Kids Go Classical

What it is and Who it's For

Kids Go Classical is a group-based music developmental program for schools grades K-5. Through various hands-on activities such as pantomime and instrumental accompaniment, KGC teaches children to identify expressive idioms in music and emote to them.

KGC is a program suitable for schools and educators who are interested for their students to improve their cognitive and social skills.


Benefits to Students

Kids Go Classical offers a host of benefits to students, including improved:

  • attention
  • focus
  • memory
  • multi-tasking
  • cross-modal coordination (body-eye-ear)
  • right-hemispheric function (integration, holistic perception, estimation & projection)
  • emotional awareness, introspection and management

KGC lays the foundation for children to listen to music intelligently - looking for meaningful idioms and patterns. Students will develop a habit of imagining stories, events, happenings, etc. to familiar idioms in music they have never heard.


Format

Each session consists of having children listen to specifically prepared recordings of music. The instructors will help the students visualize the content of the music into a coherent story or image - pointing out the key idioms in the music that are responsible for creating the particular impressions or images. The students will then be shown how to express the idioms through various means, such as pantomime, gestures, facial expressions, soliloquy, etc.

Sessions are taught in groups by an instructor and an assistant. Groups may contain up to 30 students. The sessions require the use of musical instruments and accessories, loudspeakers, and a room with sufficient open space for free movement of students.

Each session is 1 hour long. Sessions should be conducted twice a week for optimal retention and reinforcement of skills. Once a week is possible, but far from ideal - students may have trouble remembering course material. Sessions are typically conducted in 12-week units; at the end of each unit will be a concert show, where children will demonstrate their achievements to teachers, parents, and friends.

Sample - Soliloquy to Music

Natasha and the Naughty Ducklings

Story

Natasha and the Naughty Ducklings

Once upon a time, there was a herd of little ducklings that lived happily with their mother in a farm in which lived a family with their sweet little daughter, Natasha.

Everyday Natasha went out and played with her animal friends in the woods and took the little ducklings to the pond nearby so that they could swim.

On a beautiful morning, as Natasha was playing with her animal friends, for a moment she forgot to watch the little ducklings. So, they ran off to the pond all by themselves. They were having fun swimming, splashing water to each other, enjoying the flowers and the beautiful butterflies, when suddenly a hungry tired wolf jumped out of the bushes to make a feast out of them. The little ducklings were terrified! They knew that they were trapped and that there was nothing they could do to save themselves!

As the wolf was about to jump into the pond, he suddenly heard some loud rattling noise from behind him! Panic stricken, he dashed away with a speed of a lightening!

From behind the bushes came out little Natasha who was looking for her darling little ducklings! “Oh, there you are, you naughty little ones!” Do you know how dangerous it is to go off to the pond all by yourselves without me to watch over out?!”

She then picked up the ducklings, one by one, she put them in her skirt and carried them back to the farm and released them to their dear mother who was over joyed to see them back safe and sound!

Samples - Group Pantomime Exercises (Video Edited, Include Narrated Storylines)

Sample - Group Pantomime Exercise (Unedited Raw Footage)

Prince Didon and the Piggy Bank

Story

Prince Didon and the Piggy Bank

In the great kingdom of Milonia, lived a little prince, Didon, with his two older twin brothers, Diggy and Dagga, and their magestic father, King Milon.

The good King Milon loved the little Didon more than anyone in the world, as Didon unlike his two lazy and coward brothers, was most intelligent, kind and brave.

For his 7th birthday, King Milon presented Didon with a most unusual and magnificent gift – a piggybank bejeweled with the most unusual stones. This was by no means an ordinary piggybank! If you put a coin in it, out came a magical fairy who told the most fantastic stories where you would live out the story – like in a dream!!

Little Didon loved his piggybank more than anything else he ever owned. Every day, after having finished his studies and having practiced his pianochorda, Didon would pick up his piggybank and with all excitement and joy hit it into the palm of his hand and call for the fairy to come out: “Out, out, out, out!”

But as soon as he would call for the fairy, he always noticed Diggy and Dagga hiding behind the door to his room, hoping to find a moment to snatch the piggybank from him. So, Didon would order them to go out by pointing to them and commanding: “Diggy, Dagga, No! Diggy, Dagga, No! Go, go, go!”

Suddenly, the door flung open and the palace guards would enter announcing the arrival of King Milon. Three times in a row they would firmly cross their fisted hands on their chests and say “Bie”, and then thrust their fisted hands forward and say “Yaa”. Then they would roll their hands around each other and in reverence for the king gradually and gracefully bow down and say “Bara, bara, bara, bara, bara, bara, ba”.

Then for three more times in a row, they would put their hands this time on their shoulders and say “In”, and then stretch their hands up in the air and say “Jaa”, which they would follow by the same reverence bow.

At this point, Diggy and Dagga would start pleading and begging their father for the piggybank by moaning: “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, give me! Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, give me! Piggybank, oh, piggybank”! Whereupon, Didon would strongly remind them “He’s the King and his says no! Diggy, Dagga go!” and shake his piggybank down.

Sample - Group Instrumental Accompaniment (Unedited Raw Footage)

Chickens and the Wolf

Story

Chickens and the Wolf

Once upon a time, in a hen-house, a happy group of chickens were sitting on their eggs and waiting for their eggs to hatch.

They were scratching each other and hitting the floor out of joy!

Suddenly, they heard a wolf! They got so scared that they began to shiver! They froze and listened carefully. They heard the wolf again and again. Each time they shivered! By the 4th time, they decided that enough was enough and that there was no use in getting scared. So, to scare off the wolf, they all yelled together and then began to hit the floor!

To make sure that the wolf would never come back, they built a criss-cross fence around the hen house.

At the end, a beautiful rainbow appeared above the hen-house as a sign that their smart hard work had paid off, and that the wolf was never going to show its face anywhere around them!