The
Kindergarten, produced by WHA Television for the Wisconsin School in the Air.
Our teacher is Ruth Mark.
Oh, that's a good record, Taffy and Tuffy.
Did you enjoy it too?
That's one of Taffy's very favorites.
Do you know what the name is?
It's finiculae, finicula.
Were you able to hum it or sing the words along with them?
I'm going to play another record for you.
You can listen to it and see if you recognize this one.
Are you ready to listen?
What was it? Did you recognize it?
Of course it was finiculae, finicula.
But why was it different?
Was it a little bit different?
Yes, in this one a piano was playing, but in the other one someone was singing.
Now I have one more record that I want to play for you.
And you listen to this one.
Notice how carefully I put the needle down on the record?
What was it?
Of course, that was finiculae, finicula again, but who played that?
How was the music made on that record?
It was an orchestra, wasn't it?
So now you've heard the same tune three times, and in many ways they were alike, but in some ways they were different.
I'm going to play them again for you.
But first of all, did you notice when I changed the records how I did it?
How I carefully held the records way out here and didn't get my fingers in the groove?
These are the grooves here.
And how every time I'd bring the record and put it back in the jacket, you know why we put it in the jacket?
So that we don't scratch them, and then we put the record back in a rack.
Would you put a record on a chair or on the floor?
Sometimes the jackets say that records are unbreakable, but that doesn't mean they're unbreakable if you put them on a chair for someone to sit on.
It only means they're unbreakable if you take care of them.
Now, let's listen to these three records again and see how they're different.
Are you ready to listen? This is the first one you heard.
Parkin' Parkin' Music sounds a far, parkin' Parkin' Music sounds a far, parkin' Music sounds a far, parkin'
Now, what made the music on that record?
It was someone singing, that's right, and we call that vocal music.
Can you say vocal?
What vocal music someone was singing?
Now, I'm going to play the second one. See if you can remember how that one was played.
Thank you.
Any idea what that was?
Do you think that this is what it was playing that music?
Thank you, Mr. Vaguely, for showing us how a piano can play finicially.
Boys and girls, this is Mr. Vaguely, who writes the songs that we sing on kindergarten and plays them when we sing them.
Could you tell us and show us a little bit about how a piano makes music?
Well, a piano is a very common instrument. I'm sure that many of the boys and girls have a piano at home,
and I'm sure that many of the kindergarten rooms have a piano, and so I'm sure too that many of the boys and girls have tried a piano
and know that the tone is produced by depressing these keys in the front of the piano.
When a key is depressed, the mechanism of the piano, there's a felt hammer, which comes up and strikes the key,
and here are the dampers. Watch the dampers rhyme.
In the piano, there are the long strings down on the lower end of the piano for the real low notes,
and look at how short the strings are, Mrs. Mark, up in this hand for the high note.
Well, why are there so many more strings than there are keys?
All four to produce a full tone body, which is rich and full, there are three strings for each note.
Let me pluck each one of these strings here for this one note.
See, they're all the same.
And so you have three strings for all the notes in this register.
Down here we have two strings for the bass notes in this register,
and finally the bottom notes, because they're so large, have only one string for each note.
Now I know why the record with the piano sounded so much different from the one with the song.
Now, do you know what I'd like to know? I'd like to know how all the instruments make sound.
Well, Mrs. Mark, that would take a great deal of time.
I know there are about a hundred different players in this symphony orchestra.
Well, that would take a long time. Do you think you could show us just a few? Tell us about a few of them?
Well, fortunately there are only four families in this symphony orchestra.
Would you like to take a look at one instrument from each of the four families?
That would give us a good idea. But before we do it, let's listen to the orchestra playing our song once more.
Happy?
Well, here we have one instrument from each of the symphony orchestra's basic four sections.
Now, the most instruments in the symphony orchestra are string instruments.
And this is an example of a string instrument in the orchestra. This is the violin.
Each of the string instruments in an orchestra have four different strings of the different pitches.
All of them are played with a bowl. The bowl is drawn across the string in each of the instruments.
And the tone is produced by the bowl being drawn across the string.
Mrs. Mark, this is the smallest of the string instruments.
The other ones are the viola, which is slightly larger than the violin.
A cello, which is so large it can't be held under the chin, so it's held between the player's legs.
And then the string bass, which is so large that they just stand it up on the floor.
And the player plays it by standing up.
Now, the next section or family of instruments in the orchestra are the woodwinds.
As the name suggests, most of the woodwinds are made of wood. This happens to be a clarinet.
And most of the instruments in a woodwind section, the tone is produced by a reed in the mouthpiece.
Other instruments in a woodwind section are the flutes, while not made of wood.
They used to be made of wood years ago, and now they're made of metal.
But they're a woodwind, oboes, and bassoons, and maybe bass clarinets.
And other instruments that are related to the oboe, the English horn, are the woodwinds in an orchestra.
The next section in an orchestra are the brass.
This is the brass section, in which there are trumpets, trombones, can you tell me any other?
Cornette?
Not in an orchestra, that cornette is a band instrument.
It's much like the trumpet, it's a little shorter, but the tuba, and the French horns.
And each of the brass instruments have a cut mouthpiece, and the player puts the cut mouthpiece to his lips.
And in this instrument, the trumpets, the valves, they'd be pressed to change the tone to get the different instruments.
And doesn't the player have to change the position of his lips?
Well, he relaxes his lips if he's playing lower notes, and they get the high ones.
He has to squeeze his lips or tighten his lips for the higher tone.
And here we have a member of the percussion section, the last section in the orchestra.
This is a snare drum, and besides snare drums we have kettle drums, or timponese they're known.
Bass drum, triangle, castanets, xylophone, you know any other thing?
A cymbal.
A cymbal, cymbal, tambourines, many of them.
Now Mrs. Mark, in a modern symphony orchestra, when you get about 60 of the strings playing together,
in about 15 different woodwinds, and 15 different brass instruments, and 10 different percussion instruments playing together,
it sounds something like this.
Music
Thank you for telling us so much about instruments in an orchestra.
And you know while you were telling us this, it reminded me of a story.
Would you like to listen to it with the children?
I certainly would. I'll listen from the organ.
Alright, and I'm going to sit down in a rocking chair and tell the children this story.
The title of it is Gus the custodian's son, and it begins like this.
Gus was the custodian's son, and to be the son of the custodian who kept the concert hall clean and neat was a very fine thing indeed.
For it was in the concert hall that the symphony orchestra played.
Gus had heard the symphony orchestra play twice.
Yes he had, even though he was only six years old.
Once his father had taken him to the hall in the afternoon and allowed him to sit off stage,
where he could see the players but where the audience couldn't see him.
And from his seat on a box Gus had heard the orchestra play,
and you simply can't imagine how the sound swelled up and up and up,
until Gus thought that surely the roof would tremble.
It sounded like this.
MUSIC
You'd think the roof would tremble, wouldn't you?
Well, Gus really couldn't decide whether it did or not, for he couldn't see from his seat on the box.
And another time Gus's father tucked him into a seat way up in the top balcony during the matinee.
The matinee is the afternoon performance, and that was the only time he could go.
He had to go to bed too early to go to an evening performance.
Way up there in the top balcony when the orchestra played,
Gus thought that the swelling music would carry him right out of the roof with it.
But it wasn't until after he was home that Gus remembered that he hadn't even looked at the roof to see if it was trembling.
The music sounded like this.
MUSIC
And Gus looked down to the stage where the players were.
You see when you look down and see a 400 people all dressed in black and white and almost swimming,
or it seemed as Gus in a sea of music.
Well, you can who can think of anything but that?
MUSIC
The lady next to him loaned Gus her opera glasses.
And when he looked through them, he was startled by a man waving his arm back and forth.
The man was so close that it seemed as though Gus heard only him play.
MUSIC
So that's a violinist Gus thought to himself.
Excitedly his eyes moved on.
There was a man playing a clarinet.
Now the clarinet's golden tone rose above all the rest.
MUSIC
Later the tuba played. Oh, how wonderful to play a tuba.
MUSIC
In one piece the percussion section made a great stir.
MUSIC
In front of the whole orchestra stood the conductor, a small baton in one hand while he urged the musicians on.
MUSIC
The conductor's arm dropped to his sides, a great hush held the audience,
and then the conductor turned and bowed low.
And the audience broke forth in wild applause. Gus clapped and clapped and clapped.
Everyone clapped and clapped. The conductor bowed again and again.
He waved the whole orchestra to its feet.
All the way home on the bus, Gus seemed to hear the rise and swell of the orchestra all mixed in with the rush of applause.
Even in bed snuggled down among the covers, the sound rang in his ears.
Really then it shouldn't be too much of a surprise to hear that suddenly Gus found himself in the concert hall,
standing just where the conductor had stood in the afternoon.
He was a little surprised, for wouldn't you have been to find that he was wearing a black coat with tails and a rather uncomfortable white shirt.
In his hand was a short baton, such as the one the conductor had used.
And in front of him were rows and rows of instruments.
Gus didn't have time to wonder how he knew all of those instruments. He was too busy conducting.
And with that Gus woke up. Now he was in his own bed, a second ago he had been somewhere else, just where Gus was too sleepy to care about.
So he cuddled down and closed his eyes.
Did you like that story of Gus?
Do you think he was having a wonderful dream, or do you think he really got up in the middle of the night and went to the concert hall?
What do you think? What do you think Mr. Vaguely?
Well I'm not sure Mrs. Mark, but I'm sure of one thing it was a very exciting story.
Wasn't that an exciting story? And we want to thank you so much for telling us, helping us understand so much about music and how it's made.
Children Mr. Vaguely is sitting here at the organ just exactly where he does for every one of our kindergarten programs.
Now when we sing our songs you're going to know just how he looks when he's playing them for us, don't you?
And he's been a wonderful guest and because today we're honoring all the children with birthdays this month, I wonder if it wouldn't be a nice idea if you were able to watch him play the birthday song. Would you like to do that?
All right, all of you who have birthdays this month, just the children with birthdays this month, come and sit very close to your television set.
All right, and the rest of you are going to sing the birthday song with Mr. Vaguely at the organ, and I'll go and get your cake and light your candles.
Are you all ready to sing with Mr. Vaguely?
Here we go, boys and girls. Ready, sing.
Who has a birthday? Who has a birthday? Who is a lucky he or she?
Who is it who can it be?
And let us sing.
All right, birthday boys and birthday girls blow out your candles, blow.
Happy birthday and remember children that somewhere there's a tune waiting for you to play someday.
Thank you.
Kindergarten is designed under the supervision of Professor David C. Davis, University of Wisconsin School of Education.
Our teacher has been in Ruthmark.
Production by WHA Television for the Wisconsin School of the Air.
Thank you.