It's All About The Music-SFSKIDS

I sometimes wonder if we realize the role music plays in our everyday lives; especially for children.  It seems as if they are wired to notice a rhythm, a beat, in everything.  On April 29, 2014 Larry Ferlazzo, educator, author and blogger at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... featured the updated website of the San Francisco Symphony for children, SFSKIDS.  

At the home page for SFSKIDS a navigation bar offers users the following choices:

• Discover
• Listen
• Play
• Perform
• Conduct and
• Compose.

A search box is located at the far right of this list.  Beneath this is a welcome paragraph with an invitation to start.

Deciding to start before exploring the navigation bar, I clicked Let's Start!  You arrive at the Discover Music, Sea of Knowledge page.  In the lower right-hand corner you have the choice to visit the previous location, advance to the next location or enter the Sea of Knowledge.  Off to the Sea of Knowledge it is!

Here you learn about instruments, music and composers.  (This is the same page you can access by clicking on the Discover button at the top.) Your next window showcases three large bubbles with smaller bubbles attached.  The larger bubbles contain the most information (knowledge); the smaller bubbles show the links between the larger bubbles.  Once you select a larger bubble, more bubbles and links appear as shown in the images below.  I started with instruments.

The language used is easily understood but the depth, bubbles leading to other bubbles, is fantastic.  During your exploration of the Sea of Knowledge you can hear, softly in the backward, the roll of waves.  There are many opportunities to listen to music during the journey.

When you get to an actual picture of an instrument a short example of it being played begins.  You can zoom in on parts of each instrument.  If you select music or composers you can access a timeline.  Choosing a specific period will give you certain musical pieces.  A short history is given for each. 

Moving to Listen, you hear the sound of a babbling brook at the Music Streams page.  You can make a choice from the list of the music library or by category.  The categories are music by themes and music by composers.  For individual works you are given a time length, the ability to see and hear more on the theme and from that composer.  You can also return to the music library.

Under the Play category, Musical Skies, you have two games, Star Catcher and Mood Journey.  If you like a musical piece, click on it again.  You can use that music to play either of the games.  In the former you try to catch stars according to the beat of the music (your cursor is a conductor rabbit.) In the later words appear on the screen which may or may not reflect your mood as you listen to the music.  Click on any which are true for you.

Tweeting birds invite you to the Music Garden at the Perform page.  From a list of thirteen you pick an instrument. In play the scale a new window opens with a scale.  You click on the individual notes.  You are instructed how to play the instrument in feel the instrument.  With a combination of using your mouse and pressing number keys you pretend to play.  (It's really nifty how they do this.)

With sounds of an orchestra warming up, you are ready to Conduct at the Symphony Hall page.  After clicking on Let's Start! you are once again at the music library ready to learn.  You are first given a right hand beat pattern and a left hand gesture lesson.  Then you can follow or lead the conducting of a piece of music.  (This is great practice for hand/eye coordination and using the computer keyboard.)  Points are given for correctly following the beat.

Selecting the Compose tab takes you to Music Mountain.  When you click on Let's Start! for the first time, they advise you to do the Music Lessons first.  Then you can move on to Starting Tunes, Quick Start and Building a Staff.  The lessons taken in order are:

• The Basics
• Pitches
• Notes
• Rests
• Rhythm
• Tempo
• Instrumentation
• Dynamics
• More Dynamics and
• More Symbols.

Here is what the first page looks like.  Simple one sentence instructions pop up on the window guiding the user.  You are actually allowed to drag notes to the scale to create your own composition.  Then you have the ability to change options (music options) such as instrument, tempo and time signature.  Even at this early point you can share your newly created music giving it a name and your name as composer.  A URL link is supplied.  Here is the link to my first composition.  If you click on the down arrow by more additional choices appear.

I feel so fortunate that I discovered this website through a tweet appearing in my feed from Larry Ferlazzo.  The designers and developers of these pages did a marvelous job of providing step-by-step instructions, offering help when necessary and making the learning of all things music interesting and fun.  I highly recommend use of this website, SFSKIDS.

Timeless Tune

You don't have to be a member of a band, orchestra or choir to have music be a part of your life.  Music surrounds us everyday; there are rhythms in our world whether we live in a city or the country.  Music marks moments in our lives; hearing a song can recall a time period or exact event.  Music can match or change a mood.

Some melodies are catchy enough, they may stick with us for days or even weeks.  During his time as musical director for Sesame Street, Joe Raposo wrote the words and music for a song which has and will continue to endure for decades and decades to come, Sing.  Sing is a tune known by people all around the world, sung in many languages thanks to Joe Raposo.  It has now been pictured with a story by author/illustrator, Tom Lichtenheld, Sing (Christy Ottaviano Books, Henry Holt And Company).

As if the lyrics and melody are not cheerful enough, Tom Lichtenheld illuminates them with his sunny complimentary colors beginning with the captivating cover, a small purple bird on the golden background, head and beak raised in song.  Beneath the jacket the darker purple from the bird clothes the cover, the bird and notes embossed in a darker shade.  Opening and closing endpapers (with jacket flaps aligned) illustrate the closing notes in a wave with the words beneath.

The two pages showcasing the title feature a landscape with a line of trees, a close-up of a single leafy branch with three charming little birds, one a darker hue of the sky, another a rusty brown and the third, the purple bird.  With a turn of page the first sings a single note of blue and flies from the nest.  On the following two pages the second sings his own note and takes wing.  But on the third set of two pages, no note comes from the purple bird, not a single sound despite his trying.

With each attempt he gives it his all, to no avail.  He hangs his head in sadness, alone in the nest.  But wait...a boy with a guitar comes strolling along, sitting on a rock under the tree branch.  The words and notes of Sing float upward as he strums the strings and gives voice to the song.

The notes focus on a straight path, building beneath the nest.  With each line of the tune, there are more and more, elevating the bird in the nest.  As the lyrics of the song speak of goodness and happiness, the magic found in music happens.


Tom Lichtenheld using ink, watercolor, pastels and colored pencil has created a story which highlights the soul of the song.  His pictures are paced perfectly with the words.  In the characters of the three birds and boy with his guitar, the exhilaration, their complete zest for singing is evident in their features.  You can't help but feel laughter bubbling up and singing happily along with them.

Liberal use of white space directs the reader's eye to the soft washes around the tree branch first, then to the boy singing.  It also serves to shift emphasis to the notes.  When the purple bird flies into the sky dotted with soft clouds, the colors reflect those on the title page, until he joins his nest mates.  A colorful joy drifts into the white, then the soft blue; three birds on a wire, singing from their hearts.  Sing a song!


It is impossible to read Sing lyrics and music by Joe Raposo, story in pictures by Tom Lichtenheld without humming along or bursting into song.  You will feel your heart fill with joy as the little purple bird finds his voice.  The words in English and Spanish appear at the end.  In any language it's beautiful.  The final two pages contain a note from Nick Raposo, Joe's son, a picture of the original handwritten lyrics and chords by Joe Raposa, and dedications from Nick Raposo and Tom Lichtenheld which are uplifting themselves.

Here is a link to the publisher website for a peek at more illustrations.  Tom Lichtenheld provides an activity guide linked here.  This wonderful essay appeared at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast nearly a month ago with Tom Lichtenheld speaking about his process in creating the story for this song.  It's loaded with artwork.

And I've included several videos.  If there is any tune I want rolling around in my mind it is this one.

Create A Beat Inside The Box

Express your musicality, pump it up and chill!

Beginning in August 2009 and continuing with a new version in March of this year, this phrase greets users of the Incredibox website. With some 215,976 likes on their Facebook page, this application for creating a vocal beatbox band is gaining in popularity.  Free to use, without registration, it's as simple as 1, 2, 3 to make a tune.

Once the sample has played and the application has loaded users are shown a screen with a single musician on the left hand side. (The entire composition of multiple musicians will be in black and white.) Beneath him are a series of options represented by icons: effects, beats, melodies, chorus and voices.  Begin by dragging one of the icons up to the center of the musician.

With the icon in place the musician is quickly attired to reflect the type of sound selected and another musician is added.  The sound will loop continuously unless one of the icons that appears on their chest, when moused over, is clicked.  They represent, left to right, silence, listening to only that sound or deletion. 

Above the screen in the left hand corner, once musicians are placed, are two icons representing: remove all sounds or record your own composition.  In the upper right hand corner users can switch from manual to shuffle mode or adjust settings.  Beneath those icons are a series of three bonus compositions that can be unlocked.

Above this working screen by clicking on the YouTube symbol viewers are taken to the official Incredibox V2 Beta preview.  Links to StumbleUpon, reddit, Twitter, Google+ or bookmark and share are on the top right. There are more than 300 selections for sharing including Facebook, email, Gmail, LinkedIn and printing.

The one problem in IE and Google Chrome is the view for the share selections appears beneath the composition screen making it nearly impossible to pick.  But in IE the bookmark and share option allows the user to search for the service in which they wish to place their beatbox vocal band creation.  And even through the selections are behind the composition screen I was able to mouse down through them over the composition screen.

This is a visual of a finished composition.  Each tine I tried to save a site generated tune the link provided goes to the site instead of my composition.  But success in saving a recorded song was better.

If you decide to record your own composition drag one of the icons to the first musician.  You must record for ten loops adding musicians as you desire.  When done click the stop record red dot.  The completed recording can be previewed or shared. 

When sharing you are asked to give your name, name of the song and a dedication.  You are given a URL link to copy.  It can be sent via email, posted to Facebook and soon an embed code will be an option.

Outside of the fun of creating different combinations of musical sounds this might be useful in teaching students how to drag and drop, delete and other simple operations with their mouse.