Music

A Day Full of Song

This is how we knead our bread,
Push and pat, push and pat!
Roll it up and start again,
Push and pat, push and pat,
Push-a-pat-a-pat.

- from A Day Full of Song by Karen Lonsky

So many people have asked for more songs in the mood of the fifth* to share with young children. It is a joy to be able to announce this beautiful little book that is just what parents and teachers have been wanting - a beautiful way to carry children through the day and introduce them to the world where we do things to make life better for all. Just browsing through these songs is inspiring and joyous.

Please do share these songs with all the young ones in your care - they speak of a love of the earth at every turn.

*"The Mood of the Fifth" describes a type of pentatonic music, usually centered around A above middle C, which is light and delicate sounding, just right for very young children.

A Day Full of Song - Audio CD

Learn the songs from the teacher who wrote them - a beautiful accompaniment to Lonsky's songbook.

Quintenlieder

Quintenlieder has been for many years a treasured resource for all who want to share the joy of music with young children.

Julius Knierim has gathered children's rhymes from throughout Europe and, by way of showing us all how to do it, set them to lilting and lovely songs written in the mood of the fifth. He has also taken the time to explain to those of us not well-educated musically just what makes a pentatonic song one that is "in the mood of the fifth" ("Old Man River", for instance, is written in a pentatonic scale, but is hardly in the mood of the fifth).

Further, he shows graphically how to keep the notes of a song you create in the mood of the fifth - I am not at all a musician, yet found myself easily inventing song-like melodies that floated through the air. It was fun, too!

If children ages 9 and under are in your life or your classroom, you'll want to use this book. There are wonderful things to be learned and beautiful songs to sing!

The Importance of Being Musical

Drawing from her many years’ experience as a class teacher, as well as a teacher and lover of music, Cynthia Frongillo takes us on a journey through the music curriculum showing how it is begun and developed through the grades in a Waldorf school. She gives examples from her own experience and outlines both singing and instrumental training.

This is a lovely, specific guide to teaching music within the context of Waldorf Education. I think anyone who has had questions about how to approach music in this way will thoroughly enjoy this book - and find it a great resource.

Horns of Hermes

A wonderfully thorough discussion of when and how to introduce children to the joy of music. Contents: animal song, evolution, spirit of music, bird song, 7 instruments of the temple, the strings, winds, idiophones, percussion, music curriculum, teacher as songwriter, music for festivals, aboriginal songmasters.

Music from Around the World for Recorders

Michael Preston has brought together a rich and varied presentation of some of the best songs and hymns from around the world. There isn't a single entry that isn't engaging and melodic, and arranged in a wonderful way so that the different voices really interact and support each other. This is a collection any recorder player would love and every recorder ensemble will rejoice to work with, the results are so very beautiful. This is a gift to the world of music, as much as to the world of Waldorf Education.

Take a look at the wealth that is inside:

• Preface
• Notes to Teachers
• North America
  • Appalachian Hymn
  • Washington Square
  • Amazing Grace
  • Ashokan Farewell
  • The Waldorf Waltz
• South America
  • Atahualpa's Farewell
  • Carnavalito
  • El Condor Pasa
  • Mi Caballo Blanco
  • Peruvian Lament
  • Viente Anos
• Africa
  • I Paradisi
  • N'kosi Sikalel'i Afrika
  • Siyahamba
  • Nha Fidjo
• Portugal
  • Pescador
  • The Fisherman: Protuguese Sea Song
  • Ballade de Saudade
• England
  • Jack's Maggot
  • The Jolly Broom Man
  • Newcastle
• Scotland
  • Margaret's Waltz
  • The Skye Gathering
  • Westering Home
• Ireland
  • The Star of County Down
  • Drums and Guns
  • Si Beag Si Mor
  • Londonderry Air
  • Be Thou My Vision
• Russia
  • Christmas Candle
  • Little Birch Tree
  • Midnight in Moscow
  • Troika
• Poland
  • River Wisla
• Japan
  • Autumn Leaves
  • Here Is Happiness
  • Sakura
• South Pacific
  • Pokarekare
  • Now is the Hour: Maori Farewell
  • Isa Lei: Fijiian Anthem
  • Hinanui Iti
• Hawaii
  • Pua Lililehua
  • Sanoe
  • Ulili E'
  • Hawaii Aloha
  • O Kou Aloha No

World Music as a Source of Improvisation and Composition

This research paper describes the Austin Waldorf High School's world music program for each of the four grades. It offers a very valuable discussion of the method for each lesson and then shares the data from a questionnaire that was circulated, hoping to discover whether the course had changed the way students related to music in a wide range of categories.

Also included are valuable appendices on the various world musical traditions and a discographic resource list for each grade level.

Allegro! Music for Eurythmy

This is a wonderful collection of music for eurythmy classes from kindergarten through high school. The selections are beautiful!

Uncovering the Voice

The life and work of this Swedish artist is not so much the introduction of a new method... rather, this is the first adequate description in all music history of the western art of singing in terms of the human being’s true nature. And this could only come about once a spiritual scientific view of the human being had developed, enabling us to grasp singing processes that extend far beyond purely physical laws.

—Jürgen Schriefer, Musicologist

This book is pure gold for the singer and singing therapist of today.

—Mary Thienes Schunemann, founder,
Naturally You Can Sing! Productions

Through experiential exercises and careful reasoning, Uncovering the Voice provides a new, spiritually enlivened interpretation of the processes involved in singing. It develops knowledge of the essential nature of song, and summons us to work for the purity and preservation of true singing.

First published in Germany in 1938, Uncovering the Voice disappeared under the weight of political events and the Second World War and was not republished until the 1970s. The new English edition of this classic work includes a biographical account of the author by Jürgen Schriefer, as well as previously unpublished photographs.

Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström was an accomplished and talented opera singer. Rather than following the singing traditions of her time, however, she sought to work from a new perspective that allowed for a profound spiritual understanding of the human voice. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner, with whom she had collaborated for over twelve years, encouraged her to represent the Schule der Stimmenthullung (School for Uncovering the Voice), the first anthroposophical singing school. This was a pioneering task, and she carried it out energetically and faithfully until her death in 1972 at the age of 92.

Intervals, Scales, Tones and the Concert Pitch c = 128 Hz

Why is it that certain intervals, scales, and tones sound genuine, while others sound false? Is the modern person able to experience a qualitative difference in a tone’s pitch? If so, what are the implications for modern concert pitch and how instruments of fixed tuning are tuned?

Renold tackles these and many other questions and provides a wealth of scientific data. Her pioneering work is the result of a lifetime of research into the Classical Greek origin of Western music and the search for modern developments. She deepens our musical understanding by using Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science as a basis, and she elucidates many of his puzzling statements about music.

The results of her work include the following discoveries:

• The octave has two sizes (a ‘genuine’ sounding octave is bigger than the “perfect octave”).
• There are three sizes of “perfect fifths.”
• An underlying “form principle” for all scales can be found.
• Equal temperament is not the most satisfactory method of tuning a piano.
• She provides a basis for some of Steiner’s statements, such as, “C is always prime,” and “C = 128 Hz = Sun.”

Here is a valuable resource for those who wish to understand the deeper, spiritual aspects of music.

The Harmony of the Human Body

This is an exploration of the cosmic origins of human beings and the evolutionary laws that govern their development. Husemann applies musical principles as a method of gaining insight into the structure of the human body and the forces that work on it, seeking to use our experience of music to explain the physiological and anatomical relationships in the body and the spiritual influences that determine physical development.