Three favorite folk dances

Three favorite folk dances

With the start of the new year, many of us are thinking about being more healthy and getting more exercise. As music teachers, we are very lucky that we aren't sitting behind a desk all day and can get up and dance with our students! Below are three of my all-time favorite folk dances, as well as three of my favorite folk dance resources. These dances are GREAT for getting exercise, working with a partner, understanding dance formations, keeping in time with music, and so much more!

"Highway No. 1" by the Shenanigans

This is one of my absolute favorites! You can buy the track on iTunes here, and the directions are within the song itself. Students simply listen, pretend to drive a car around the room, and make stops on Highway No. 1 (which is a highway that goes around the perimeter of Australia.) At each stop, students do motions, like "walk, walk, run, run, run," or "step, together, wiggle." Students really love this dance! I've used it at informances, at performances, and in class. The album also has a backing track which has space for students to make up their own motions! Here is a picture of my first graders from two years ago doing the dance:

I Love a Rainy Night

I found this dance in Sanna Longden's "More Folk Dance Music for Kids and Teachers," which is now posted for free on her website. The dance is done with the song of the same name by Eddie Rabbitt. The first time I did this with my 5th graders, I was floored by how much they loved it! Many of them knew the song, even though it's from 1975, and they loved singing along as they danced!

After a discussion about why we did the dance, my 5th graders decided we should try it with "Feliz Navidad." My favorite moment was when a kid yelled out, "It'll work if it's in 4/4!" (Yay for big ideas!) Although the tempo is a bit faster, it totally worked, so I had them perform it at our school-wide singalong!

'T Smidje

I learned this dance a few years back from my good friend Andrew Ellingsen. Andrew is a master at sequencing folk dances; if you ever get a chance to have him present for your district or chapter, you should! Here is a video of the dance; you can purchase the music here:

For detailed directions for the dance as well as the song's meaning, check out David Row's fabulous post here.

And now for my three favorite folk dance resources! I call "Teaching Movement and Dance" the "Folk Dance Bible." Click on it below to see it on West Music:

You can purchase the CD's for the dances separately. It's initially an expensive purchase, BUT then you have them for years to come! Totally worth it!

Chimes of Dunkirk is another excellent purchase (as well as any book in the New England Dancing Masters series). The set includes the book with directions for several dances, as well as the accompanying CD:

Sanna Longden's CD's and dances are great...and as stated above, she now has all of the directions for  her dances for free on her website! Click on "products" to purchase her CD's, and "teacher guides" to read the free directions.

Looking for more folk dance ideas? My Facebook group, Mrs. Miracle's Chat Room, discusses our folk dance favorites every Friday! For even more folk dance ideas, check out my Pinterest board below:



What are your favorite folk dances? Feel free to comment below, and happy dancing!
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Choosing repertoire for your choir

Choosing repertoire for your choir

This past week, I sat down to choose my choir's repertoire for the spring. I got to thinking about the variety I wanted for the program, and what makes a great selection, so I decided to write with some thoughts that might help you as you choose your choir's repertoire!

A little background: as I wrote about in this post, I have a choir of about 80 or so students in third, fourth, and fifth grade. I see them once a week, for 35 minutes, and we have two concerts at school each year, as well as community events as those arise.

I was a trumpet player all through school, and before my Kodaly training, I literally was in one semester of choir. Ever. So it has taken me quite a while to feel comfortable selecting repertoire, as well as directing the choir! I've gone to several choral sessions throughout the years at conferences, but am definitely not claiming to be a choral expert! Here are some thoughts as you choose choral repertoire:

Is it quality?

As Zoltan Kodaly once said, "Only the best is good enough for a child." I think about this a lot as I choose repertoire. I don't want to choose anything that's cute for the sake of cuteness; I want to choose music that is beautiful, that is timeless, that will touch a child's soul.

Is it accessible?

Because I only see my choir once a week for thirty-five minutes, I have to choose music that will be accessible in that amount of time. You won't see me choosing many pieces in parallel thirds for that reason! I love to select unison pieces (which can be more difficult than you'd think, as the students really have to have a unified sound), rounds and canons, partner songs, and 2- and 3-part pieces which have melodies and countermelodies that are easy to layer. For example, "Minka," which I mentioned in this post about Christmas selections, has a melody and a countermelody, and "Kookaburra" by Malvar-Keylock and Friedersdorf has three parts which are super easy to layer on top of each other.

Do I love the piano accompaniment?

I often will sit down at the piano and play through the piano part (as best as I can). If I love the piano part, chances are, it's a great selection for the choir!

Can students extend their musical learning through the song?

My third graders, at this point in the year, only know the do pentatonic scale. This doesn't mean that I only choose music that is in do pentatonic, as I do sometimes introduce my choir members to solfa and rhythms that their peers not in choir haven't learned yet. But I am mindful as I choose the pieces that there are extractable patterns that I could use to help extend their understanding of rhythmic and melodic concepts. Parts of "Old King Cole" by Perry and Perry, for example, could be used to teach/ practice low sol and the extended do pentatonic scale. "Shake the Papaya down," arranged by Dwyer and Waller, could be used to practice syncopa.

Can students read the song?

Along those lines, are there parts of the song that students could sight read? Because of the minimized time I have with my choir, I don't have them hold octavos for every single song, but I do like to have at least a couple songs where students have the music in their hands, to sight read, to practice melodic and rhythmic concepts, to learn musical terms such as crescendo and fermata, and to learn how to track their part.

Am I choosing a variety of songs?

Have you ever sat in a choir concert in which students sang beautifully, but everything sounded the same? I have, a few times! For this reason, I try to be very mindful that I'm choosing music with a lot of variety: at different tempi, in different languages, and in different styles. Recently, I sat down and created a template to use whenever I'm choosing repertoire, which you can download for free here:

The idea is that you can put a "X" under the corresponding columns, and then make sure that there X's in many different boxes across the template. As I was filling mine out, I realized that I had a LOT of folk songs...which is great, but it's also good for students to sing composed songs, so I was able to choose a couple of composed pieces to balance out my program list.

This past spring, I posted in the Kodaly Educators Facebook group, asking people to list their favorite octavos. I typed the information into a Google Doc and then asked them for more input; here it is in case you need some ideas! Thanks so much to the group for the ideas; make sure to join the group, if you haven't already, as it is a very helpful group!

What are your guidelines for choosing repertoire? Feel free to comment below. Happy singing, and happy teaching!