In my preschool classes, the students are dancing to the Beatles’ recording of ‘Til There Was You from The Music Man (with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson). We are singing The More We Get Together and playing a matching (find your partner) game with the letters of the musical alphabet (A-G).

With President’s Day around the corner, and inspired by George M. Cohan, I’ve prepared a tribute to Vaudeville. We start with the book The Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman with illustrations by Stephen Gammell. Following the book, there will come a hat dance (read paper plates) with music, Hello My Baby, made legend by Warner Brother’s Michigan J. Frog. Sesame Street has released a brilliantly accessible take-off on Vaudeville, A Very Easy Dance to Do.

To all children, students of music, and teachers,
Happy February and Keep on Singing!

Music Classes:
Anonymous Mother at A Whole New World Day Care
“My son LOVES your music class. I can’t thank you enough for bringing Music Together to his school.”

Academia:
Erik Noteboom, Vice President of Digital Arts Education, Full Sail University
“Kristin proved to be an excellent teacher with great creativity and self-motivation, developing new curriculum in an innovative field. Unique in her passion for combining multimedia and the performing arts, she often exceeded expectations in her assigned courses and frequently collaborated with the students and staff in Music History, MIDI Recording, and Cinematic Audio. As an animation instructor, her efforts to encourage interaction between animation students and the local improvisation theater inspired students to develop creative characters in their projects. This initiative eventually lead to the creation of an “Acting for Animators” course, which continues to be one of our most popular courses today.”

Talent Management:
James von Scholz, President, Gotham Artisits Agency
“A well-established agency would benefit tremendously from Ms. Reign’s energy, self-discipline, coordination and chutzpah…her perseverance is noteworthy.”

Indie Client:
Music Celebrity and Composer, Jesse Gelber more
“Kristin is an extremely energetic and organized marketing manager. She was very helpful in giving me direction and ideas on how best to find my target audiences and move my media package forward. Kristin is very professional, and has a great business instinct…a pleasure.”

Advertising:
Dave Kaplan, Group Publication Director, McMahon Publishing Group
“Having managed Kristin directly, I will be the first to say that she has much to offer with regards to creativity and enthusiasm. She is willing to learn and to be an effective part of a team. Any organization in need of a person with these traits will not be disappointed in Kristin.”

Advertising:
Julianna Dawson, Sales Rep, McMahon Publishing Group
“Kristin is a superb presenter with lots of talents and a magnetic upbeat personality.”

Communications:
John Collins, President, Collins Communications Corporation
“Kristin’s performance in multiple roles was instrumental in the success of our company. Her ability to adapt quickly in stressful situations made her a valuable asset to our creative and video production teams….demonstrating the ability to focus and expand her knowledge in order to fulfill her growing list of responsibilities. Once you find someone like Kristin, you want to keep her forever.”

The answers reflect excellence standards as set by the Music Educators National Conference and published in The School Music Program: A New Vision

What are the principles of your music program?
The years before kindergarten are critical for children’s musical development.

• All children have musical potential that they ought to explore daily
• Young children are capable of developing critical thinking skills through musical ideas
• Children should experience age-appropriate musical activities and materials—created and modeled by trained, enthusiastic and responsive adults
• Young children should not be encumbered with the need to meet performance goals—learning should be process-oriented (exceptions include skits, sing-alongs, and the Suzuki method of private instruction which encourages performance on piano, violin or guitar)

What is your preschool’s music curriculum?
Developmentally appropriate early music experiences should occur in safe, teacher-supported environments where children can “work” at the skills relevant to them. Children need:

• Individual time with musical instruments and materials
• Group music time to experience the social and interactive benefits
• Enthusiastic encouragement for students’ questions and suggestions—which stimulate their critical thinking skills, confidence, and leadership abilities

Who sets the music curriculum and monitors facilitation?
Ideally, your chosen school would employ a Music Specialist trained in early-childhood development to provide musical expertise and model music education for the child-care staff.

Effective music teaching in the prekindergarten should:

• Support the child’s total development—physical, emotional, social & cognitive
• Recognize the wide range of “normal” development and the need to differentiate instruction to address different learning styles—such as visual, aural, or kinesthetic.
• Provide daily opportunities to explore sound through singing, moving, listening, and playing instruments—as well as introductory experiences in verbalization and visualization of musical ideas
• Encourage active participation (neurological development is insufficiently supported by the passive entertainment of children offered by CDs, TV, or video)
• Be integrated with children’s most important role models—their parents and family

What is the music literature?
Young children need to build a repertoire of songs they can sing, in order to work on their vocabulary, memory, and independence. Selected songs should be of age-appropriate and include:

• Traditional children’s songs
• Folk songs from a variety of cultures
• Classical Music with simple and repetitive melodic
and/or rhythmic themes
• Varied lyric, rhythmic, melodic and harmonic patterns

SINGING, INSTRUMENTS, & DANCE
Children, ages 3-6, can develop “BASIC MUSIC COMPETENCY”, meaning they can replicate songs with accurate melody, rhythm, and physical coordination.

VOCABULARY
Children develop their use of 300+ words. Group singing can expand vocabulary, enhance speech technique and build memory skills.

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Children are learning to expand their peer interactions: the repetition of songs builds self-confidence and interactive communication skills expand while playing music with adults and peers.

CRITICAL THINKING
As musical patterns are established and then varied, children learn to compare and contrast verses, instruments, movements, and their independent actions. When teachers ask for ideas for variations, or adapt a child’s ideas to the song, children develop their creativity and problem-solving skills.

Also under consideration: Americans for the Arts has proposed appointing a senior-level administration official with an arts portfolio, along the lines of Leonard Garment of the Nixon administration, August Heckscher under John F. Kennedy or Roger L. Stevens under Lyndon B. Johnson. Since a Jan. 16 report in The Los Angeles Times much of the speculation about the agency’s next chairman has focused on Michael C. Dorf, a lawyer who served on Mr. Obama’s arts-policy team during the campaign and was an adviser to the transition.

Would you like to speak out about what you need as an artist? Or about the importance of movies, music and art in your life? If so, I urge you to leave a comment here. I’ll post all comments meaningful comments here and on appropriate networks like mybarackobama.com and Organizing for America.

Whether it will sway the outcome of the presidential race no one can know, but the ad certainly seems to encapsulate the fact that Mr. Obama has emerged as the darling of the advertising world’s creative set.

Pop Culture Videos for Obama:
“Yes We Can” – written and produced by Black-Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am, Jesse Dylan (son of Bob) and Mike Jurkovac, a former VP-director of integration at FCB. According to Viral Video Chart, at press time it had garnered 10,540,006 views.

“Hope Changes Everything,” an Obama-as-rockstar video tribute created by Eric Hirshberg, president-chief creative officer of Deutsch, Los Angeles.

“Obama Girl” videos, courtesy of a group that included Ben Relles, who was once a staffer at Omnicom Group’s Agency.com.

The acronym RSS stands for many versions of the same thing.

• Really Simple Syndication
• Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)
• RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)
• Real-time Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)

In this capacity for eight months, I had the honor of working with the Publication Directors, editors, designers and salespeople responsible for leading newsmagazines such as General Surgery News, Pharmacy Practice News, and Gastroenterology and Endoscopy News.