Dancing the night away

'The bird dance'

Saturday brunch viewing to make you smile –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujD1Tyv34-4

I know several girls and boys (and adults too) who would love to do this!

I remember when about twenty-five years ago a lovely lady, who was my classroom assistant, jived with her wheelchair-user husband at our school's Christmas do – I was as mesmerised watching them as I was watching this video.

Movement and movement

We have at last begun our music group with a proper musician who is teaching us all sorts of amazing things, and now I have ideas for the future to find a dance teacher who can add something extra to the group. 

I wonder whether it will develop into something like the Music and Movement for Schools that boomed out from the huge wireless hanging from the ceiling when I was at junior school!

We fancy doing a bit of tap dancing but I expect that the same will happen as with the music, once we get started we shall soon develop our own individual style.

 

Where have all the flowers gone.

Where have all the flowers gone?

We sang and we painted

Both of these activities took place in the stroke group.

“That is not so unusual”, I can hear my regular readers saying and, yes, you would be right in thinking that this is what happens regularly in my groups.

Today was different

Why? Because the singer from our group was not there, and because this particular group of clients have

never wanted to do anything remotely arty before.

I and a couple of other group members wanted to sing so I chose a song that I know well in English and one that I know I can sing the melody of well enough on my own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLAxbQxyJSQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LZ2R2zW2Yc&feature=related

It is amazing how reliant I have become on the singer of the group to help me out with this part of our programme. She was however not there and with the help from another musical client we gave it our best.

After we had got through to the end with a repeat of the second verse to get the rhythm of the words correct we were feeling quite pleased with ourselves.

As we were taking a break to catch our breath we got on to discussing an art project that I am in the middle of with the children. It is a bit of a secret project but I can relieve that we are painting a sting of bunting for a special party. I asked my clients whether they would like to participate but they declined this time. They did, however, take up the coloured pencils that were on offer and began to decorate their paper copy of Sag mir wo die Blumen sind! And what’s more they appeared to enjoy themselves.

Times they are a changin

So the next session what do you think we did? We did not even ask, we just put the white triangles and the fabric paints on the table and, low and behold, it worked again. They took up the challenge. Not only did they paint but they painted with lots of creativity and inspiration.

So now I know what will be happening in the next three-week stroke block.

When the lying programme comes to an end, instead of being removed, the plinths will be up-ended, canvases will be hung from them, paint will be provided on a stool beside each plinth, and some music will be put on the player for inspiration. Then hopefully I will be saying “Bob’s your uncle” for another fait acomplis,  and an exhibition of our work will be shown at the summer Fest this year!

Notes

Marlene Dietrich-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLAxbQxyJSQ

Joan Baez-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LZ2R2zW2Yc&feature=related

Conductors

"What conductors wear" are the words that most regularly appear amongst the statistics about who visits my blog, from where and why.


These clothes-conscious Google-searchers usually end up here, at the posting Conductors' clothes:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/02/conductors-clothes.html

or here at What do conductors wear on their feet, and why?:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/02/what-do-conductors-wear-on-their-feet.html

I suspect that the majority of these visitors are conductors of music and not bus conductors or conductors transforming lives through conductive pedagogy.


Perhaps this is one of my future visitors:

http://www.wimp.com/childbeethoven/

Thank you to David, an educator of the deaf from Scotland who I met several years ago along with a group of New Zealanders who had travelled from all over the world to meet in Budapest, for passing on something to smile about on this Saturday afternoon in the spring sunshine.

Something from the BBC for the fourth Advent Sunday and a couple of Bits-in-Between for conductors!

Children-in-Need star stand, Nürnberg

16th December, 2011

A bit of rap

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-16236129

It made me smile out loud!

A bit of sparkle

On Friday evening I was working, as I have done for the past ten years, on the stand selling hand-made stars for child's charities. 

Gale-force winds were forecast, at midday the  city council were considering closing the Christmas Market in fear that it would be blown away. It stayed open and it rained a lot, but the wind never came. The people did not come either kept away by the storm warnings.

It was s till fun and despite the awful weather the takings for the various charities was on its way to two thousand Euros for the day. 

And a sprinkling of snow

We could have done with the icing sugar snow on Friday evening to create a romantic atmosphere to attract the visitors, instead we have it today while put the finishing touches to the Christmas cards  beside the now four candles and decorate my tree.

Bits-in-between for conductor and Sis

" Spooky Landscape" by Susie Mallett, September 1st 2011

Just what the doctor ordered

A trip to the theatre, the first for ages, was just what the doctor ordered and with my sister for company too, that made it even better.

My sister had asked me a long time before the performance if I would like to go with her and we had both, independently of each other, Googled to see if it would be worth the expense of the tickets. There were a few You Tube recordings on offer and my verdict, after listening to a couple of them, was that even if we did not find the performance very funny the singing was of a very high standard so we would enjoy that at the very least. Sis agreed so the tickets were purchased.

Lots of spooky men from Australia

We discovered that in real life the Spooky Men’s Chorale was indeed a group of exceptional, albeit very peculiar looking, singers and occasionally between the serious pieces they were also funny, with a humour as dry as the one that we are used to in Norfolk. I am not sure how well they would go down in Germany, where my dry humour often gets miss-read!

The accent of this group of spooky men fitted in quite well too, Norfolk and Strine are not so dis-similar.

Making the every-day situation funny

With many of the phrases from their self-penned songs printed on magnets and button badges we were able to take some of the oddities home with us:

“Spooky gardeners cause mass wisteria“

 “Happy…just haven’t told my face“

“The mess gets worse all by itself”

Other snippets remain in our memories and are already getting triggered when we find ourselves in a situation that was mentioned in a song as well as on a badge. Here is one example: a thing does not work and a newly purchased thing is incompatible and an adaptor is needed, but the thing works differently now than it did before. Those were words of a Spooky Men’s song but could have been all about my dongle that sort of works and my sister’s dongle with her new adapter aerial thing that makes hers work better than mine. This persuaded me that my thing also needs a new adapter thing so it could work as well as Sis’s thing does. I am still struggling on without an extra thing adapter and smiling as I remember the daft song.

There were amongst the jokey original songs a good many adaptions of well-known songs, from the Beatles, Abba and Earth, Wind and Fire. However, it was a rendition of our Mum’s wartime favourite, Don’t fence me in, that made the evening for my sister and I, we joined in every word.

I also particularly enjoyed what the Spooky conductor described as Georgian men’s songs and I wonder if they were adaptions of Gregorian chants or music for men from Georgia. Not being able to Google at the moment to find out, due to not having that adapter thing like my sister has, I cannot be sure about this but whatever the songs origin they were lovely to listen to. It was obvious by the skill shown in performing these, what brilliant musicians the Spooky Men are.

I found the whole evening all quite conductive really, apart from someone who I have met through conduction sitting in the row behind me! Watching this group of performers putting everyday life into perspective made me think a lot about my own work. The singers were enjoying moments of everyday life and this was the motivation for the song writing and singing, and just in the same way that taking part in everyday life in a meaningful way is a huge part of the motivation that my clients bring with them to learn conductively.

Thanks to Sis and Spooky Men for creating a lovely bits-in-between evening!