Music FUNdations for String Orchestra, Book A: A New, Innovative Activity Book

by Scott Lang, Mariano Villalonga (Illustrator), Robert Sheldon

Music FUNdations is a student activity book that reimagines how we teach young musicians. The book is designed with three goals in When completed, the students will not only have learned a great deal but will have a memory-filled journal that they and their parents will treasure forever. Written by two leading authorities with over 70 years in the profession, Robert Sheldon and Scott Lang have created something that has never been seen before. The book’s five chapters are sequentially built to address the five elements of social-emotional learning. The curricula starts with self-awareness and progress through units on self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and decision making. All SEL elements are woven into the music so teachers can provide real-life skills while developing real musical skills. As the book progresses, single line exercises become duets, trios, quartets, and small ensembles. The parts (A, B, C, D) provide for layered instruction with increasing difficulty. Students can be met and challenged at their individual level inside a group setting. Directors can assign parts with skill sets in mind or randomly to keep it fresh and fun. Our nine characters (Brayden, Mada, Evan, Elisa, Aiko, Miguel, Tanisha, Amir, and Rexi the dog) represent different ethnicities, nationalities and personalities. Each character speaks to their unique challenges (Asperger syndrome, paraplegia, struggles with learning) in a meaningful way that speaks to diversity, empathy, and acceptance. As a part of this book, students will explore musical styles, improvisation, conducting, arranging, and so much more. Students receive a more complete and holistic look at what music is and how they can do really big things even as a beginning. The book encourages meaningful engagement with parents, on a musical and personal level. Practice records are replaced with conversation starters, performance opportunities, and familial interaction. Parents will see their child growing as a musician and a person right before their very eyes. Students are not only taught different ways to rehearse/play and read music, they practice sight-reading, music memorization, and commonly used rhythms and keys. These techniques will not only “funnify” your rehearsals, but more importantly increase the music literacy levels of your students. Early in the book, students establish a code of conduct and make decisions as a group about acceptable and unacceptable behavior. We even provide a leadership application and a list of potential jobs. More importantly, we give the students a variety of ways to play and rehearse (pad slapping, buzzing, bopping, clapping, counting, air-banding, etc…) that provide YOU with a variety of teaching tools, and THEM ways to keep band fun and fresh. Four “Band-It Band” pieces are included. These short pieces are memorized by the students and allow them to become a run-out pep band. The pieces are themed around specific times of year and incentivize the students to practice. In chapters four and five, students can break into chamber ensembles where they make all the musical decisions (part assignments, tempos, dynamics, etc…) as they prepare to host an evening of chamber music.

48 pages, Paperback

Published September 29, 2021

About the author

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