Free air guitar, please take one : unusual music sessions for childre…

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Good morning and welcome to the Reaching Out session.

I would like to say thank you to The International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, the IAML Hungarian National Branch and Bródy Sándor Public Library for supporting my participation in this congress.

My purpose today is to talk about some examples of best practice in Bródy Sándor Public Library, this is how we make the music library popular for children and teenagers and bring them closer to music.

I live in Eger. Eger is the county seat of Heves, and the second largest city in Northern Hungary. The centre of Eger is often called &quot;the Baroque Pearl of Europe&quot;. Eger is best known for its Castle, thermal baths, historic buildings (including the northernmost Turkish minaret, Cathedral, Lyceum, Archdiocesan Library).

Eger is an educational centre with a university and many elementary and secondary schools.

The population of Eger is 54,609 and 25 % are registered library users (13000). I work as a music librarian at Bródy Sándor Public Library. The Public Library of Eger opened in 1952. The library is also the center of Heves County library network, and has regional responsibilities. The present stock contains 317000 library units.

In 2016 the Library won the most important professional award in Hungary, which is called Library Excellence Award. All my collegues are keeping their fingers crossed for me and send their love to the Congress.

The music collection of the library opened in 1971. In 2008 we merged with the Foreign language section, and since then we are the Music and Foreign Language Department. Our department is next door to the central library.

Our collection has 4100 books on music, 2000 volumes of sheet music, 8000 CDs, 2000 LPs (vinyls), 700 Music-DVDs, 8 journals and magazines on music. We have CDs of all kinds of music genres. We have the largest popular music collection in Northern Hungary.

Every year I make a slideshow that consist of the photos of the year, and upload it on our YouTube channel, please let me show you what happened in our department in 2016.

As you see on the photos, a great number of schoolchildren visit us. We provide them guided tours in the building and organize various programs to show our collection.

Unfortunately the Z generation no longer borrow CDs. We are looking for other possibilities to have them in the library. We make efforts to attract them to the library, that is why we use unusual tools. Let me show you some examples.

In this game the children have to trace signs that we have hidden in the department. Every sign is a clue that leads the players to the next sign…and so on.

A sign can be found in a book, or sheet music, or CD cover, magazines, on the shelves…everywhere. When a whole class participate in the game, we make four groups. A map is given to each group.

For example the first group has its first clue at the Record player. It is a note on the Record player that says: find CD number L 505.

and this CD of course has another clue in it. This is the name of the composer of track 4.

Find the composer’s name in music lexicon…and so on.

The winner is the person who gets the last clue first. Teenagers also enjoy this game.

We started a new video game club on Xbox One platform with kinect,we call it MusiX-box club where music rhythm games can be played: Guitar Hero Live (12+), Disney Fantasia Music Evolved (3+), Just Dance 2016 (3+). We present the games to school groups, and individuals can come and play every afternoon.

Fantasia: Music Evolved is a motion-controlled music rhythm game inspired by Disney’s classic animated film &quot;Fantasia. Players conduct a broad range of musical pieces -from centuries-old symphonies to modern pop hits - using their hands.

The licensed music includes compositions from the classical era, including Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky, Eine kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart, The Four Seasons&apos;s Winter by Vivaldi, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt, The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky etc. Each song comes with three mixes in total. The game has “Composition” spells, which allow you to create your own beat, rhythm, or phrase through gestures, then automatically integrate them into the song.

In this hunt the children learn how they can use the library and they get to know books in the library. In this game we use the characters of the popular Pokemon GO, that they have to quest in books.

First I present the Pokemon Go game, then the Dewey Decimal Classification System. Every book is given a number and is put on the shelf in number order. Books with the same number are put in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.

We develop three groups: The Team Instinct is hunting for Fiction, the Team Mystic is hunting for Non-fiction, and the Team Valor is hunting for reference books (lexicons, encyclopedias, dictionaries).

There is a Library Pokedex, that has the silhouettes of the pokemons.

Each child gets a pokemon card with a silhouette of a pokemon and the dewey system number of a book in which the child finds the pokemon.

This pokemon is put by the children on the library pokédex. And they show the others the book they have found the pokemon in. This is a good way of making books popular.

In the end the children get candy and a bookmark with a pokemon on it. The children love it. This game can be played with other well-known charecters as well.

In 2010 a music teacher I know asked me to give a special a lesson about Kodály’s Háry János in the library. The children enjoyed it and other school groups asked me to present them this music lesson. The library has won several applications supporting learning outside school. This is how we could regularly organise special music lessons in the library. We chose topics that support school work and have a lot in common with the school curriculum. In these library hours we used multimedia, video, photos, websites, interactive games etc.

Some topics: Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev, The Magic Flute by W.A. Mozart, Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky, Renaissance music, Baroque music, Blues, Jazz, World music etc. I would like to show you a slideshow of our best moments:

After the application period our good connection with the schools still was alive. They gladly bring the classes to the library even today.

Let’s have a closer look at the session entitled Humour in music. First we talk about humour in general and humour in our life, then we mention what sources of humour we can find in music.Then we watch a short film with Mr Bean and we guess why it is so humorous. In the film Mr Bean is playing the piano without a real piano.

I asked the children to show air instruments and the others have to find out what kind of musical instruments they are.

With younger children we play a fishing game. We have to catch a fish with the name of a musical instrument on it.

They mustn’t tell the name of the instrument but show it somehow, and the others have to guess what kind of musical instrument it is. In the end we play together a classical peace on air intruments. For example Mozart’s Turkish March. It’s so funny.

We have some simple rhythm instruments in the library, which we can use on these occasions.

Furthermore , my colleague showed them once that a simple halm (grass) can be used as an instrument as well.

A good way of making instruments familiar is to use an online match game on website of New York Philharmonic KidZone. It’s great fun for children.

When we are talking about vocal music, we listen to Flight of the Bumblebee by Rimsky-Korsakov performed acapella by The King Sisters. All have to close their eyes and find out which animal it is.

It is also possible the children can imitate animal sound, for example when there is a song about ships, they are baas. Then Rossini’s Cat Duet is also a very good choice. The music itself is very funny but it’s more enjoyable because the compiler of the video uses a lot of cute pictures of cats. The children laugh of course.

Jennifer Ward from RISM Central Office drew my attention to the Jigshaw Planet website, where I’m allowed to make online puzzles free of charge. Children adore it.

I use some cartoon pieces as well, for example Disney’s Fantasia and Tom & Jerry. There is an episode where they are playing Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

We can dance also. We often use the Hungarian folk song entitled as „On to the thatch on the roof of my house” and show the lines…

With teenagers I use the Just Dance videogame, the program of the game contains Rossini: Tell Vilmos…In this game while hearing Rossini’s music, the teens have to imitate the animation characters on the screen.

Sometimes with a help of volunteers we also use handcraft elements during the session.

One of my colleagues is a martial artist and he also makes a martial art performance.

The music lesson ends with a train game. There is a train song, based on a Hungarian folk song, similar to Choo Choo train.

The children are pleased to leave the school building and they get acquainted with library atmosphere. The teachers are pleased to add more colour and innovation to music lessons. The music librarian is very happy with the new generation of music lovers.

I have brought a lot of air instruments, they are beside you, please pick up one favorite and play together Brahms. My favourite air instrument is the guitar so I will play the guitar. Is anybody playing the violin? Who would like to play solo? Carolyn, would you like to be the conductor? Ready? Go! Let’s play!

Well, that completes my presentation. Thank you for your attention. And now I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
If you have any more questions, I’m happy to answer them in e-mail. My e-mail address is on the screen.

Free air guitar, please take one : unusual music sessions for children in a public library

Zenei Könyvtár

Free air guitar, please take one : unusual music sessions for children in a public library