First Few Days in Hungary (and an African Song!)

Just wanted to give an update on Hungary so far.  Everything has been so great 
(mostly).  

I arrived to Budapest fine, but when I got there I realized both friends I was 
supposed to meet had been delayed and I could not figure out how to get to the 
train station by myself with the language barrier (and not sleeping for 24 
hours).  I decided to wait about an hour and half for Krissy who was delayed and 
we figured it out together... kinda.  First the machine for the bus tickets to 
get to the train ate our money, and then when we finally got on the bus, we 
missed our stop so we had to walk along the side of the road about 1/2 mile to 
get where we were supposed to be.  Then, because of delays, the train tickets we 
had bought online were no longer valid so we had to get new ones, now without 
reserved seating.  We stood for a lot of the ride until some nice people let us 
into their car.  Turns out the were part of the program we are in! One is a 
student with me in all my classes, and another was the level 3 musicianship 
teacher.  They helped us get off at the right stop and then showed us to the 
Kecskemet Town Square.  From there, we were pointed in the wrong direction to 
our hotel by a local so we got a little lost, but found it fairly quickly and 
that detour helped us find the institute and church where our classes are.   
Since then everything has been awesome.  We have class from 8:45-6 (but with 2 
hours for lunch).  

I was a little discouraged at first because I tested into Level 1 musicianship, 
even though I have taken 3 levels in America already.  I was going to switch to 2 but my 

Level 1 Teacher, Arpi, is super fun and I am getting a lot of songs that I can use with 
my kids.  I work with a small range for my students (do, re, mi, so, la) and the 
Level 2 (which my roommate is in) is using the entire scale (do, re, mi, fa, so, 
la, ti, do plus altered tones) which wouldn't transfer back home well, even 
though it would make me a better musician.  SO, I am doing Katie's homework with 
her to get the Level 2 musicianship training, while still staying in level 1 to 
get songs and hone weak skills (like dication).  See the end of the post for a great African song we dictated in Musicianship! 

Elementary Pedagogy is super fun and I am learning new songs and ideas (and 
getting harder musicianship training than my musicianship class...).  There is a 
Hungarian teacher (Bori) and a teacher from England (Cyrilla) who team teach. So far in this class it has been a little lecture on the Kodaly Philosophy with some s-m, ta-titi teaching as well.  We do many handsign cannons in this class which I love! 

I am also in a Singing Games class with a woman from Scotland (Lucinda).  Most of 
the songs she taught today I knew- But ALL of the games were new and some more 
advanced than ones I know, so my students will LOVE them.  I also have choir and 
every other night there are lectures or concerts by local musicians or world 
class teachers.  Many of these will be posted at a later time, as she said she would email 

hand-outs so we should NOT write anything down.  Most yesterday were hand-clap games with 

songs like "My Paddle Keen and Bright" "Land of the Silver Birch", or passing games with 

songs like "Apple Tree." For my previous post on Apple Tree and a SMARTboard file see here.

The city is beautiful and we plan on doing more exploring this Saturday 
afternoon and Sunday (we have class Sat morning).  We want to go to the 
Hungarian Baths and into Budapest to explore the "big city".

Sineladu Banaha:  This is a 3 part African Song, but there is contention about exactly which language it is, and what the translation is.  I have seen that it is Zulu, Congoleese, and a few others.  The consensus seems to point to Congoleese, but I am unsure.  The song works great as a cannon.  It is super easy for part work, because it can also build parts (Some stay on line 1 while others (or teacher) sings line 2.  Then when that is solid you add in part 3. 

You can also do a 4 beat body ostinato with the song.  We did {chest, snap, clap, snap} as 

straight quarter notes.  At first we all performed all of it, then we passed the ostinato 

around the circle each doing 1 beat while singing our favorite of the 3 parts.  This would

obviously be a challenge to pass the ostinato around for young students, but with my 5th or 6th graders, it would be something super fun to work towards and it would be very rewarding 

when we all got it.  Enjoy!                                                                                        

Note: I typed in some wrong letters for the solfa.  What I wrote works, but is not exactly what I was originally taught.  Sometimes I make a song what I WANT it to be- not what it really is when I go home to write it down.  We sang the song again today and I realized I had changed some things in my transcription.  Corrections are listed below: 

In Line 1: Yaku  (2nd mm, beat 4)should be d-r 

In Line 2: 2nd Banaha should be r-m-f