New Joyful Community Excitement!

Check out our Meetup! I never knew March could be so festive with green being our main theme!

I am loving this festive time together with our new community, Music Makers!

This month, we are learning St. Patrick's Day is Coming, a song I wrote with my 10 year old student, Maya, during our ukulele lesson.

What a fun way to enjoy each month with a festive song that we can all sing and play together.

It's so wonderful that we can take what we learned in our Meetup and practice it all month.

We are meeting back next Thursday, March 9, at 2pm ET so you can play me what you practiced and I can give you some feedback.

And I am learning so much from my members, too!

Like I heard my first limerick, spoken by Hanna, our 9 year old Music Maker, she said,

"There once was a mid March day,

Where people would gather and say:

'St. Patrick's Day is here,

Let's wear green and give cheer.'

And then they partied the evening away."

What a fun way to expand our...

Here is the replay of our December Group Lesson for the new Living Music Community and I invite you to join us every first Thursday of the month.

Mark January, 5, 2023 at 2pm ET/ 11am PT onto your calendar.

Also, I need your suggestions, What songs or ideas do you have about our next time we meet? 

We don't have to work on a song either, I am open to your musical questions too!

Just email me at [email protected] 

I would love to hear your suggestions.

A new Community portal is coming soon to my website, I am so excited!

It is in beta testing now, but I will let you know more about it when it is ready.

I can't wait to finally have a place to hang out with you all the time!

We can share our music ideas and learn from each other and become great friends.

Welcome to our 3rd community meeting, here you will learn a family song that our family enjoyed during October and November, called The Pumpkin Pie Song.

Come along and learn to sing it, and pick your instrument part, ranging from beginning to advanced.

I will teach you the notes and the chords.

Click Here for the lesson plan.

Learn a simple 3 note melody that fits you and your level and favorite instrument

• vocals
• pennywhistle
• recorder
• ukulele
• piano

Learn only 3 chords for

• guitar
• ukulele
• baritone ukulele
• piano.

Years ago, I found The Pumpkin Pie Song in the book Festivals Family and Food: Guide to Seasonal Celebration by Diana Carey and Judy Large.

I first began learning it on pennywhistle. I added chords to it, and arranged it myself. I have never heard it played any where, so I just had to be creative when trying it all out. 

I thought it would be great arrange it with added guitar chords and with this simplified pennywhistle melody...

How about changing the ideas of recitals to a fun outdoor music festival with picnics and playgrounds?

Have you ever wanted to give your kids a musical education that is different than the way we were taught as kids?

Have you ever just wanted to explore the fun of music making and play your favorite songs without all the stress and high standards of classical music?

What about all the wonderful music that we listen to and enjoy, don't you want to just have fun with what you love?

That is what my students at Living Music got to experience.

Saturday, I was blessed with the pleasure of hosting a Spring Outdoor Music Festival for my students.

I have 4 Levels of Music Lessons for each stage of their learning process:

1. Beginner
2. Intermediate
3. Advanced
4. Professional

To begin the show, our family band rocked out the first song featuring Bella on flute, covering Paul McCartney’s song Let ‘Em In.

I re-wrote the lyrics to include my students names during...

Do you enjoy celebrating St. Patrick’s Day like we do?

We have enjoyed St. Patrick’s Day ever since our first son was born on March 16, 2001.

Turning 21, is quite a milestone, so I asked him if he wanted to go to an Irish Pub for his birthday, he said that would be awful!

Instead of going to a bar, he asked us all to go to Pine Mountain and go hiking with him. I guess all those daily walks during our homeschool days paid off, even in the cold, icy, and wet days.

When my kids were little, we always celebrated by wearing green, hunting for 4-leafed clovers, and making a festive snack. 

Here is Bella when she was in 3rd grade.

Wanna do this with your family? Just take a piece of bread, spread some peanut butter on it, then take a banana and cut 4 coin slices. Now stick the bananas on the bread to make a 4 leaf clover, then sprinkle with green sugar. Repeat ever year, lol! 

What are you and your kids doing for this festive green week? I would love to hear...

You can watch this festive December flute lesson in action from this week at my house. 

I currently have the beautiful opportunity to teach my nieces, Alyssa and Alori, private music lessons. It’s great because they are perfect ages to begin learning an instrument.

Alyssa is learning piano, she is 7 years old and Alori is learning the pennywhistle and she is 6 years old.

Alori is on Lesson 7 of The Magic Flute Course, which follows the seasons nicely, as we make our way through the Christmas season.

I have Alyssa learning the songs from Playful Pentatonic Piano. After only 8 piano lessons, she is already advanced to Playful Pentatonic Piano 2 and is on the song My Horses Ain’t Hungry.

We are all enjoying it so much! I love how much they light up when it is so very playful.

 Yay!! Congratulations, Astrid!!

You are the winner of the Winter Bundle Giveaway, which includes

2 Free Traditional Pennywhistles in D made by Clarke,

Christmas Festival Songs and Songbook,

and

Make Way for King Winter Songs and Songbook!!!

I asked my husband to draw a number and he picked your number which was 62.

In fact, you look just like our little family when we were homeschooling. I also had two boys and a baby girl and we played outside in nature all the time.

(This is a picture of Astrid, when her daughter was a baby)

Can you tell us about where you are from and how many kids you have? And tell a little bit about your homeschooling interests or inspiring moments?

Warmly,

Jodie Mesler

***********

Hi Jodie!

Oh my goodness, I am so excited! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Just now I was going to look at the piano courses I purchased from you, that I'm thinking of giving to my children for Christmas, and I saw THIS message that I won!  

Wow, I am so...

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of Year! Above is a video I made for a fun giveaway, check out our winner

Full of happy tunes that you can’t help singing from all the joy in the atmosphere.

One of the best ways to get through the colder and darker days is with music.

Do you or your kids have a musical instrument that you can easily play?

Do you have easy music to sing and play during this festive time?

 I want to help you get what you need for this season.

 The pennywhistle is one of the easiest starter instruments I have ever played. It is also known as the tinwhistle.

It has such a sweet, whispery tone and sounds beautiful.

I taught my kids to play it, and they loved it!

One of my most memorable performances was with my daughter and my students on Away in the Manger. She and my student played the ukulele and I played the pennywhistle and we all sang the three verses mixed with ukulele and pennywhistle. Everyone loved it! The kids sounded so sweet and so cute,...

Happy Martinmas!

It's time to go on a Lantern Walk with your kids and sing I Go With My Little Lantern.

Would you like to learn how to play it yourself? You find it in my songbook Waldorf Autumn Festival Songs.

If you have the songbook already, check it out, you will find the sheet music in there.

Guess what makes my songbooks unique?

Each song comes with a cheat sheet for those of you who can’t read music, it looks like this

It took me so many years to learn how to read music. What if you just listened and played the music? 

It's okay if you can't read music. Music is first, something you hear and second, it is something you read -if you want to dive into that world!

I hope you have a great time celebrating Martinmas and have a reverent and beautiful time on your lantern walks.