BBoobb JJaacckkssoonnPlays for Kids!

Melody, Rhythm and Motion

Plus a little History and a lot of Fun! Interactive American Music for Kids

Contact Bob at yehaabob@yahoo.com

BOB JACKSON PLAYS PIANO: MELODY, RHYTHM AND MOTION

What is American music? There is no simple answer to the question because people from around the world have come to live in the United States. Our music embraces a wide variety of styles and traditions from different cultures. These styles and traditions have mixed to create kinds of music that are distinctively American such as jazz, blues, Broadway show tunes, and rock and roll. This music in turn has become popular around the world. Music is an art form that everyone loves and enjoys. Music is what people sing and play on instruments like the piano. Listen for it and you will find music every where. Of course, you hear it on the radio or on an iPod, but music is also for parades, weddings, dances and on the football field when the band plays at half time. You find music in churches and temples and other holy places. Soldiers used to go to war marching to music!

Music can express how we feel, sometimes even better than words can. A song can make you want to dance, and a sad song can even make you want to cry. Different pieces of music can give us very different feelings. A big band playing “The Star Spangled Banner” can make you feel proud, a fast song can make you want to dance, and

a sad song can even make you want to cry. Different pieces of music can give us very different feelings.

Songs are called vocal music because you use your voice to sing them. The music

you play on an instrument like the piano is called instrumental music. Two of the most popular musical instruments are the piano and the guitar. People all over the world love to sing and play music. Here in the United Sates we have many different kinds of people, and we have many different kinds of music. Folk music, classical, jazz, religious music, country music, rock and roll and popular tunes are just some of the kinds of music we have here in America. Folk songs have been passed down from parents to their children throughout the years. Popular music can also become Folk music. Folk songs are often about many of the things we do every day. They help make doing these things more enjoyable. ABOUT BOB’S SHOW: When you hear someone singing, they usually sing the melody. If you listen closely, you will hear the beat of the music. That is the rhythm. You might feel like tapping your toe, or clapping or dancing. Music sets you in motion! Let’s

learn a little more about each of these parts of music. MELODY When you sing a song, the part that you are singing is called the melody. The melody is the tune that you sing, along with the words that you say. Some melodies stay in your head long after you heard them performed. RHYTHM Rhythm is what you play on drums, or clap with your hands, or tap with your toes while a song is playing. When people skip rope, they often chant a rhyme and clap. This tells you when to skip. The rhythm to a song tells you when to sing. You can clap or snap your fingers or play drums to any song. All music has rhythm. MOTION As long as people have heard music, it seems, they have wanted to move to it. And they have wanted to move in a way that expressed their feelings or what they are thinking. Dance is moving your body in time to the rhythm of the music.

Some people dance to tell a story. Some people dance in order to meet each other; a way to say ‘Hi’.

People will dance just because they are happy!

BOB JACKSON has been playing piano since he was a kid. He has a habit of life long learning and has developed many shows over the years. He is currently seen in Orlando at Walt Disney World and has fans around the globe.

BIG NAMES IN MUSIC

People who write music are called composers. One of the greatest composers of all time was named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. That’s a lot to say so most people just call him Mozart. Mozart lived in Europe over two hundred years ago, just about the time our country began. Mozart started playing and writing music when he was very, very young, He composed music on the piano when he was only five years old! One of the songs Mozart loved to play is a song we still sing today, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.

Mozart wrote what is called classical music. One kind of classical music he wrote is called a symphony. A symphony is a long piece of music played by a large group of musicians called an orchestra. Mozart is also famous for his operas. An opera is a kid of play where people sing instead of talk. One of Mozart’s operas is called The Magic Flute. It’s about a flute that makes such beautiful music it can work magic on those who hear it. Many feel that Mozart’s music is like that—it is so beautiful that it works magic.

The Great Scott Joplin was one of the first African-American composers to be recognized for his music.

He was born in Texas in 1868, just after the Civil War and brought up in a musical family. His father was a railroad worker who had been a slave. Against his father’s wishes, Joplin left home and traveled to St Louis to become a musician. There he heard the black pianists who were beginning to play ragtime music, and took it up himself. Joplin became the most famous composer of ragtime music. He led an orchestra at the great Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. His Maple Leaf Rag become an immediate sensation around the country and it is still one of his most popular pieces. Another piece, The Entertainer became popular all over again several years ago when it was used as the theme of the movie “The Sting”. When you listen to Scott Joplin’s ragtime, hear how the ragged uneven melodies fit in with the rhythmic steady beat in interesting ways. Ragtime was very popular in its day and was often used as dance music. It later contributed to the development of jazz, on e of America’s greatest forms of music.

Jazz is a kind of music that was born in America It comes from the chants and rhythms that black people brought from Africa and mixed with the music that they found here. Jazz was born in New Orleans which is in the southern part of the United States near the mouth of the Mississippi River. One of the most popular song in New Orleans, even today is one of the favorite songs of jazz; “When the Saints Go Marching In” One of the people who made jazz famous was a man named Louis Armstrong.

His friends called him “Satchmo”. “Satchmo” became so famous that he played his music all across America. He played so well that the others in the band would stop playing, or play very quietly, just to listen to him alone. This is called playing a solo (solo means alone), and he was the first to play solos in jazz. He had such a warm smile that people enjoyed just watching him sing and play. He became very famous, and appeared in movies and on television. He went around the world playing jazz and made friends for America and its music everywhere.

DO YOU KNOW…

THESE FACTS? FOLK DANCING Folk dancing is done to folk music.

There are different

kinds of folk dances,

and most of them go back many years.

BALLET Ballet is a way of telling a story by dancing. It is performed on a stage in front of an audience. Ballet is often danced to classical music that is played by an orchestra.

TAP DANCING Tap dancing came from a mixture of dancing from different places including Ireland and Africa.

CRESCENDO or BUILDING UP In music is done in steps by getting louder, going faster or slower, going higher, using more instruments, or changing keys. Crescendo is helped by high notes i.e. Star Spangled Banner, “land of the FREE” then a peaceful finish, “home of the brave”.

RHYTHM The beat of the music makes you want to to clap your hands or dance —The beat is part of the rhythm of a song. The words you speak have rhythm too. Here are some words with rhythm: two beats-

MA-gic, MA-gic, three beats- WON-der-ful WON-der-ful four beats (and fun to say) –

MISSissippi MINNesota Alabama INdiana

BOOGIE-WOOGIE is a style of piano-based blues that became very popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, The first boogie woogie hit was "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" by Pinetop Smith. Pinetop's record was the first boogie-woogie recording to be a commercial hit, and helped establish boogie-woogie as the name of the style. Another example of pure boogie-woogie, "Honky Tonk Train Blues" by Meade Lux Lewis. The performance emulates a railroad trip.

Bumble Bee Boogie, written by Jack Fina, 1946, is based on Rimskey Korsakov’s Flight Of The Bumble Bee, Fan orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899–1900.