Fun With Music Day 2008

Music class when I was an elementary-aged student consisted of my classmates and me sitting in our hard seats and singing songs from an old, musty smelling music book. We didn’t stand (unless it was the Star Spangled Banner, of course!), we didn’t move, and we didn’t understand what all of the little ink blots on the page meant. In short, we learned very little about music, AND it wasn’t very fun! I missed out on all of the fun and exciting things about elementary music – moving to music and rhythms, singing something more than a melodic line, making and playing instruments, improvising and composing pieces of music, learning music notation. All of these things and more are what today’s elementary music educator’s can bring into a music classroom.

Partly because I missed out when I was in elementary school, and partly because I still see and hear of elementary music programs following the old “sit-and-sing” approach to elementary music education, I felt it important that the Department of Music attempt to show elementary students just how fun music can be. In 2006, I encouraged Dr. Marian Dura, our department’s elementary music specialist, to begin “Fun With Music Day” as an outreach to get area elementary children in grades K-5 excited about music. The first year was a great success and great fun, and we knew then that “Fun With Music Day” had to be an annual event.

Now in its third year, “Fun With Music Day” again will reach out to area children to get them excited about music and demonstrate how much fun learning music can be. This year’s “Fun With Music Day” will be held on Saturday, November 15 from 9 a.m.-noon in the Marwick-Boyd Fine Arts Center on the campus of Clarion University. The cost is $10 per child. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. in the lobby of the Marwick-Boyd Auditorium, with pre-registration available online.

For more information or to register online, visit the Department of Music website at www.clarion.edu/music or telephone the Music Office at 814-393-2435. You also may contact Dr. Marian Dura at 814-393-2465 or mdura@clarion.edu.

Dress comfortably and be ready to move to the music!