The Bass Hall Children's Concert

Jill Trinka collaborated with some schools in the Fort Worth, TX, area to create a concert that would use folk songs and folk instruments to engage children in exercising their singing, counting, aural, and literacy/reading skills. The Bass Hall Children's Concert was recorded in October 2008, with first-grade children at the Bass Performance Hall. The instruments introduced are the folk guitar, autoharp, five-string banjo and Appalachian lap dulcimer. Through these instruments and singing folk songs, the children were able to develop music skills such as vocal glissandi, matching pitch, in-tune singing, steady beat, listening, and inner hearing (audiating). Other skills expanded on are text improvisation, the performance of specified movements and actions during listening, using physical activity to show form, strumming beat, and comparing sounds. Jill engages the children's critical thinking and logic skills with questions about the folk instruments. Throughout the concert, the children are asked to count (strings, pegs, "shoos," hops, numbers, and animals) and read.
Selections read in this recording are Over in the Meadow (item 841998) and The Crabfish (item 804148).
This concert DVD is a valuable classroom resource can be utilized in many ways: Incorporate it into a music lesson about American folk instruments; Use to demonstrate how musicians can play the strings on these folk instruments; Use to assist young children in their ability to count strings (1-36), objects (1-10), actions (2-4), and sounds (1-4); Use as a review of songs students have learned; Use as material for a music substitute; Use for enjoyment of the music!
Contents:
1. Greeting and Vocal Warm-Up
2. "Shoo Fly" and the Guitar
3. "John, the Rabbit"
4. The Autoharp and "Over in the Meadow"
5. Stretch and Review
6. "There Was a Man and He Was Mad"
7. The Banjo and "Jim Along, Josie"
8. "The Crabfish"
9. The Dulcimer and "Go, Tell Aunt Rhody"
10. "Goodbye"