Children’s Opera, Part V, Rehearsal and Performance

Click here for part I

Click here for part IV

And now we reach our final chapter in which the children rehearse and otherwise prepare for the glorious occasion of performing their masterpiece for friends and family.  In this final stage, remember that it is still the children’s work, so trust them.

Costumes

With the homeschool music group, I let the children and their parents come up with the costumes.  Parents are a fantastic resource for costumes.  In every children’s musical production that I have done, I have always been low key about costumes and let the parents do it.  I realize that the audience at the performances are mostly comprised of friends and family, and that tickets, if any, were free and not $50 each.  For me the emphasis is on giving the children a good learning opportunity, and wearing a costume is a fun part of performing, and it shouldn’t be stressful.  If the costume is good enough for the parents, it is good enough for me. 

When I did the children’s opera with the Cache Children’s Choir, I was very impressed with the costumes and I want to share some pictures to give you some ideas to work with.

The youngest group of children, ages 3-5, sang a strophic song about Sleeping Beauty.  Most of the children wore the traditional CCC attire of black pants and a red shirt.  There was a girl dressed as a witch, a boy prince on a cock-horse with a toy sword, and a princess in a tower, made of a large cardboard box that had been painted.

The raggle-taggle group, ages 5-7, wore the traditional CCC attire with face masks made of foam for the donkeys, cats, dogs, roosters, and robbers.  The robbers had black-knit hats, pictured here with the wealth of gold that the robbers had stolen.

The oldest group, ages 7-9 did an opera about a boy and a girl who went through a magical mirror and had to collect musical chimes to be able to get back home.  They went to a fantasy land where there was a dragon, mermaids, a unicorn, and a fairy.  They met cave people, ghosts, and stinky socks (pictured).  There was a lot of work that went into these costumes and they were fantastic.  It all depends on what you are willing to do, what sewing skills you or those you are working with have, and the time-frame that you have to work with.

Scenery and props

Don’t stress it, it isn’t that important.  The more you let the children (and audience) use their imagination, the less work that you will have to do.  If you do want to have scenery, tempera paints on large cardboard boxes from the appliance store are a cheap and effective way to go.  You can also borrow, shop in your attic, or work with items from the local thrift store.

Staging

The larger the cast, the more you will need to direct the children on where to stand and when to do what during the performance, but allow the children to give you their input and advice.  With a smaller cast, let the children decide where they will stand and what they will do during different parts of the opera during rehearsals, but then remind them what they decided afterward and have them practice that way.  There should be at least one rehearsal dedicated solely to practicing the staging with the music.  In other words, hold at least one rehearsal where the children are not creating anything, but are purely practicing.  More are optimal for a better performance, but that may or may not be your purpose.  Are you a performing group, or is this an opera workshop to teach children about opera?  Maybe it is somewhere in between.   Adjust you schedule to accommodate your purpose.

The Performance

 
Be flexible and focus on the children.  The audience knows that your cast is not professional, and are most likely family and friends of the children.  They are there to be supportive, so don’t worry about what they think.  Chances are that they will be very impressed and pleased with the results anyway.   How do you focus on the children then?  Give them a prep-talk before going on stage.  Tell them how proud you are of all of their hard work.  Tell them to have fun, and that you will be there to help them.

It is appropriate to say a prayer before performing too.  I know that this is controversial in some areas and to some people, and I am a religious person and am inclined to suggest it.  However, as a performer I have almost universally seen it done.  A simple prayer that the children will remember their lines and music, and that they will have a good experience will do much to comfort nervous children.

Oh, and be flexible.  Really.  Children may forget their lines, come in early or late, and a myriad of other things.  Stay calm and the children will too.  Work with the challenges that come, for “the show must go on”.  In the performance of the homeschool opera, Rapunzel didn’t show up.  To this day, I don’t know if there was a family emergency or if they just spaced it, and it doesn’t really matter.  Things like this happen and you need to work with it.  I told the children that we would just skip her lines, but in retrospect, this was unfair to Sleeping Beauty because Rapunzel’s lines were her cues.  I should have sung Rapunzel’s part at the piano, but I didn’t.  You learn as you go.  When it is over, praise the children, graciously accept any compliments but then direct them back to the children because, after all, this really was their work.

Walking Piano

I had a famous visitor come to my website last weekend.  Remo Saraceni, inventor of the walking piano featured on "BIG" with Tom Hanks, commented on my Musical Stairs post.  When I looked at his profile, "Fun Maker", and realized who he is, I was very excited about the visit, and my 3-year-old son and I spent the next 30 minutes watching YouTube videos of people playing with his inventions.  This video was our favorite:

I wish I had $250,000 to buy one!  Maybe someday when I'm rich and famous.  Being realistic, I have noted some of the museums that feature his inventions and hope to see some of them someday, especially his studio in Philadelphia.  Here is his blog.  Here is the piano picture gallery from his website.  I was touched by one picture of a child in a wheelchair rolling across the keys. Meet the man behind the invention in this video:

I am truly fascinated by this wonderful combination of technology, music, and imagination.  Thank you, Remo Saraceni, for sharing your innovation with the world.

Rhythm Blocks

Here is a manipulative that you can cut out and use with your students or children.  I like to use rhythm solfege as outlined in the video to demonstrate counting, but you can also simply count to 4.  This is just one hands-on approach that you can add to your toolbox.  I colored the squares simply because children like color.  I included a black and white version too, which will be cheaper to print.  You can always color them with crayons if you want.  I recommend printing them on card-stock, and laminating, if desired.

Color Version
Black and White version

It may be tricky on the print-out to see where the cutting lines are, hopefully this illustration can help.  Enjoy!

Rainbow Castle

This game is for the beginning student.  This is a bonus that comes with my e-book, Beginning Rhythm

Print out colored cards, cut out and set aside.  Print gameboard, and if desired, laminate.  Use game pieces of your own choosing.

Draw a card, and move marker forward to the note indicated on card.  Because keys and cards are colored, the student does not actually have to know the note or the notation for it, they only have to match colors.  Next player's move.  If the keyboard on the bottom ends before the next note, they get to the pot of gold and get to ride the rainbow up to the cloud.  On the top keyboard, if the keyboard ends before their note, they get to go to Rainbow Castle, and they win the game!

Tips for play:  Although the student only has to match colors, they are being introduced to note notation and the piano key names.  You can reinforce this by saying, "Move your marker to the 'B'", and so on.  Point out to your students when the notes are in the treble or bass clefs.  Have fun!

Musical Stairs

This is a simple project that can spruce up the menial task of walking up and down the stairs.  Turn your stair-case into a singing scale!  The idea for this scale came from the piano stairs in Sweden, as seen in the video at the bottom of this page.  Creating a stair-case like that in our home is unpractical for us, but this is a close second.

We created the triangles by printing them on colored paper, not by using up all of the ink in our printer.  My color code is red for do, orange for re, yellow for mi, green for fa, blue for so, purple for la, and pink for ti.  Our staircase was the perfect size to have two full octaves.  We laminated our triangles and then taped them to the staircase.
My children love these, and when I need them to come downstairs, they are more willing to come when I sing the scale as they step on to the respective step.  My husband has joined in the fun, and it is good practice for all of us.  On the flip-side, having a toddler around means that the triangles are not as permanent as I would like them to be, but they are still a sturdy resource to use at will.

These printables are now a part of "The Solfege Train".

Piano Chord Wheel

This is a tool that I created for my piano students to help them to learn their primary chords.  Here is the printable:

piano-chord-wheel.pdf

Directions:Print on card-stock, cut out the circles, and then optionally laminate.  Poke holes in the center with a needle, then poke a paper brad through the smaller circle then the larger.  Fold back the edges of the brad and give it a few twists and you're done!

Here is a video to demonstrate it's use:

deltafour1212 commented that a blank wheel for the middle would be helpful in letting students make their own chord progressions.  Here it is!  Note that the dividing line is not perfectly equal- one is slightly bigger to make room for the V7 chord.  Taking the division line out of my original file would have been tricky.  I hope this helps!

blanksmallwheel.pdf

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The Pentatonic Scale

When I first learned about the pentatonic scale, I was taught to associate it with the Asian culture. I have since learned that the pentatonic scale is universal to all nations, and most countries have folk music written using this scale. Old Dan Tucker is one of my favorite American examples. The easiest way to play a pentatonic scale on the piano is to play all of the black keys, beginning with F#. The solfege for the scale is Do, Re, Mi, Sol, La, Do.Using the pentatonic scale for children's voices is a powerful technique because the scale is instinctive to them by nature. A child singing "na-na-na-na-na-na, you ca-n't catch me!" is using the scale. Ring-a-round-the-Rosies, Mary had a little lamb, and Rain, Rain, Go Away also use it. The Kodaly and Orff methods for teaching music to children exclusively use it for their beginning students.
My challenge? Find a way to incorporate the scale into your teaching, especially parents teaching music appreciation to your children through singing. Children who have a hard time singing in tune can especially benefit with a steady diet of pentatonic music because the hardest intervals to hear (the minor 2nd, augmented 4th, and major 7th) are completely eliminated.
Here is an interesting video that shows the intuitiveness of the scale in action: