Showing posts with label Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resources. Show all posts

Sunday, June 30, 2013

New & Noteworthy - July 2013

Check out what's New & Noteworthy is the July edition of our newsletter!

New & Noteworthy - July 2013

Saturday, June 1, 2013

New & Noteworthy - June 2013

Check out all the news in our June 2013 newsletter.

New & Noteworthy June 2013

And take a look at the sheet music at our website:

www.musicandmorepa.com

Sunday, May 5, 2013

New & Noteworthy - May 2013

Check out what's new and fun with Music and More in May. Also some great resources, and a little music for you to check out. Don't forget to visit our website too.

May Newsletter

Music & More Website

Friday, March 1, 2013

New & Noteworthy - March 2013

Check out what's new with Music & More by checking out the latest version of our newsletter.

Monday, November 5, 2012

New & Noteworthy - November 2012

Copy and paste the link to view this month's New & Noteworthy newsletter from Music & More.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5wL9Km3SDUqNGNjOUtLRm03d0E

Monday, October 22, 2012

Benefits of Drumming for Speech Delayed Students

Drumming has been used as a mode of communication in some African cultures for years, as drums can be used to create different tones, syllables and stresses that imitate speech. For speech delayed students, drumming can also be an effective means for developing stronger speech skills.

Speech delayed students can use drumming to express themselves non-verbally, by creating different sounds on the drum. Through improvisation, students play a pattern on the drum, and then imitate the pattern vocally. With the aid of drumming, students find a natural rhythm that helps them translate the drumming patterns into speech pattern, which they can repeat.

Because drumming leads students into a regular rhythm, this helps with breath control and provides a predictable framework, which reduces anxiety. Students can safely create a pattern on the drum, and through the process of imitation, children feel in control and encouraged in their ability to translate their rhythm patterns into speech patterns.

Neurologically, drumming requires the use of the entire brain. Drumming forges a strong connection between the parts of the brain that include speech, thus helping to make those parts of the brain stronger. Studies show that participation in music can improve the capacity for verbal memory, in both stroke patients and speech delayed students.

Best of all, drumming is fun and lifts the spirits.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

New & Noteworthy from Music & More - October 2012

Copy and paste the below link into your browser to view this month's New & Noteworthy Newsletter from Music & More!

Happy Fall!

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5wL9Km3SDUqVHdDVjV3VVJYems

Thursday, July 19, 2012

All About Yoga

With the addition of our new instructor, Virginia McGrath, Music & More is offering new programs for Circle Dancing and Yoga for Seniors. What is yoga for seniors? Read on to learn the answer!

Hatha Yoga (which means sun and moon) is an ancient practice of flexion and extension of the body as a flow of dancelike movements that are connected together to stimulate the flow of energy within the spine. These exercises assist in bringing balance to the body of the person and returning to a place of peace and presence to the mind and spirit. Chigong, meditation, breathwork, mindfulness walking and meridian stretches are also combined to introduce a variety of methods that increase flexibility, decrease stress and anxiety and reduce chronic aches and pains. Yoga for seniors is designed to be low impact, yet enough of a challenge to encourage an awakened shift of awareness. Yoga for seniors can be done seated in a chair and can be modified to personal comfort and ability.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Benefits of Circle Dancing

What is circle dancing? Circle Dancing developed during the 1970s from traditional folk dance from around the world. There is a network of groups in the UK, where participants enjoy dancing together and can celebrate feelings of community and life events. The wide range of music allows the exploration of the social and cultural aspects of connecting lives. Making use of rhythm, music, touch and movement, allows the individual the opportunity to connect with, and relate to others. Research indicates that it contributes positively to the inner well-being of each person who takes part.

Benefits include:

 Enjoyment in participation
 Movement and mobility; essential and required exercise
 Emotional and inner well-being, the circle and the type of music
 Reminiscence, Life History, and a tool to link to develop and refresh other activities especially reminiscence
 Relationships; contact/friendship encouraged/stimulated between users. Can provide a shared activity in a diverse group of individuals
 An activity that does not depend on conversation - for users less able to participate in discussion
 An activity which can be offered to people of all ages
 Couples work and promotes their relationship sustaining
 Can be used for engaging relatives/families in activities
 Culture; the music is multi-cultural
 Inclusive; both seated and standing dances in a session can involve mixed physical ability users to share an activity


Source: http://www.circledanceindementia.com/

How Brain Training Can Prepare Your Child for Back to School

While genetics, inadequate instruction and low motivations can contribute to learning and reading difficulties, science confirms that by far, the most common root cause of learning struggles is underlying cognitive skill weakness.

“Cognitive skills are the underlying tools that enable kids to successfully focus, think, prioritize, plan, understand, visualize, remember and create useful associations and solve problems,” says Jim Goryeb, Director of LearningRx.

A child’s cognitive skill set is made up of auditory processing, visual processing, short and long-term memory, comprehension, logic and reasoning, and attention skills. Each can also be divided into identifiable sub-skills, such as sustain attention (staying on task), selective attention (ignoring distractions) and divided attention (handling more than one task at a time). “Each skill and sub-skill play a specific and necessary role and must work in concert before one can learn effectively.”

Parents and teachers can watch for these traits that children with weak cognitive skills display:

- Difficulty paying attention
- Poor test scores, grades or reading comprehension
- Poor memory
- Difficulty organizing activity
- Poor study and work habits
- Taking a long time to complete tasks
- Disinterest (or dislike) in school

A ten-year study by the National Institute of Health found that 88% of learning-to-read difficulties resulted from weak phonemic awareness, the ability to blend, segment and analyze sounds.

A professional cognitive skills test is the only way to pinpoint the exact cause of learning problems. These tests may help further identify a child’s weak cognitive skills and better prepare them for the school year.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Benefits of Drama Therapy

What is drama? It is about reading and portraying emotions through voice and body language. It is about developing a relationship with fellow actors onstage. It is about interpreting a script and reacting to a situation. These are the same skills we use in our everyday interpersonal interactions. Improv games and the dramatic arts are effective in developing important social and life skills.

These benefits include:

 Self-confidence not only in performing, but in interaction
 Improved self-esteem; pride in their accomplishments
 Improved recognition of emotions in others
 Improved identification and labeling of own emotions
 New leisure time activity in a group where they can be successful
 New awareness of volume levels and beginning modulation of level
 New skills for functioning as part of a group
 New skills for following directions
 Improved ability to interact with peers
 Increased self-confidence through success

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Benefits of Reading Music

There is often a debate regarding the value of learning note reading versus simply playing by ear. Here is why learning to read the notes on the page is so important.

Music enhances the process of learning. The systems they nourish, which include our integrated sensory, attention, cognitive, emotional and motor capacities, are shown to be the driving forces behind all other learning. Taking this one step further, learning to read the notes on a page is an integral part of the benefits that participating in music provides.



Faster Learning: Students who learn to read music also learn other subjects at a faster rate as opposed to students who do not study musical notation.

Bigger Brains: Studies show that people who have learned to read music have larger brains.

Later Career Success: A CA study found that 75% of Silicon Valley CEO’s had instrumental music education as a child, which included learning to read music.

Stay in School: A Chicago study showed that high school students who had a musical education were less likely to drop out of school. Students who learn to read music are more likely to complete school.

Autism, ADHD and Brain Trauma: Learning music and music therapy already are effective for improving autism, ADHD and brain trauma. Learning to read music can be a very important source of successes, increasing rates of learning and improving behavior.

Benefits of Dance

Dance is a powerful ally for developing many of the attributes of a growing child. Dance helps children mature physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively. The physical benefits of dance are widely accepted, but dance also has emotional, social and cognitive benefits.


Physical Development: Dance involves a greater range of motion, coordination, strength and endurance than most other physical activities. This is accomplished through movement patterns that teach coordination and kinesthetic memory. Dancing utilizes the entire body and is an excellent form of exercise for total body fitness. Young children are naturally active, but dance offers an avenue to expand movement possibilities and skills.

Emotional Maturity: Dance promotes psychological health and maturity. Children enjoy the opportunity to express their emotions and become aware of themselves and others through creative movement. A pre-school child enters a dance class or classroom with a history of emotional experiences. Movement within a class offers a structured outlet for physical release while gaining awareness and appreciation of oneself and others.

Social Awareness: Dance fosters social encounter, interaction, and cooperation. Children learn to communicate ideas to others through the real and immediate mode of body movement. Children quickly learn to work within a group dynamic. As the ongoing and sometimes challenging process of cooperation evolves, children learn to understand themselves in relation to others.

Cognitive Development: Young children will create movement spontaneously when presented with movement ideas or problems that can be solved with a movement response. Movement provides the cognitive loop between the idea, problem, or intent and the outcome or solution. This teaches an infant, child and, ultimately, adult to function in and understand the world.



Adapted from www.ndeo.org

Benefits of Theater

Research reveals the positive impact of drama and theater on a student’s physical, emotional, social and cognitive development.

Self Confidence: Taking risks in workshops and performing for an audience teach students to trust their ideas and abilities. The confidence gained in drama applies to school, career and life.
Imagination: Making creative choices, thinking of new ideas and interpreting familiar material in new ways are essential to theater and developing a creative mind.
Empathy: Acting roles from different situations, time periods and cultures promotes compassion and tolerance for others’ feelings and viewpoints.
Cooperation/Collaboration: Theater combines the creative ideas and abilities of its participants. This process includes discussing, negotiating, rehearsing and performing together, all of which are important and applicable life skills.
Concentration: Playing, practicing and performing develop a sustained focus of mind, body and voice, which also helps in other school subjects and life.
Communication Skills: Theater enhances verbal and nonverbal communication. It improves voice projection, articulation of words, and fluency with language. It also encourages listening skills.
Problem Solving: Students learn how to communicate the who, what, where and why to the audience. Improvisation fosters quick-thinking solutions, which leads to greater adaptability in life.
Fun: Theater brings play, humor and laughter to learning, which improves motivation and reduces stress.
Emotional Outlet: Pretend play and theater games allow students to express a range of emotions. Aggression and tension can be released in a safe, controlled environment, reducing antisocial behaviors.
Relaxation: Many theater activities reduce stress by releasing mental, physical and emotional tension.
Self – Discipline: The process of moving from ideas to actions to performances teaches the value of practice and perseverance. Theater games and creative movement improve self-control.
Trust: The social interaction and risk taking in theater develop trust in self, others and the process.
Physical Fitness: Movement in theater improves flexibility, coordination, balance and control.
Memory: Rehearsing and performing words, movements and cues strengthen the memory like a muscle.



Copyright 2005 J. Basom (Adapted)

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Find Us on Facebook!

We are slowly but surely working on our Facebook page. Like us on Facebook for updates, great music information and more!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Music-More/369138973120093

Friday, June 29, 2012

Benefits of Music Therapy

Music therapy uses music to promote positive changes in the wellbeing of an individual. These positive changes may be changes in physical development, social development, emotional or spiritual wellbeing or cognitive abilities.

Children with developmental and learning difficulties, children and adults with autism or special needs as well as the elderly and dementia sufferers have all been shown to benefit from music therapy.


 Music is universal and connects across language barriers. Most people can respond to music in some way regardless of illness or disability.

 Music has the natural ability to generate an emotional response in the listener. It has a calming and relaxing affect of the body. Music is known to reduce stress, which in turn can lower blood pressure, improve respiration, reduce heart rate, and reduce tension in muscles.

 Music is processed in both halves of the brain and this stimulation has been shown to help in development of language and speech functions. It promotes socialization and development of communication, self expression and motor skills. Children and adults with autism have been found to respond very positively to music and many of them display high levels of musical skill.

 Music encourages verbal as well as non verbal communication and promotes social interaction and relatedness. It's a valuable outlet for self expression and creativity. Music has also been successfully used in pain management by providing a distraction from the painful stimulus as well as for relaxation and stress alleviation.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Why Teach Music?

Music is a Science – It is exact, specific and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor’s full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time.

Music is Mathematical – It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper.

Music is a Foreign Language – Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French; and the notation is certainly not English, but a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.

Music is History – Music usually reflects the environments and times of its creation, often even the country and/or racial feeling.

Music is Physical Education – It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lips, cheek, and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic, back, stomach and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

Music is all these things, but most of all, music is Art – It allows a human being to take all these dry technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion. That is one thing that science cannot duplicate; humanism, feeling, emotion, call it what you will.

That is why we teach music! Not because we expect you to major in music. Not because we expect you to play or sing all your life. Not so you can relax, not so you can have fun, BUT – so you will be human.
So you will recognize beauty.
So you will be sensitive.
So you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world.
So you will have something to cling to.
So you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, and more good – in short, more life.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Revelations in Doylestown

You may have noticed that Music & More is having a lot of workshops and sessions at Revelations, located in Doylestown. Not only is Revelations generous enough to host our great music workshops, but they have their own great services as well.

At Revelations, "ignite the spark within" if you are looking for counseling, hypno-therapy, alternative therapy, classes and more. You can get more information by visiting in person, calling or visiting their website:

Revelations
573 N. Main Street
Doylestown, PA 18901
215-622-3290
www.revelationsru.com


These Music & More workshops will be held at Revelations this summer:

- Making Music & More for Mommy & Me
- Making Music & More for Theater Enthusiasts
- Making Music & More for GLEE Enthusiasts



Thursday, April 19, 2012

Benefits of Theater Improv

Drama gives us the opportunity to hone our Improvisation skills. Improvisation is the spontaneous response to new and unexpected situations. Life is improvisation. We respond in new ways when spontaneous and unexpected things occur to us.

Some of the benefits of learning Theater Improv are:

• Increased Confidence
• Improved Public Speaking Skills
• Enhanced Acting Abilities
• Gained Comfort in Social Settings
• Refined Brainstorming Abilities
• Improved Listening and Observation Skills
• Enhanced Creative-Thinking Abilities
• Improved Decision-Making Skills
• Team Development Skills