Great Day With Denise Gagne!, Amy Burns

Figure 1: Photo by Jennifer Spence

This past October, the Elementary Division of the North Jersey School of Music Association (NJSMA) held a workshop that featured music educator, author, and clinician, Denise Gagne. Many of us have used several of Denise’s materials from Musicplay to her recorder materials, to her apps, to so much more (http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/default. aspx). She has a plethora of early childhood and elementary materials for the music classroom that are student-tested and work well for any classroom environment. Recently, Denise launched Musicplay Online (http://musicplayonline.com/), which is an amazing supplemental website for the Musicplay curriculum. She has placed audio files, manipulatives, pdf files of items for download, videos, music creation activities, interactive instruments, and more, on this website. This website is subscription-based; however, if you attend her workshops, she gives you a three-month subscription for free. Finally, when I attend a Denise Gagne workshop, I love that she never presents the same workshop twice. She always switches it up and keeps it fresh. As a presenter, I greatly admire that, as it is very tough to do!

Denise began her workshop with warm-ups for the body and voice. She demonstrated her app, Vocal Warm-ups for Singers or Choir (https:// itunes.apple.com/us/app/vocal-warm-ups-forsingers/id597200553?mt=8). This is a great app for any singer or chorus from elementary to college. My favorite aspect of this app is that there is always one jazz warm-up with each set of warm-ups listed in the app.

Denise then spoke about the Sub Tub that she is creating and will be available for sale next year. It will include games, manipulatives, etc, for those days that you are unexpectedly out and need to leave quick plans. This sub tub will have numerous materials that can be used at any time of the school year.

Denise introduced her new, student-tested, Musicplay PreK curriculum (http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/category. aspx?categoryID=119). She demonstrated some great activities such as, “Three Little Monkeys” to emphasize high and low sounds; “Monkeys” to emphasize actions and can be advanced to include partners; “Let’s Play Instruments” to pass out instruments in a 7/8 meter; and so much more! She has many songs that have the students experiencing the steady beat, high and low sounds, loud and quiet sounds, and fast and slow. Her book comes with the CD and the digital resources. I downloaded them all after the workshop and was thrilled to find videos of her with the PreK students performing many of her activities. This assists the teacher with learning how to accurately teach and perform the songs found in the book.

Denise showed her resource, Teaching Music Reading With Boomwhackers (http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=345). This book is very unique because there are not many boomwhacker resource books where the goal is to teach music reading. Denise uses a sequential process to take your students in grades two to five through learning 55 musical examples. Denise tested these activities with third graders and had great success with them. During the workshop, we thoroughly enjoyed her boomwhacker rendition of “Chop Sticks.”

Denise has many resources for the recorder such as The Complete Recorder Resource Kits (http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores. com/category.aspx?categoryID=52). Her recorder materials cover a great range from beginner to advance using traditional to original materials. She also has very affordable apps for students to use at home. During the workshop, we performed some examples from the apps, Learn & Play Recorder Volume 1 (https://itunes.apple.com/ us/app/learn-and-play-recorder/id543660617?mt=8) and Learn and Play Recorder Volume 2 (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-andplay-recorder-2/id850408047?mt=8).

Denise had us up and moving throughout the entire day. When we finished, we were exhausted in the best way possible. We had learned so many new dances and activities for our students, as well as reviewed many favorite songs.

This ensemble was a fantastic group of sixth grade general music students performing numerous selections that showed the students singing, performing on instruments, and moving to music. I loved the versatility of these students as they switched instruments during the song selections and took great care in listening to each other. They performed with a beautiful balance as well with good enthusiasm. Congratulations to Ardith and her fabulous sixth graders!

Throughout the day, we enjoyed performances by The Two Ukes, who are Jody Adessa and Casey Goryeb. Jody and Casey are two NJ music educators who on top of teaching, arrange and play music at local venues. They are quite talented as their harmonies and singing voices blended together beautifully. In addition, they changed from ukuleles to banjos to give a different sound and feel.

I created a one-hour webinar of highlights from this day that was offered for 1 PD credit for elementary NJ music educators this past fall/winter. For those who are NJMEA/NAfME members, if you watch the webinar and write-up a summary, you can receive 1 hour of PD. Please email me at aburns@fhcds.org if you missed the chance to view the webinar and I will send you the link.

The entire day was inspirational! I personally thank Chair Lisa Ludwig Wichman, who made the day flow so smoothly. In addition, great thanks to Carol Richardi -Co-Chair/Registrar, Jodie Trappe Adessa, Karen Andruska, Laurie Arslanyan, Ken Barry, Emma Brondolo, JP Butcher, Kiera Casper Chiarino, Debbie Cicchino, Ardith Collins, Nicolette Corrado, Anna Maria Ferrone, Catherine Flynn, Rachel Fountain, Casey Goryeb, Kim Kanefke, Rebecca Jacobsen, Irene Tsotsoros Lahr, Deborah Norris Mello, Glennis Patterson, Tara Ann Postigo, Katy Ann Reiser, Mark Richardson, Donna Fiorito SanGiovanni, Jennifer Drechen Spence, Christine Reda-Sulling, Kelly Lydon Wisneski, and so many more who made this day happen.

Finally, a huge thank you to Denise Gagne. She inspires and shows all of us through her work that we need to keep teaching music to young children because it makes a great difference in their lives!

Amy M. Burns (aburns@fhcds.org) has taught PreK-grade 4 general music for 20 years at Far Hills Country Day School. She has authored 3 books on how to integrate tech into the elementary music classroom. She has presented many sessions on the topic, including 2 keynote addresses in TX and AU. She is the recipient of the TI:ME Teacher of the Year, NJ Master Music Teacher, & Governor’s Leader in Arts Education Awards.