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...

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...

Anna and I have made you another Tea Time video.

Summer Iced Tea Time

Anna has been a big help here at Living Music. She loves music and she loves helping me make videos.

She is featured in 8 of my Youtube videos and she is in my piano courses, Playful Pentatonic Piano. In the courses, she is featured singing the songs, playing the songs, and playing the games. 

The teens these days spill the tea with each other, so we spilled some tea together on our ride to get some lunch. 

Wait until you hear what she is up to!

It is so hot! It is not normally this hot yet, I am missing my 80s temperatures, as we are experiences high 90s-100s in Atlanta.  

Summer is here, and I told her that I am excited about getting ready for my trip to

Ohio, for Taproot Teacher Training.

She had some really great things to say, I love middle school kids!

Here is what I asked her: 

• What do you think of music today? How does it compare to older music?
• The way...

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...

A DAY IN THE LIFE

I just want to continue to encourage you to continue to pour creativity and arts into your children. I am amazed at the rewards that continue to happen now that my children are growing up.

I want to share one of the best days of my life.

My biggest dream came true~ playing in a family band, just this past Saturday.

All the years of raising my kids and teaching music lessons, I find myself standing beside my husband, 17-year old daughter, Bella, and my brother and we are performing for all her friends and our family.

It is so fun to dream and then watch the dream unfold in front of your eyes.

Bella played her flute, played her bass guitar, her electric guitar and she sang with us.

We have been practicing our songs for the past year every Friday night at my brother's house, and we finally performed for everyone in his backyard on this beautiful March day for Bella's 17th birthday.

If you are a student of mine, or you are enrolled in any of my...

I love having you here! Thank you for being apart of my musical journey! I love all of you, my friends and family! And this is a great time to send you all

     LOVE     

My sister, Jenny and I love  Valentine's Day for this very reason!!

 She loves it so much that she just name her new baby, Valen. He is a precious baby boy. She really wanted to name him Valentine, but she couldn't talk her husband into it! But I think Valen is a great name.

I have a free song for you, with the chord and lyric chart, called I  Love You So.

My cousin, Jamey and I wrote it together. It is a cute song to sing with your kids around this time of year.

He has a son that is 5 years old, named Oden and I am teaching him music lessons each week. I sing this to him all the time. It's his song, because....

This song was written 6 years ago, before Oden was born (I am pretty sure it was about Oden's mama).

I played the piano part for...

 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...

May your journey be safe,

May your worries be few,

And may love always guide what you do

May you grow like a forest straight toward the light,

Grounded in the mother earth

Every year at Taproot Teacher Training we sing this as our closing song.

Want to hear it? Click here

What a beautiful song to bless us all as we enter back in with our families to renew our homeschool journey.

Barbara Dewey and Jean Miller, along with our Taproot team, gave such great value. We all tuned in live on Zoom to the workshops, got hands on experiences, got to participate in the chat, and meet in breakout rooms. I got to invite everyone to sing my song, Joyful Creation, live on Zoom, on Friday, with Miriam and her kids; and then live on Saturday at the hotel. The event was so wonderful and we all felt such a sweet connection.

What I find most fascinating is that this event usually takes place every year in Cleveland, Ohio, with a max of about 30 parents; but...