November is here - a great time for music

The new calendar page is up for the new month.  The time change is coming up.  One of the things I do is work at an elementary school as a paraprofessional.  I get to go to the specialist time that that the boys I'm with go to and music class is part of the rotation.  Today was patriotic music.  Great tunes have been with our country for hundreds of years.  Immigrants brought many of the tunes and some were written in the early days of history.  So many instruments have been invented and whether you hear a tune on a piccolo or a dulcimer it's all part of propelling a touch of history into today.  Before people could read they could hum or sing - and some played instruments. 

Maybe you'd like to give a dulcimer a try and America the Beautiful could be one of your first tunes you learn. As Election Day is around the corner you could make new words to This Land is Your Land to include how you feel about the election this year.  Playing with lyrics is yet another fun piece about making music.

My next classes will be in April through Duluth Community Ed and the 1st Saturday in May will be the 16th year for the Dulcimer Day in Duluth festival (I need to work on it soon!).   I have about 70 different dulcimer tab books - books where the songs use numbers as the notes.  Holiday favorites, hymns, folk tune  - and yes patriotic tunes.  Some books come with CDs.   I even have Dulcimer CDs to just listen to some of the great players, including Mark Gilston who won the National Championship as a mountain dulcimer player this year. 

Another fun instrument that I carry is the Limberjack.  I like to bring them along when I play at a local nursing home or at a school.  It's a percussion instrument that anyone can play and it's fun to watch the 'man' dance.  I have been playing with a skeleton "Bob" who is plastic and about 1 foot high.  He can kick high, do the splits, do somersaults, and like one of the 4th graders I work with release his arm or leg (or all 4) temporarily but keep on dancing.  

Okay - before I go - here is a WONDER question for you.  Music really enters us as we listen or even make music.  It resonates through the water in us and again becomes part of us as we listen to it.  Yesterday in a biology class I teach (college level) the topic was energy and we were getting into photosynthesis and cellular respiration.  The last part of the class was a tour of Lake Superior Brewery where yeast are the work crew and the people crew do what they can to make the crew happy.  Music was being played during our tour - a bit of soft rock from the 80s.  Can the yeast here it?  Do they like it?  Does the music or beat of the music influence their output?  Just wondering.  What do you think?   Would some Irish music jam music up the output?  Would classical music reduce their stress - do they feel stress?  Okay, I better end now.