PDF link to this file
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Spring 2019 Recital notes
The "stage"
(The living room)
The Program:
A few I had to "create" using some version I found on Musescore.com, which I then edited to our liking. The end result is so different from the original that the version online would not be very helpful if you wanted to play it. So I have uploaded these to our
Purchased books:
Peanuts Song - Skatin' (also edited for length - I skipped to 2nd ending/coda, etc)
A Million Dreams (we edited for length and cut out quite a bit)
Songs from Musescore we edited (the original version):
Le Festin'
Pollyanna
Rewrite the Stars
These are links to the file on my drive:
(Songs we edited a lot from some other free arrangement)
Touch the Sky
Disney Medley
Under the Sea
These came from YouTube tutorials and I had to type up what I learned to play so I could teach it to the children:
Beyblades Burst Turbo Theme Song (YouTube Tutorial)
This is Me (YouTube Tutorial)
Let it Go* (YouTube Tutorial)
*I made a few versions of this as I went along so that our notes were digitized onto the sheet music for easy reprinting:
This one has all finger numbers labeled.
This one has some of our lesson notes and some finger numbers labeled.
This one has all of our notes and all finger numbers labeled.
Well, we survived another recital year!
(I'm not really sure why this picture is so grainy?)
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Christmas Recital 2018
This post is to give me an easy quick lookup for where all the sheet music came for this recital.
You're welcome for the links, should you want them.
Individual songs sheet music:
(if publicly available):
Natalie played "The First Noel"
https://www.pianosongdownload.com/The%20First%20Noel.pdf
Carolyn played "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts roasting)
I simplified some old sheet music we have, but it looks similar to this one:
https://sheetdownload.com/Nat-King-Cole/The-Christmas-Song/12245
Kaitlyn played "Deck the Halls" (jazz)
https://defordmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/deck-the-halls-piano-solo.pdf
Seth played "Joy to the World" out of one of our easy music books.
Alee played "Home for the Holidays" that was from one of our music books and I just simplified it for her and added finger numbers and colors all over it to help her learn it!
My beginner students:
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3M6MoweDqJ5amdmOW96SE16RFk/view
from this site:
http://pianoteacherresource.blogspot.com/2012/11/free-christmas-sheet-music.html
Away in a Manger:
https://susanparadis.com/wp_susan/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/AwayInAMangerTrad.pdf
Jolly Old St. Nicholas:
http://gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/Level1/1JollyOld/1JollyOld.pdf
.
Up on the Housetop:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3M6MoweDqJ5amdmOW96SE16RFk/view
from this site:
http://pianoteacherresource.blogspot.com/2012/11/free-christmas-sheet-music.html
ENSEMBLES
One arrangement that was fun was our our entire* family playing Carol of the Bells.
(*The baby is excluded from the bells performance, much to his disappointment!)
If you would like the bells sheet to this, you can download it below.
These bells are an accompaniment to this score of Carol of the Bells (with violin and piano):
https://www.8notes.com/scores/7378.asp
Carolyn (violinist) requested too late that she would have liked for it to have been in a different key. (I would have been happy to accommodate this as 3 sharps isn't my favorite, but I had already made the bell sheet.)
Also, my family preferred to read directly from the sheet music, so I did edit that PDF by adding these same colored circles above each measure, but as that arrangement is not my work, I do not have the rights to upload my family's colored on copy as a public resource.
(I suppose you could cut and paste - literally! - the above onto a printed copy of the song though if you also prefer to read along.)
Ukulele duet of "Let it Snow" by my twins Kaitlyn and Natalie
https://ukutabs.com/m/misc-traditional/let-it-snow/?transpose=+7#point
Our quintet of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" was put together from some free scores on 8notes.com - They're all 3 the same score but written for different instruments. We doubled up on the melody so it could be heard over the tuba.
(String Quartet) https://www.8notes.com/scores/11313.asp
Violin and Cello came from here, as did Viola, but we used violin 1's part (melody) for both violin and viola. I typed up the part for my violist in musescore to put it into alto clef.
(Wind Quintet) https://www.8notes.com/scores/11315.asp
Clarinet in Bb part is here (same as viola part on other score)
(Brass quartet) https://www.8notes.com/scores/11314.asp
Use Oboe part (but transposed to lower octave in bass clef) for our Euphonium
Monday, June 19, 2017
Sheet music from our Patriotic recital - May 2017
This post contains sheet music for a variety of patriotic songs - on several instruments - piano, cello, violin, bells, recorder, and guitar.
I realized when I opened the blog that I haven't posted in about 1 year, so let this by my annual post for 2017. (with baby #6 due in a few weeks, that's probably very likely to be true) :)
We held a memorial day recital this year. The first 5 songs were songs from the branches of the armed services - each child was given a lead sheet* and taught about chords and keys enough to be able to arrange the left hand. (*The youngest got a lead sheet modified into a piece for beginner - middle C hand position.)
The second set of 7 songs were duets arranged by either someone in the family - or just found online. I will give references for those along with the sheet music. (Because the online versions were often very small and hard to read as a duet, we re-typed to make them bigger.)
I'm posting our recital program with references to songs we used, photos and pdf's of the sheet music we found, arranged, or created, and videos of us performing them. I hope that someone out there looking for sheet music or ideas for your beginning performers might enjoy this post and appreciate the time I put into getting it all organized and posted.
Here is our recital program:
The only thing we did was to expand the arrangement to include the part of the song not listed.
I realized when I opened the blog that I haven't posted in about 1 year, so let this by my annual post for 2017. (with baby #6 due in a few weeks, that's probably very likely to be true) :)
We held a memorial day recital this year. The first 5 songs were songs from the branches of the armed services - each child was given a lead sheet* and taught about chords and keys enough to be able to arrange the left hand. (*The youngest got a lead sheet modified into a piece for beginner - middle C hand position.)
The second set of 7 songs were duets arranged by either someone in the family - or just found online. I will give references for those along with the sheet music. (Because the online versions were often very small and hard to read as a duet, we re-typed to make them bigger.)
I'm posting our recital program with references to songs we used, photos and pdf's of the sheet music we found, arranged, or created, and videos of us performing them. I hope that someone out there looking for sheet music or ideas for your beginning performers might enjoy this post and appreciate the time I put into getting it all organized and posted.
Here is our recital program:
Below are image files of each song, and below each song is a link to the pdf version on google drive.
Three lead Sheets came from Music for Music Teachers.
The titles below will have a link for each individual song I got from that site.
The others I just googled and can't remember where I found them? (I typed them all up - even the ones I was able to find from the Music Teachers site - so that when it was time to add in my kids' arrangements, I already had the file ready in MuseScore.)
The Solos
Arranged by my 12 year old daughter
The Marine's Hymn (for beginner level)
Transposed from lead sheet to the key of G for my 7 year old daughter to be able to play.
Arranged by my 10 year old daughter
(I'm not sure where I got this lead sheet from?? So the link is to an armed forces medley lead sheet, but I'm sorry I can't give credit to the original?)
Arranged by my 10 year old daughter
Semper Paratus (Coast Guard)
(I didn't actually find a lead sheet for this one but rather made one from actual sheet music I found; I needed all 4 older children to have the opportunity to create/arrange.), so the link above is to my google drive with the lead sheet I put together.
Arranged by my 14 year old son
Now the duets!
For this part, the PDF files are linked in the title rather than below the images.
(piano/recorder)
This is the recorder only sheet. I just typed up one I found online (from Katie's recorder site) so that I could add the piano part (which I arranged).
(violin and piano)
The piano part to this is a little tricky (and I went through several different piano accompaniment arrangements, as I kept having to simplify it for my 7 year old). The violin has the melody and the piano has the harmony, and that makes it a challenge for young piano players who want to hear a song they know.
The violin part came from violinsheetmusic.org
I've listed 2 piano accompaniment versions below, the second one being the easier of the 2 (and the one we decided to use for the recital.) The link above has the score, the violin part, and the easier piano part in 3 pages. The violin original you'll have to click the link to the free violin sheet music site to access.
The "score" (for the easier piano version)
Yankee Doodle
(cello/piano)
It was small and had no words (picture above), so I re-typed it in MuseScore to add words and make it easier to read (picture below). And then my son went and added to it!
We looked up the chord markings on a guitar site, and my daughter (age 10) just added chords to the additional part my son tacked on. (One chord per measure so it was a calmer rhythm and featured the solo.)
This is the 2-page version of what the pianist played.
(To be honest, she just had the first page as shown above, the first image, with the words to Seth's added part written below and chord symbols above the words. I typed this for the sake of the blog posting, so I'm not certain if the notes listed are the exact ones she played, but those are the chords she played.)
(piano/guitar)
(I had recommended my daughter just play out of the hymnbook, but she decided it was too hard. I suggested she just play the melody and the parts of the left hand that she could. She simplified the song and typed it up in MuseScore herself.)
My husband just used the guitar chord markings and accompanied her.
(piano duet)
This one was really fun to play. I did find an arrangement online, but it was just an arrangement for a solo, so used that piece to turn it into a duet.
(I know the melody line came from whatever I found online, but I can't find the original I downloaded, so I can't remember what parts were original and what parts I made? I think I just used their left hand part to figure out the chords and then tossed it and added both the piano1 left hand and the piano2 both hands.)
(recorder/guitar)
The original recorder part came from the same as the other recorder song above - Katie's site.
We found and added guitar chords (I think my husband altered a few, but he's not here as I type this to tell me which he corrected, deleted, or added.)
Here's the original:
Here's what we typed up:
The piano part came from G Major Music Theory (I love his site), so I'll let you click on that link to take you to his site. The above link (on title) will get you the pdf on my google drive for the bells part shown below.
The bells part, I arranged to match his piano sheet music.
The part at the end got a little tricky, so the girls that played our bells simplified the second to last measure by leaving out some notes/chords. (The coloring of the bells matches "hobby lobby" bells from what I have found online. I'm not sure where exactly our bells came from since they were a gift?)
If you'd like, you can watch the entire recital (live performance broadcast on YouTube). The above videos are just the best recording (between rehearsal or recital).
I hope someone looking for patriotic songs for their young performers makes use of these! We had fun putting this together and performing. (If I missed giving someone credit, send me a message and I will fix that. Although, most of what we found we altered enough that it probably isn't stepping on toes anymore.)
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
72 Hour kits - the food
Back in April and October, around the first week (General Conference time), we rotate our 72 hour kits. Mostly just the food. (The other things don't need much rotation - occasionally, we'll update the medicines and the kids clothes get rotated down as they grow.)
Usually, my husband and I handle the rotation and the figuring out what I need to buy. Then, I do the shopping (trying to think of ideas for the things we rotated out and no one would eat). We work together to unload all 7 bags (with 3 food bags each) and reload those 21 food bags back into the 7 backpacks. We've tried to include the kids before, but instead of it being a learning experience, it was just chaos.
This year, I decided to do that with the kids...results would be uncertain. But they are older (ages 6 to 13) and hopefully could handle following directions this time?
How it went:
My husband and I had already distributed each person's bags around the table and evaluated what needed to be replaced. (I purchased these things and and had them available before the kids and I did the rotation.)
- Everyone sat around our big table and unloaded their food bags in front of them.
- We pulled out all food that was already expired or that would expire before our next rotation (6 months later). Some things get rotated every 6 months, other things last longer.
- These soon to be expired foods went to the center of the table.
- Then we went through each type of item (poptarts, crackers, fruit, "main dish", etc) that I had bought and replenished each person's piles.
- We checked the dates of each item in their kits and each child wrote on a notecard what would need to be replaced next time. (This will make creating a shopping list easier - I can shop without having to unload all the bags first.)
- Everyone loaded into bags and containers what was supposed to be in each.
- Bags and containers went back into the backpacks, zipped up, and done.
Breakfast - 1 pack of (2) poptarts
Snack - 1 can of fruit (canned, plastic containers sometimes spoil before 6 months is up)
Lunch - vienna sausages (for my kids. We have soup), crackers* & PB (no PB for me)
(*sometimes I buy those filled crackers, "nabs" by dad used to call them, lance is a popular brand now)
Snack - granola bar or fruit/grain bar or rice krispie treat
Supper - Canned dinner (pasta, beef stew, spaghttiOs, etc)
I list 2 snacks, but in the actual time of eating, those could be eaten as part of one of the 3 meals instead. We change the food from time to time depending on what the kids are willing to eat and how much things cost and what "convenience foods" there are available that season.
----I've never done anything that couldn't be eaten right out of the bag before (because I wanted to be prepared for being in an evacuation facility without the ability to cook), but I decided to throw in ramen this time because it's something I know my kids will eat, and if nothing else, maybe I could convince them to eat it like a crunchy snack?
----The biggest thing in selecting food that will last at least 6 months and is something I know my family will eat! Not only for if it's needed, but also for when it's rotated in 6 months.
Rotate every time: poptarts, granola bars, cereal bars, rice krispie treats, crackers (ritz, nabs/lance, any kind)
Everything else rotates at date. (If it expires in March and my next rotation is in April, it gets pulled out and replaced. If it lasts until May, I'll rotate it out in April.)
And we all get a big water bottle per day. (Also have a canopener in each bag, spoons, and wet wipes.) I won't go into all the other non-food, but these are related to food items.
Right now, this is how we pack it. Things that squish easily are put into old containers (like yogurt containers, sour cream containers, anything that holds its shape). Things that have a hard container (like a metal can) or like ramen that is better smashed anyways just go in a bag by day. (Day 1, 2, and 3) The things packed in yogurt containers have 3 of each item, so we just know it's 1 per day of these things.
I've bought a gallon plastic container with a twist on lid and I'm going to see if I can fit everything squishable into that and if it is better for space.
There are hundreds of ways to do 72 hour kits and hundreds of opinions on what to include. I'm posting this to be another idea out there that might help someone trying to find ideas on what to buy or how to store it.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Gymnastics short (which became a gymnastics skirt)
I don't like just leotards by themselves. I don't like seeing panties stick out around the leg holes, I don't like seeing them do splits and such in them...I want more coverage, but I know they need to be able to move around and have something that's stretchy to stretch with them.
I couldn't find the shorts I was looking for (of course, when I'm willing to pay, I can't even find what I'm looking for...except online, but what if it doesn't fit?)
So, I decided to sew them.
I still prefer shorts, but one of my twins asked for hers to have an attached skirt, so I altered the plan.
For the 2nd pair (purple), I used a pair of biker shorts to make my pattern.
(We call them "legging shorts" because they wear them under skirts and dresses like you would leggings, but not for show, for coverage when they are being kids).
I probably could have just told them to wear the legging shorts as gymnastics shorts, but they looked funny and the older girls are already 'short' on shorts - and I couldn't guarantee the pair they needed would be clean on gymnastics day.
Anyways - enough talk - this isn't intended to be a tutorial b/c I don't have time for that right now. It's just pictures to show my process. If you just need a little nudge worth of instructions, this should help.
Settings on my serger that worked best while sewing these:
Inner leg seams
(I couldn't get the seam not to "tunnel" where it bumps up between the rows of stitches, but whatever!) A skill I'll work on later.
(I think my measurements were about 4" down and then 10" down? Don't quote me on that...your measurements will be for your waist and your waistband.) Ideally, the circumference of the small circle will be the same as whatever the waistband of your shorts is.
Formula for circumference (the measurement around a circle - in this case, the side of the inner "donut"):
C = 2 x pi x r
(r is the radius of your "inner donut" - the measurement from that folded corner to where the paper begins)
Sew on (right side of skirt and right side of shorts both facing up)
Then sew, stretching either the waistband or the skirt as needed to align them.
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