Murdock Music

5th Grade had a chance to take some of their recorder karate songs and change them into a minor key and 4th Grade started turning a poem into a song in a minor key. To help them understand the difference between major and minor, I shared a sample of Katy Perry's "Firework" in both major and minor. Parents, check out Chase Holfelder's Youtube channel for a lot of pop and Disney songs put into a minor key and share them with your kids. Major: Minor:

So, your child came home singing some spooky songs? Good! Here is a brief recap over what we've been doing with the lower grades: Kindergarten has been singing ghost sounds to get into their singing voices (OOOoooooooo). We also  have been singing songs like 5 Little Pumpkins, All the Leaves are Falling Down, and Shake Dem Halloween Bones to explore pitch (high and low sounds). 1st Grade has been exploring different sounds by adding instruments to the song "Skin and Bones" and book "The Little Old Lady that Was Not Afraid of Anything". Some classes also got to sing and move to Shake Den Halloween Bones (it's a blast). 2nd Grade has been learning about melody and accompaniment with "Pumpkin Stew". Students sang the song, added their own ingredients, and we also added other instrument parts using ostinatos, short repeating patterns. 3rd Grade is still working on recorder, but got to revisit some of the stories from 1st grade using thei...

By now, most of your students have received your Recorder Karate packet. We are implementing this program as a student paced addendum to the regular recorder curriculum. Although all students are encouraged to get their black belts, each child can determine their personal goal. Students will be allowed to try out for belts regularly in class and some time will be spent on each song. However, students are expected to do most of their practice on their own time. To facilitate home practice, below is a link to the Recorder Karate Dojo. Here you will find an interactive fingering chart, play-a-long recordings, and tips. It is strongly encouraged that students wanting to achieve higher level belts use these resources. We are using Recorder Karate 1 and our password is "Rubric". https://www.musick8.com/rkdojo/rkdojo.php