Mr. Ben’s musical message about
community & connectedness
Bringing together his 25 years of experience as both a performer and a teacher, Mr. Ben’s tailored elementary school show is as much a dynamic live performance as it is a carefully-planned instructive session, using both musical immersion and the introduction of instrument families and basic musical concepts to capture, retain, and delight the imaginations of young children from JK-Grade 3.
With a background in jazz and an intuitive understanding of audience and children, every Mr. Ben show is different, reacting to and changing with the energy and dynamic of the children at every turn.
For children in JK - Gr. 1
Music is social! We live in a culture that reifies the arts and leaves them to “experts,” but for most of human history music was about community, connection, and shared story. At the same time, we live in an increasingly isolated society, glued to screens and interacting only online; but music builds bonds between people. Subtly highlighting the ways in which music builds community through shared experience, and introducing kids to old folk songs, Mr. Ben presents an interactive, lively, music-filled show to younger children, including lots of movement songs, songs using body percussion (clapping, stomping, e.g.), songs about animals, seasonal songs, traditional folk songs, and books set to music. He is also happy to demonstrate some of the instruments he brings with him, including brass and stringed instruments.
SAMPLE JK / Gr1 PRESENTATION (click links for music samples)
Introduction of who Mr. Ben is and what to expect...
Folk tune: “Little Black Bull” - introduces the genre, requires small actions, gets kids attuned to Mr. Ben
Discussion: - quick discussion of music and people - what is it for / what do we do with it?>
- How old is music?
- How does it make us feel?
- “Little Black Bull” is at least 200 years old and has lots of different versions, sung from one person to the next and changing bit by bit over time...
"All the animals” - get the kids up on their feet & moving around pretending to be various animals - simple melody gets repeated every verse so that at the end the kids can sing it with Mr. Ben in “la la las”
“Buck buck” - based on an old folk tune handed down to Pete Seeger by Leadbelly, this one features more group movement, somewhat reminiscent of square dances, & is great fun to sing
“Kitchen junk blues” - pointing out that music can be made no matter where you are and what’s at hand as “instruments,” children use the floor, their hands, their feet, whatever they’d like as percussion & then follow the song to play quietly, loud, slow, & fast.
Book: Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak) - A kids’ classic, Mr Ben presents this favourite with two songs from a musical theatre production he produced with 3-5 year olds. He shows that music can evoke emotions and breathe new life into familiar stories.
“La la la” - fun interactive song (pat another head, rub another back, tickle another chin….) that is easy to sing
“Little Bird” - classic kids’ folk song about various local birds, and accompanied by a classic folk game - Mr. Ben will ask for 10 or 12 volunteers - this has been sung and played for generations!
“Let the rain fall down” - a “neato repeato” song with a simple melody and simple words, Mr. Ben gets kids and teachers to echo the lyrics in song.
“Froggy went a Courtin’” - Mr. Ben sings two different versions of a 400 year old song about a French prince and an English princess, demonstrating how long ago as unrecorded songs were shared, they changed bit by bit.
“Mamma Don’t Allow” - slightly more contemporary (early 20th c) percussion song w silly lyrics.
For children in grades 2 and 3, Mr. Ben mixes fun ands silly songs in with more simple teachable ones, encouraging the audience to echo and sing along and to give suggestions for song topics, all while delivering his underlying core message of music as a tool for social cohesion. At this level he also discusses basic music theory in terms of happy/sad (major/minor), and basic time signatures (square vs triangle time) in order to collaboratively write something new as a group on the spot. Given their early mastery of language at this age, rhyming songs are also fun to explore (e.g. the Corner Grocery Store).
SAMPLE Gr 2-3 PRESENTATION (click links for music samples)
Introduction of who Mr. Ben is and what to expect...
Folk tune: “Little Black Bull” - introduces the genre, requires small actions, gets kids attuned to Mr. Ben
Discussion: - quick discussion of music and people - what is it for / what do we do with it?
- How old is music?
- How does it make us feel?
- “Little Black Bull” is at least 200 years old and has lots of different versions, sung from one person to the next and changing bit by bit over time...
“Beethoven’s 5th” - using Beethoven’s 5th symphony as the melody, Mr Ben turns this into a “large movement” song, “stomping our feet,” “tiptoeing ‘round,” flying like birds, etc.
Discussion: Did anyone recognize that? - Beethoven (back before recordings!)
major vs minor - singing Beethoven’s 5th in both tonalities, we try to figure out the difference between them...
“Kitchen junk blues” - a “blues,” this song is a third kind of tonality (20th c.)
- pointing out that music can be made no matter where you are and what’s at hand as “instruments,” children use the floor, their hands, their feet, whatever they’d like as percussion & then follow the song to play quietly, loud, slow, & fast.
Book: Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak) - a slight change of pace, Mr. Ben presents this kids’ classic with two songs from a musical theatre production he produced of the book. Music can evoke emotion, he shows, and breathe new life into familiar stories.
“La la la” - fun interactive song (pat another head, rub another back, tickle another chin….) that is easy to sing
“Corner Grocery Store” - a Raffi song about foods we can find at the grocery store, Mr. Ben asks for suggestions and we come up with rhymes to sing; the refrain “My eyes are dim I cannot see...” is taught first and sung between each verse.
“Let the rain fall down” - continuing w having the kids sing, this is a “neato repeato” song with a simple melody and simple words, Mr. Ben gets kids and teachers to echo the lyrics in song.
“Froggy went a Courtin’” - a 400 year-old song about a French prince and an English princess, by singing 2 completely different versions Mr. Ben show how, before recordings, songs were “alive” and changed over time by being shared from person to person
