saturday afternoon she
read to you:

All of which are referenced on page 44 of the conference book.
We also sang to the picture book Summertime, r eferenced on p. 43.

Month Brothers
I learned this story from various sources,
all with slightly different versions.
Here's one:
http://www.amazon.ca/Marushka-Month-Brothers-Anna-Vojtech/dp/1558586288

Acting out stories
Children do this quite naturally; you just
set it up and, as much as possible, get out
of the way. After telling a folktale I give
them the homework to retell it aloud,
we might go through a speed through of
the story or do a quick group map of the
story or discuss the story (What was the
funniest/saddest/most scary/most memorable
moment?) Once they all know the story well,
you are the narrator, and maybe also the musician
(guitar, accordion). Pull the characters (and
human props) from the 'audience' of children
sitting in a bunch in front of the 'stage'.
All the action takes place right in the middle
in front of the audience. The 'actors' speak
loudly so everyone can hear. If they forget
what happens next you can feed them a line
as the narrator: "And Helene asked the young
man what he had just said."

You can use this method to create a musical performance
with added instrumental music, songs and dancing, or
just do it once and leave it at that.

Chiney Doll
ChineyDoll.pdf
There is a wonderful book of this song that is
sadly out of print:
Mommy, Buy Me a China Doll : Adapted from an Ozark children's song
by Harve Zemach (Adapter), Margot Zemach (Illustrator)
but I found some at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000GT1TCS/ref=dp_olp_2/103-8219085-7137422?ie=UTF8&qid=1195487410&sr=1-6

I always introduce this song with a story, the idea of which I
got from that picture book. I had always done the story with
the book when I told it to 2-year-old Sam, and when we were
recording Sam singing familiar songs and Mary Alice got to
the Chiney Doll, Sam could not sing the song without telling
the story: as far as we know, the first story he ever told.

As I mentioned at the workshop, a teacher who listened to that
who knew a lot about child development said, "When Sam
was grunting his way through the story it wasn't that he
didn't remember the story; he knew it perfectly well. It was
that he was turning the images in his head into language."

And that is what we do when we tell stories, and we listen to
stories we turn the language back into images.

Children need to hear stories, they need the classic folktales as
a way to help sort out their emotional lives. The archetypal
characters that inhabit folktales: the kings, queens, princes,
princesses, ogres, giants, witches, wise old women and men,
and everyman Jacks and Marys are, according to one of
my storytelling mentors, Donald Davis, all part of our own
inner selves. When a prince marries a princess at the end of
a folktale, Donald Davis goes on, that marriage represents our
male self marrying our female self; a healthy emotional integration.

There are depths of meaning of these wonderful folktales that
we will never fully plumb, but whenever we tell folktales to
children, it is wonderful to see them uncover endless and
often surprising new meanings.

* * *

Here's to more singing, dancing and storytelling.

Best,

Peter (and Mary Alice) Amidon