Summer 2014

Check Out the New www.musictogether.com

We've been hard at work the past few months redesigning the Music Together national website. Take a look at the new site---and share it with your friends! Visit www.musictogether.com.

Brand New Family Music Zone Debuts this Fall

This fall, we're introducing some changes to your Music Together home materials. In addition to your songbook, you'll also receive one CD and a code that will give you access to our new online Family Music Zone. There, you'll be able to download the songs from the Bongos collection and explore content created just for you, including bonus song activity ideas to try at home. To access the Family Music Zone, you'll follow the simple instructions on the inside back cover of your Bongos CD booklet.

If you haven't done so already, now's the time to enroll in your fall Music Together class. The upcoming Bongos Song Collection includes many favorite songs. Your children will love acting out various Australian animals during "Down Under," jumping and flopping to the floor---at just the right moment!---in "See How I'm Jumping" and drumming and singing along to "Funga Alafia," a high-energy African folk tune. To find a location near you, please visit our online Class Locator.

Musical Fun with Sidewalk Chalk

What child doesn't love playing with sidewalk chalk? Add a musical twist with these ideas using songs from the Summer Songs 3 collection. If you try these or come up with your own musical sidewalk chalk ideas, post your photos on our Facebook Page. Have fun!

"Here Is a Bunny": Draw a circle or a series of circles that represent bunny holes. Put on your bunny ears and start the chant. As you say the last line, hop like a bunny from one circle to the next on each beat, landing in the last one with a loud lip smack: "HOPs right INto the GROUND. POP!"

"Apples and Cherries": Draw the fruits and ice cream featured in the song---and your child's other favorite foods. You can put them in order in a circle, clustered, or in another arrangement. As you sing together, jump (or lift your smaller child) onto the drawing of each food as you sing its name. For older children, make it more challenging by turning it into a game of "hopscotch, " like in the pictures below. Or, scramble the order of the foods you sing so you are jumping in lots of different directions.

Lili's Book Review: Imperfect Harmony by Stacy Horn

by Dr. Lili M. Levinowitz, Music Together Coauthor

I just finished reading a witty and engaging book about the power of music in one's life. It's called Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing with Others, by Stacy Horn. I thought it would be a poignant book for adults participating in Music Together, because it has a connection---with a twist!---to the third and fourth points of the Music Together philosophy. What's the twist? The book isn't about children at all! It's the story of how returning to singing in a group allowed the author to feel deeply connected to others and get back in touch with something deep within herself.

Ana Trevi�o Godfrey, Houston TX

If you ask Ana Trevi�o Godfrey what she does for a living, she'll most likely tell you that she sings and dances---but that's putting it mildly! Ana holds a doctorate in music; she is an internationally acclaimed opera singer; and she is a cofounder of the prestigious Mercury Orchestra in Houston, Texas. Ana is also the owner and director of Prelude Music Classes, which opened in 2006 and now offers Music Together classes to over five hundred children in Houston, Sugar Land, and The Woodlands. And it's at Prelude, singing and dancing with children and families, where Ana has truly found her passion.

The Science Behind Group Music-making

Imperfect Harmony, the book reviewed above, provides a fascinating and poignant glimpse into the impact of group music-making on an individual's social and emotional well-being. You may wonder how singing in a group can have such an effect---after all, music isn't a thing that nourishes us like food and it can't physically give us a hug. Nevertheless, it has this power to comfort, to excite, to lift our spirits. The fields of science and psychology are helping us to better understand why engaging with music, particularly alongside others, is such a rewarding experience. As we are learning more and more, it's a lot about the brain!

Fall Shopping Special

Receive $2 off one hardcover Singalong Storybook at the Music Together online store. For your discount, use coupon code STORY2014 at checkout. Don't forget to check out our book trailers for a peek inside all seven books! Offer expires 10/31/2014. Only one coupon per order.