Extra Educational Information from Upado Unlimited

How to Play the Piano

5/1/2019

You Can Play Your Very First Song
with Popular 8 Note Songs Music Patterns from Upado Unlimited!

You can play a song, even if you cannot read music! If you have a keyboard, a Popular 8 Note Songs music pattern song book and the ability to match colors or letters, you are all set to go!

To use the Up-a-do Unlimited Song Patterns with a keyboard, you need either an electronic piano or a full-size piano.

Placing the Color Chart:
Carefully remove the piano fingering chart from the back of your Popular 8 Note Songs music book and place it on the piano between the white (and black) keys and the back board.

Notice that the piano has a long row of white keys backed by sets of two or three black keys. Find the pair of black keys closest to the middle of the piano. The white key to the left of the first black key in the pair is the piano’s middle C, and it is the low C on your fingering chart. Place the fingering chart on the keyboard so that the lines between the colors line up with the gaps between the notes.

The Key of C:
The white notes on a keyboard are named A B C D E F G. This pattern of notes repeats all the way up the piano. Most of the songs in the Popular 8 Note Songs Music Book are played in the Key of C which means you will be playing just the

white keys on your keyboard. The key of C includes the notes: C D E F G A B C.

Position:
When playing the songs, sit so that you are a comfortable distance from the piano with your bench high enough so that your hands reach the keyboard when your elbows are bent at a 90 degree angle. Cup your right hand like you are holding a tennis ball. This will allow you to play on the more sensitive tips of your fingers, and it causes the fingers to work at about the same length. Your thumb will remain straight.

Playing a C Scale:
Place your right thumb on the C note and then play D with your first finger, E with your second finger, F with your thumb (by crossing it below your hand), and G with your first finger, A with your second finger, B with your third finger and High C with your fourth finger. Play C D E F G A B C again. You are playing a scale!

Beat and Rhythm:
It is important to learn to keep a steady beat so that your song is musical and so that you can play along with other people. Practice beat (the steady thumping) and rhythm (the varied time spacings) by clapping along or even dancing about with recordings of songs you enjoy. When you

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Classic Toys: The Gift of Unlimited Possibilities

4/1/2019

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Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House on the Prarie Gifts

A cup, a penny, a heart-shaped cake and a peppermint candy stick.

When my three children were small, we spent months reading through every single one Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. One winter, it looked as though there would be no Christmas for Mary and Laura Ingalls. A storm was brewing, and to the children, there just did not seem to be anyway that Santa would be able to make it that year. To their great surprise and delight, the Ingalls’ good friend Mr. Edwards arrived and brought treasures.

These were simple gifts, to be sure, but they were welcome with such thankfulness and delight. As I look back over the many years of raising children, the gifts that had the most continue play throughout the year were the simple classic gifts.

My children had their share of plastic toys, but there is a growing concern that many of the plastic toys that small children play with are toxic. The European Union has banned the use of PVC (thermoplastic resins) in children’s toys due to health concerns. Although the United States banned the use of Phthalates (a chemical that makes plastics more flexible), toys here are still made with PVC plastics.

Electronic toys fill the holiday catalogs, but Dr. Victoria L. Dunckley M.D., author of Reset Your Child’s Brain, believes that children are “wired and tired,” and that children need a “fast”

from the constant onslaught of “screen time” stimulation. She believes that spending a lot of time playing with phones, tablets and computers overloads a child’s sensory system, fractures attention, and depletes mental reserves.

There are alternatives to plastic and electronics. For generations, children have enjoyed toys that

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How to Play the Recorder

3/1/2019

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A recorder is easy to play, and like the glockenspiel xylophone, it makes a great instrument for children and new musicians of all ages.

The color-coded and letter-coded music patterns created by the crew at Up-a-do Unlimited work quite well with the recorder because musicians can visualize the placement of their fingers on the recorder by watching where the color blocks are located in the pattern. The closer the blocks are to the bottom of the music pattern, the more holes of the recorder the musician covers.

The newest edition of Popular 8 Note Songs: Music for Xylophone, Glockenspiel, Recorder, Bells and Piano contains Fingering Charts for both the recorder and also the piano to help music students successfully match the patterns and play the songs.

Recorders are in the woodwind family, and although some are made of wood, most musicians new to the instrument purchase a plastic soprano recorder first.

Good Posture: To begin, stand or sit with good posture at the edge of your seat so you can use your diaphragm to take deep, full breaths. Before picking up your recorder, practice blowing air through your lips. The air should be steady and gentle like you are blowing soap bubbles.

Holding the Recorder: When you hold your recorder, the single hole will face you, and the side of the recorder with many holes will face up. Your left hand will be at the top on the end closest to the mouth piece. Use your left thumb to cover the single bottom hole, and use your left index finger to cover the top hole on the other side.

Play the “B” Note: Place your recorder between your lips, and do not bite on the mouth piece with your teeth. Blow gently. You should be playing a “B” note. If you are having trouble with a squeaky sound, you may be blowing too hard, or you might not have the holes covered completely with the pads of your fingers. Keep trying!

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Popular 8 Note Songs Book 2 is an ebook

2/9/2019

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Kindle, which means to light a fire, was the name chosen by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos for Amazon’s very first eBook reader which was released in 2007. Since that time, the Kindle reader has evolved to include larger screens, keyboards and lighted backgrounds. Amazon has also introduced Kindle apps for use on various devices and platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Apple products, Android phones.

Kindle Direct Publishing allows authors to self-publish their books and upload them to readers with a Kindle or a Kindle App. As of 2018, there were over six million eBooks available in the United States.

Just this year, our crew at Up-a-do Unlimited released our first eBook: Popular 8 Note Songs Book 2. This is the latest in a collection of eight music pattern books that help new musicians play songs by matching colors or letters. These patterns work well with a xylophone, recorder, piano and more.

Because the overarching goal of our company is to get music opportunities into the hands of as many people as possible, we are offering a free download of this book on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2018. It is our Valentine’s Day gift to you!

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How to Play Handbells

1/5/2019

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Have you ever heard a handbell choir play? Many handbell choirs are part of church music programs, but you can use handbells to play any kind of music. A set of eight colorful handbells is another fun instrument that can be used with the Up-a-do Unlimited song pattern books. Most handbells will not match the colors of the Popular 8 Note Songs

music pattern books, but Up-a-do Unlimited also offers a music pattern coloring book so that the note blocks of the songs can be colored to match any instrument. Plus, there are instructions online for using the coloring book and also free audio tracks!

You can play handbells on your own by picking up each bell and ringing it, but it can be more fun to form a handbell choir with your classmates, family or friends. One way to think of a handbell choir is like a piano where each person controls only a few keys. With four people, each person can ring two bells, and all the eight notes songs can be played.

The bells should be kept in keyboard order, lowest to highest when going left to right in chromatic order, as much as possible. Inside the bell is the clapper which is the part that strikes the bell and causes it to produce sound.

To start playing, pick up two bells and hold them in front of your chest with the bells facing straight up. Ring one bell by

moving it forward and away from your body in a circular motion and then snap your wrist which will produce a sound. Finish making the circle with your arm until ...

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Wishing You a Merry Christmas with a Xylophone and Piano Duet

12/3/2018

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Part of the fun of being a creator of music pattern books is working out new harmonies on various instruments with my husband and kids. My youngest daughter started playing one our favorite Christmas songs, “We Wish You and Merry Christmas,” and I jumped up to accompany her on

piano. The result we later recorded and put together in this video.

You can play a duet of this song with two xylophones using the music patterns in the book Popular 8 Note Songs for Christmas. If you want to learn by listening, all the audio tracks for the songs are available online at www.upadounlimited.com/songs-for-christmas.

One of the reasons we are able to create glockenspiel xylophone and piano duets because each Up-a-do Unlimited xylophone is precision tuned so it can be played with other instruments such as piano, recorder and guitar.

“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” is thought to be an English Christmas carol from the 1600’s. All Christmas carols were banned in the churches in England between 1647-1660 by Oliver Cromwell, who believed that Christmas should be a solemn and serious day. To keep the traditional carols alive, carolers went from house to house singing the holiday songs.

In the 1800’s, Victorian Era carolers brought back door to door Christmas caroling with an interesting twist. Often times, the carolers would refuse to leave until they had receive a treat of some kind, the favorite being “figgy pudding” which is why two of the lines in the song state, “Bring us some figgy pudding” and

and “We won’t go until we get some.” Figgy pudding is similar to an English Christmas pudding that contains raisins, molasses and spices.

Our family enjoys playing and singing Christmas Carols all through the holiday season. My hope is that in sharing our music and song patterns with you, we can give you the joy of creating musical memories with your family too!

Wishing you joy on your musical journey,
Debra Newby

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Learning a New Language with Music

10/1/2018

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Did you spend any time in school learning a foreign language? I did. I sat in a high school classroom for three years for five hours a week studying French, but I am sad to say, not much of it stuck. (Well, a little did - at least enough to carry on small conversations while I was visiting Libreville, Gabon in Africa with my uncle when I was nineteen years old. I was glad for that. )

In college, I studied Japanese in preparation for a six month stint as an English teacher at a Sekio Gakuin High School in Japan, and later I took a Spanish class.

Recently, we had Popular 8 Note Songs translated into Spanish, German and French so that native speakers of those languages can have an easily accessible start with music, and so that English speakers can use the books to help them with their language development through music and singing.

Music and Language Connection

Music makes words memorable. Some of the foreign language words I remember the best are ones I learned to simple children songs. It was thought at one time that we use different parts of the brain for music and for language, but we now know there is a lot of overlap. Music can improve one’s language learning ability, and vice versa. Mozart was not only agifted musician, but also spoke several language including French, German and Italian.

You can use songs to help you learn foreign phrases by counting the number of syllables in the sentence you want to learn, finding a nursey rhyme with the same number of syllables and swapping the words to the nursery rhyme out for your foreign language sentence. It may feel awkward at first, but keep on singing. It will get easier.

Which Language Should I Learn?

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Easy to Store Xylophones for Space Conscious Millennials and Downsizing Retirees

9/24/2018

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Recently, our youngest daughter got married, and my husband and I are now officially empty nesters. We have been looking around our family home and realizing that we own many items we simply do not need. The spaces that used to be filled with three busy children are now bursting with the memorabilia they have left behind and no longer want. And we are thinking that perhaps it is time for us to consider downsizing. It is an interesting process to evaluate each item and discuss what purpose it has in our lives.

Society is beginning to turn its back on the mega-mansions of the past twenty years and is looking to downsize living spaces while searching for a more simplified life. Ikea, a Swedish furniture and home design company, continues to grow in popularity because its furniture is small and easily portable which fits well with the millennials’ more nomadic lifestyle. Home ownership is down as employees move from job to job every few years.

Families with young children are looking to fit more life and less stuff in their homes, so the toys that they purchase for their children must be compact, easy to store and have a lot of creative play value. Up-a-do Unlimited provides a precision tuned glockenspiel xylophone that matches these criteria, and the

instrument comes in a sturdy box that easily doubles as a storage unit for the xylophone and the 12 page Music Pattern Song Book.

The crew at Up-a-do Unlimited has created extra Music Pattern Song Books such as Popular 8 Note Songs Book 2 and Popular 8 Note Songs for Christmas which provide extra songs that extend the play value of the instrument.

Young families are not the only ones making a life for themselves in smaller living spaces. Retired couples are also downsizing, and often times they must leave behind large instruments like pianos. Older musicians can still find the joy of music by playing some of the more complicated pieces in the music pattern collection such as the Bach Minuet. For couples who both want to play the xylophone, there are duets and a rounds on the Up-a-do Unlimited website so that couples and families can enjoy music together.

For me, the fun that my husband and I have playing music together means that our set of xylophones definitely makes it on the “keep it” list. Small instruments such as the glockenspiel xylophone that can be easily stored provide solutions for both the millennial generation and retirees too.

(And because we have a couple of grandkids now, we’ll be keeping the high chair too!)

Wishing you joy on your musical journey,
Debra Newby

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Pop Up Music Class: Describing Yourself as a Musician

9/24/2018

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How do you describe yourself?

One of the ways I describe myself is as an educator, sometimes in music, other times in math and science. Other descriptions include: an author (of music patterns books like Popular 8 Note Songs) and a musician, sometimes singing, sometimes playing the piano, and sometimes playing the xylophone!

I am many other things as well. I am a wife, a mother, a pie baker, a hiker, and a reader of many books. And being a musician is one of my favorites.

So I have started hosting Pop Up Music Classes so that more children can describe themselves as musicians too!

When I teach the class, I introduce four main parts of music. I am going to share these ideas with you with the hope that perhaps some of you will host your own Pop Up Music Class with the children in your community.

Four Musical Ideas:

1. Beat: A regular, repeating event, a basic unit of time.
When you introduce beat, first have the children cover their hearts with their hands and see if they can find their own musical beat that is happening inside of them. Clap along with a metronome to the beat of the average heart rate. Then you can have the children jump up and down and jog in place and discover that the beat of their hearts has gotten faster. Resting with their heads on the table allows their heart rates to slow, and so you can slow the ticking of the metronome. Using a metronome, discuss how beats can be fast or slow.

2. Rhythm: A placement of sound in time.
First, the children can practice counting to four while clapping along with the metronome.

Using a white board, draw a simple circle representing a pie, and divide the pie into four sections. These four pie pieces

represent the beats in a four-count time signature. It takes longer to eat two pieces of pie than it does to eat one, so when you pretend to eat one piece of pie, say, “Plum,” and when you pretend to eat two pieces of pie say, “Ap – ple.” Three and four beats must be held even longer, so say, “Blue Ber – ry” and “Sweet Po-ta-to” for those longer beats.

Rectangles with increasing sizes can be shown on the white board so the students will be ready to use the music patterns in the 12 page booklet that comes with each xylophone. The longer the rectangle, the more beats a note is held.

Play Follow the Leader (or Call and Response) by saying a rhythm pattern and having the children repeating it.
Plum, Plum, Ap – ple, Sweet Po-ta-to, Ap – ple
Clap, Clap, Clap (hold) Clap (hold, hold, hold) Clap (hold)

3. Pitch: High note frequency and low note frequency
Bears talk with very low voices, so students on the left hand side of the class practice talking with very low voices. Mice talk with very high voices, so students on the right

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Popular 8 Note Songs Book 2: Making Memories with Music

8/19/2018

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Wait! Can it be? Are there still more songs that can be played with just eight notes? Why… yes there are!

We have just published Popular 8 Note Songs Book 2 for aspiring musicians everywhere. The music pattern book contains over twenty tunes, including duets by both Beethoven and Bach. We think of classical composers like these

writing melodies that can only be played by experienced musicians. But that is just not true. While these song pattern duets are two of the more complicated pieces in the collection, a new musician can still match the colors in the patterns to a xylophone or the letters to other instruments (including the recorder, piano, hand bells and even… a harmonica!) and play a classical piece.

And speaking of the harmonica, if you are interested in seeing how the harmonica can play these eight note songs, you will be happy to know that there is a beginning lesson in Popular 8 Note Songs Book 2 with a color chart to help you match a harmonica to the songs patterns, plus more instructions online at www.UpadoUnlimited.com,

The first time I heard the Bach Minuet duet was when my two daughters were taking Suzuki Violin lessons many years ago. I was so surprised to find that it could be played with just 8 notes. On our website, you can listen to the free audio track of my daughters accompanying me on violin while I play the xylophone.

But Popular 8 Note Songs Book 2 contains more than just classical pieces. The book begins with easy children’s songs and progresses to more challenging note patterns and rhythms. One song in the collection, Swallowtail Jig, is in a minor key which gives it a very different sound. Swallowtail Jig is usually played in the key of D minor. Although an Upado Unlimited Glockenspiel Xylophone has eight notes in the key of C major, the patterning works to play a minor key song on a major key instrument because the tune requires no sharps or flats.

Swallow Tail Jig is a familiar tune to many Irish fiddlers, and some historians date the origin of the tune all the way back to the mid-nineteenth century. People often wonder about the difference between a jig and a reel. If a vocalist can sing “elephant, elephant” along with the beat, then it is a jig. If he can sing “alligator, alligator,” then the musician is playing a reel. A jig, written in 6/8 time, basically has three beats per measure. A reel, on the other hand, has four beats per measure.

Fiddle songs have a special place in my heart because both of my daughters are classical violinists, Suzuki Violin teachers and fiddle players. (I am including a video of them playing Old Joe Clark back when they were in high school and early college. A friend is joining them on the accordion. Enjoy!)

As I write these Popular 8 Note Song books, I enjoy researching older songs and delight in helping to make them approachable for new musicians. In each book, I like

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Author

Debra Newby is a long time educator, a musician, a Heritage Dance caller and a credentialed teacher who is continually fascinated by patterns in life and academics. Read more about her in the author bio below. Ever the extrovert, she loves to chat and help people figure things out, and you can reach her at [email protected].

Click Book Covers Below to purchase on Amazon

Click Here For Instructions on How to Play the Xylophone!

click here for instructions on how to play the recorder!

Click Here for instructions on how to play the piano!

click here for instructions on how to play the harmonica!

Click Here for Instructions on How to color Music Patterns!

Author Bio

Debra Newby is a long time educator, a musician, a Victorian dance caller and a credentialed teacher who has tutored students in Japan, conducted science classes at a marine aquarium, and taught biology and chemistry courses at several California high schools. She has recently completed an exciting twenty-five year homeschooling adventure with her husband and three children, and a year ago welcomed her first grandchild into the family.

While sitting through many years of Suzuki violin lessons with her daughters, she marveled at how many songs – even classical songs – could be played with just eight notes, and she thought about ways that other children and adults could get an easily accessible start in music. She now creates Music Patterns for Upado (Up-a-do) Unlimited Glockenspiel Xylophones which work equally as well with recorders, hand bells and piano.

Continually fascinated by connections and patterns, Debra Newby also coaches and tutors high school and college students to recognize patterns in life and academics, creates dance patterns for her Heritage Dance Events Project and continues to search for more ways to help kids learn.

Debra Newby

Author

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Click Book Covers Below to purchase on Amazon

Author Bio