Growing a Garden to Music

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$10.00
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In this video, the children decide to act out the emergence of plants from the earth. They gather under a brown blanket meant to represent the dirt in a garden and listen for the music to guide them to grow. “Soon, the music will tell your body what to do, and it might tell your voice what to do as well. Just listen,” their teacher explains. The children are patient and listen to the music. As the music crescendos Lara begins to “grow” but stops when she notices her friends are not. They rise from the “ground” together and use their bodies to represent the plants. The children are then invited to use instruments to represent more garden sounds. While two children, Lara and Giselle, use instruments, the others take cues from the music to represent their ideas of plants growing in the garden. The children watch themselves in the mirror and seem to be in sync with one another as they do the dance of the growing garden. The unfolding of the arms could represent the blooming of a flower or the growth of buds and leaves. The swaying could represent the flexible stalk of a tall plant moving in the wind. One wonders if Lara had to decide between her interpretation of the music and her friends. We wonder what she would do in a solo. We can be impressed by the children's delay until the music changes and the expressivity of their movements. Such moments occur when teachers help children gently move into the meaning of the music. Notice the careful choice of the teacher’s setting remarks, "The music will tell your body what to do." Such comments will start children on the path of music interpretation.