Keys To My Heart

Archive for the ‘Teaching’ Category

Haven’t updated this website in so long. No particular reason, but I think Facebook probably edged in for a while. Since that little temporary addiction has been quelled, and the Pinterest fascination is waning, I might actually get back to doing some genealogy work. It’s doubtful if that will occur for another month or so because I’m updating my curriculum for my music classes. I’m trying to get my files organized and linked together so teaching with technology will be even easier. You can be sure that old dogs CAN learn new tricks. It makes life interesting! If you would like to stop by my other blog for my classroom, go to mcatee.biz/music/ . It’s a slow work in progress, but once I get my content added, it should be handy to use in class!

“We the People” is my newest Veterans Day video. I made it using Digital Juice clips. The song is from Plank Road Publishing, and it features the entire text of the Preamble to the Constitution. All my students, grade 2 to 6, can now recite it from memory. The younger kids have trouble with the meaning of the large words, so I’m hoping the video will help with that!

This is an update of an older PowerPoint that I did of “You Are Our Heroes” several years ago. It’s a great song and is also from the magazine Music K-8 by Plank Road Publishing. The full performance recordings of this music selection is copyrighted material belonging to the Plank Road Publishing, Inc. Music by Teresa Jennings.

http://www.musick8.com/

Kim Komando had a link on her Cool Sites of the Day today that was pretty fun. It was a quiz about how some people on American Idol think they can sing, but really can’t. I don’t have perfect pitch, but I think I have relative pitch because after a while, I can start a song from memory without hearing an intro or a given tone. Unless I have a cold or sinus infection, I’m usually right 95% of the time. That’s why I was so freaked out when my left ear completely closed up in June! Anyway, here is the link for a test to see if you have a tin ear or not. There are 26 little snippets of tunes. Some stay right on the money, but others drop or raise a tone right in the middle. I actually don’t think it’s accurate though because people who get off pitch enough to drive me bananas only are off a fraction of a tone (in music it’s called cents). They wobble somewhere under or above the tune, but not a full half step away, such as these examples played on a keyboard.

This would be pretty interesting to give to my students, but it says: “You must be 16 or older to take this test. Tone recognition is not fully developed at younger ages, and test results may not be meaningful.” I don’t know. I have a bunch of kids with great ears, and then some who cannot repeat a pitch no matter how hard they try. We do crazy fire engine siren sounds, and some of them can’t make their siren move up or down at all. They don’t hear it. On the quiz I got them all right, but they are pretty easy. Give it a try!