Kid's Music

The Spinning Slows Down!

Bob Reid — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 06:21:00 GMT

The turkeys come for a visit!

It has been a whirlwind of a week! It is a good thing I took Monday off, because even so, the days have been wagging me around like a tail. My voice has survived, though my energy took a beating. I fell into bed about 7:00 last night.

The kids in my classes were very enthusiastic, including one who sobbed through most of one because she was upset that I was only coming one more time. They are so close to the surface these little ones. I had them sing a round in parts, even the Kindergartens, and they did well. The first and second grades were stellar.

The school is very happy with what I have done with their kids. I think I may have caused a little pressure on their regular music person, which is as it should be. I hope I have offered an alternative way of doing things, though I know that much of my success has to do with my own personality, still, I think the examply can be helpful.

I was told that teachers have gotten many requests from parents for recordings of the songs, so I will be taking orders for cds next week. I am looking forward to being able to work with the kids in larger groups so that they can feel what it is like to hold the songs in common.

I was told a story last night by the teacher who is coordinating my residency, that during the day, whiie teaching her class, they heard someone outside their window whistling one of the songs I had taught them. I believe it was another teacher, or Aide, who was watering the garden and did not hear as the entire class came outside, at their teacher's urging, and began singing the song.. It is a sweet image. I was also told by a mother how she enjoyed hearing her two daughters singing together. She was the second mother who had shared that with me.

I am wrapping up my work with the Bradley School Variety Show. We have performances today and tomorrow and then that will be accomplished. The quality of the show seems not quite up to that of last year, but who knows? I didn't have as much time to work with my kids as I would have liked, and some didn't work on their own as hard as they might have, but I think it will all be well. There are a couple of songs I need to work on this morning to get my accompaniments up to par.

The wheel is starting to spin, but this ride will be short.

Friday

Bob Reid — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 16:56:00 GMT

It was a l-o-n-g week. I finished my vocal recording with the Tres Pinos kids today and will now finish the recordings. I'm not sure what instruments I'll be adding, but that's part of the fun. I get to be creative!

The Community Television folks asked me if I could shoot the Gilroy football game tonight and I agreed, if they would loan me a camera to shoot the recording sessions today.They gave me the nicest camera I've yet used. That stetched me a little which was good!

I want to return and shoot them lip singing their songs a few times and edit it into music videos and see if I can show themm on the access channel. They would love that!

Today a reporter from the Pinnacles, one of the papers in Hollister, came out to interview the teachers, principal and myself about my project. Yesterday, they sent out a photographer to take some shots of me working with one of the classes. It will run in an article in the paper next weekend. The kids have been great and I hpe it is the start of a long relationship with the school.

I have realized that I am now returning to the rural schools that I first worked in 30 years ago with the Museum on Wheels. I had forgotten how sweet the rural kids are. I think that I could be quite happy doing only rural schools. That would be a little selfish. I know that my work is with a larger population. The suburban schools have a great need, as do the urban schools.

I am going to take a little time now before I have to run off to shoot the high school football game. It's hard work, but fun, and it improves my video skills.

Go Gilroy!

Working!

Bob Reid — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:56:00 GMT

Well, it has been a busy time!

I started writing songs with the kids in Tres Pinos last Thursday, finished the songs on Friday. Worked on them Saturday to get them into a structure that worked for my instrumental tracks, went to see Bill Staines in Aromas Saturday evening, recorded bass, guitar, drum and vocal tracks on Sunday, went to a neighborhood poetry reading in Big Sur by Ric Masten, at which they released a video compilation of the last 6 years of readings, in which I sang several songs, came home and worked on getting my rehearsal tracks ready to be delivered to the kids in Tres Pinos. I finished them last night, worked in Felton with the K-2 kids, five classes, which is about my limit.

I got out of there at 2:00 and zipped off to deliver the cds in San Benito County. Mission completed! Then . . I zipped back to Hollister to spend some time with Indio and buy some hay.

I sing with another five classes tomorrow in Felton, will work on the final instrumental parts for the recordings of the songs for Tres Pinos, Thursday, we will rehearse at the school, Friday, we will record their vocal parts and I will have the weekend to get the final mixes completed. Somewhere in there I will need to get caught up on some horsework. I am feeling out of touch with the ranch, which has it's positve and negative aspects.

Sometime, I hope to relax. When things get this hectic, sleep can be difficult.

I have a copy of Bill Staines' book, which I am enjoying. I need to take some time and wrap it around me.

Busy days

Bob Reid — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 15:23:00 GMT

These days I have been working both jobs . . . handling horses and writing songs with kids. The school the kid are at is on the other side of Hollister, a few miles. It is a small,K-8 school with, maybe, six classrooms. I am writing with the 4- 8th grades, in four separate groups, writing four different songs. On Friday, we completed our songs and now I will need to give it a musical setting, my favorite part. The pressure of coming up with the songs under the time constraints keeps me from sleeping well those nights in anticipation. I wonder if I can still do it. It always seems like magic to me. I hope that it always does.

The topics the classes chose were. Freedom, Terrorism and War. Apparently, they had a visit from a military officer of some sort recently. I came to understand this after wondering about their topics.

I am very happy with the quality of the work that they put into the project. On Thursday, we will rehearse our songs for the recording session on Friday.

My role now is to create a musical environment for these songs to live in that will show that they have written valid songs. I am excited to see their reaction when they hear the arrangements. ;

I will be holing up with the recorder soon, to see what sort of magic awaits.

Cool Morning

Bob Reid — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:24:00 GMT

Last night, I went to Monterey to see some friends from Philadelphia, David and Jenny Heitler-Klevins, perform a kid's concert at the library there. It was good to see them. It has been a long while. There was a small turnout, but sufficient, and everyone had a great time.

It was a good way for me to mentally get ready for the schools I will be at in the next few weeks. I thought maybe I'd catch a new song that might light my fire again, but I left with renewed confidence in my material.

Tomorrow, I begin songwriting with four classes at a small school just outside of Hollister. I am a little anxious, because I haven't done it in a while, but that can be a good thing. I feel very fresh about it. It is a chance to approach it the way I think it should be, rather than having a pattern that I am attached to, as can happen when I have been working a lot.

This week, we write the songs, over the weekend I will give them a more formal musical setting, my favorite part, adding all of the instruments, or at least enough to give the kids the sense that these are "real songs". I will take them a CD to sing along with so that they are familiar with the arrangement, then Thursday will will rehearse together and I will bring my equipment in and we will record the songs at the school on Friday. I will do the final mix and then, if the school desires, have them duplicated.

I am interested in how I will approach the writing of the songs and how the kids will respond to being asked, "What do you think is important?".

I have to get ready to get those horses in the trailer this morning, tomorrow will be a different kind of work.

Nice balance!

Day Off (from the ranch)

Bob Reid — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 05:07:00 GMT

It's a different kind of day today. I have the morning off, and then I have two assemblies at Van Meder School in Los Gatos. There was a time when I was in all of the Los Gatos schools, these days it's rare that I get to return. Things change, Principals, teachers, there aren't as many people around who know what I do.

I am looking forward to singing for the kids and seeing how I will structure my performances. Will they have the young ones together, or split them up? I have sometimes told schools that I would do combined classes for $100 more. Sometimes that will deter them. Not often.

Later

I performed my Young Audiences assemblies in Los Gatos and had a great time.The kids were quite enthusiastic! The first assembly was fro the younger students . . and there were a lot of them. I had to do things with a broad brush and play big to the back row, so things were not as sublte as I would have liked, but it went fairly well.

The second assembly was much more intimate, it was only 4th and 5th grades and there were perhaps 80 kids total. we got to scoot in and be more intimate.

I sometimes think that I do these kids a disservice by trying to do too much. I am so intent upon givng them a meaningful experience that I forget to have enopugh fun with them. I struggle to find a balance with that. With the younger kids, I don't feel able to do the same kinds fo things and so I tend to lean a little heavier with the older kids. It may have more to do with my own needs to feel that I gave them more than a good time and a diversion from their schooling.

In the evening, I went to Debi's staff party with her, which was a good thing for her to do. I think she has distanced herself from them, for her own good reasons, and now is building bridges back. It was good to be anle to supprt her in that. It was an interesting group of people, I was a little overwhelmed with it all, I don't spend that much time in groups of people these days, outside of performance . . .and often, there are children involved. This was exclusively adults and I felt a little off balance, though we did have a lot in common. I certainly have some understanding of their world. It was a fun evening!

Getting Well!

Bob Reid — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 08:16:00 GMT

I got pretty sick yesterday! It doesn't happen very often to me, but it hit hard and fast!

I think it is due to being around kids last week. My resistance is not what it would've been if I had more exposure. We had our performance last Friday night and it went well. One of my former students was there as a parent of a first grader. It was great to see her and to be in touch again. She was always one the kids who just glowed.

I made the mistake of not taking a risk when I was choosing a song to sing for that night. I am still kicking myself over it. Hopefully, I will remember to take those leaps next time! It is important to stretch and to give my audiences the opportunity for something meaningful. I don't know wnat happened, but I am aware of it.

Ranch Day

Bob Reid — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 13:39:00 GMT

This has been a slow, satisfying day!

i have been spending time with my babies, getting them used to having people around . . . touching them. It is such a fulfilling feeling when they decide that I'm okay! I worked with the colts who have been a bit standoffish . . if you can call wanting to have a mouthful of you standoffish. The colts are very mouthy and I have little nicks on my body from places they grabbed my clothes and got some of me with them. It is getting better! The fillies are so much sweeter and come around so much quicker.

I am going to go out and work on the feet of my big two year-old. Her name is Vaudeville. She has a bald (white) face and has been quite a handful for the past couple of years. We left her alone for a year hoping that she'd come out of it. All of the time I've spent with her has been helpful and she will let me handle her, though she's always ready to blow!

I have all of my guitars and keyboard scattered around the living room from working on the Bob Blue songs. Bob is a songwriter in Massachusetts who was a school teacher for many years. Here is some more info about him..

He wrote original songs for the musicals that his classes performed, as well as his own music. Bob has Multiple Sclerosis and is no longer able to perform, so, some of his friends came up with the idea of having people do a CD of his songs. The one I'm working on is the second double CD project of his songs. Here is the first. I recommend it highly!

He assigned me two songs to arrange and perform and I am pretty much finished with them.One is from his House At Pooh Corner musical, "Just Get It Done!" sung by Owl, (or is it Wol?) The other is "The Runt of the Litter" from Charlotte's Web.

It has been an honor to work up these songs.

A world without Bob Blue would be a lesser world. Unfortunately, that world is coming sooner than I would wish!

Tired Boy!

Bob Reid — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 20:38:00 GMT

It has been a long day!

I have been trying to get some songs done for the upcoming Bob Blue double CD.

Bob assigned me two songs, one of which I had heard before. I spent Friday recording keyboard tracks with Jan Daughtery who did a great job on her parts. Now I am adding the guitar and bass tracks and finally my vocals. I am pretty happy with the way it sounds, at least here on my headphones. In the next couple of days I'll get them polished up to send to the producer of the project.

I am also working on creating sheet music for three songs for a school out in Maritius, which is, I believe, on the African continent. They want to perform my songs for United Nations Day, which is later this month. The sheet music didn't exist s I have been birthing it!

I thought that I was off tomorrow, but it seems I have one more day of ranch bossing before I get a break. I hope you like the photo!

Saturday Post

Bob Reid — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 07:25:00 GMT

Today, and tomorrow, the Hot Rods are playing the Cherry Festival in Sunnyvale from 12-4.

The Olson Family has operated a fruit stand in Sunnyvale for over a hundred years. Apparently, they sold off some of their orchards for a shopping center, but still operate the business through the stand on the street, but also over the internet. Their cherries are supposed to be pretty good. I'll let you know after I sample them.

The band is playing there today and tomorrow. Tomorrow we will have a fill-in sax player and drummer, so we may not be firing on all cylinders, but it may be great! You just never know.

Yesterday, I attended a party at Main Street School in Soquel where my friend Thom Dunks is moving on after having been the only principal the school has known for the past 15 years.

I first met Thom when he was a teacher at Santa Cruz Gardens School. He was incredibly supportive of my work. His daughter, Anthea, joined Abracadab, my kid's chorus, and sang with us in concerts and recordings. She was a gift. Thom was, as well!

He would show up to help at whatever event we were participating. He showed up at the radio station on Saturdays for our weekly appearances on KUSP. He promoted us to others. I could not have asked for anyone to do more than he did. I am grateful for what help he was to my work, but more importantly for the wonderful example he created at Main Street. He was a different kind of principal and I know that there will people who will try to emulate his style. He was more likely to ask "Why not?" than "Why?".

I don't know what he is planning to do next, but I'm sure it will be interesting! I look forward to talking with him about it.