Michael Spence is a music educator, conductor, singer, and vocal coach.
Kaleidoscope Music Education offers several services that bring together various aspects of well-rounded music education including Kodály musicianship, vocal coaching, choir conducting, and delivering teacher training/CPD. He studied a Masters in Teaching and a PGCE in Music at IOE/UCL and as a Kodály practitioner at the British Kodály Academy (BKA). Michael works as a Kodály Specialist and singin
24/05/2024
A real pleasure to be asked to be a panelist for the ‘Personal and Psychological Barriers’ webinar last week for ISM as part of their ‘Breaking the Singing Barrier’ series. So many resources available, go check them out! 🙌
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7WeyUxojcP/?igsh=MWlqdXY4M2kyNmhvbw==
11/12/2023
A pleasure to be invited to guest conduct the Kodály Choir of London yesterday! 🙌 Amongst other repertoire, we worked on Britten’s ‘A Boy Was Born’ to showcase how solfa can help you sight read through multiple tonality changes. My scribblings on the board show three tone ladders in solfa and letter names that move through D major, E major, and B major using ‘pivot’ notes, the alignment of semitones is highlighted with the orange brackets. A very ambitious song choice but they rose to the challenge and sounded fantastic! 🥰
16/11/2023
The process for Yr6 discovering a new rhythm
1. how many sounds? (3)
2. equal or unequal? (unequal)
3. quicker at the front or the back of the beat (the front)
4. draw the new symbol
5. let the students name it based on THEIR prior knowledge of ti-ti and tika-tika
6. Hello there tika-ti, ti-tika’s cousin “we know her!” 😂
22/10/2023
Yr2 decoded ‘Pumpkin Pumpkin’ easily and were delighted to find a double tika-tika! Yr6 come in an notice my assortment of coloured pumpkins and insisted we use them in their lesson - so, they learned the song, played the game and solemnised but the deal was they could only do this is they then transformed the solfa from do-hexachord (major) to la-hexachord (minor). Excellent to reinforce triads d-m-s/l,-d-m and common melodic turns d-r-m and s-l-s-m in a different context as l,-t,-d and m-f-m-d. Quite the brain teaser for Yr6, but it meant they got to play with the colourful pumpkins so they were happy! 😂
22/10/2023
From Hampshire Music Service on Friday to Guildhall at Barbican yesterday! My Yr2 classes were discovering tika-tika as a new rhythm. We sang and played a game for ‘On the Farmer’s Apple Tree’ then isolated the new rhythm on the words “pick a little”. I also decided to colour codify the idea that red and green ‘apples’ were rhythms we knew, and the new fresh ‘apple’ was yellow. (I was three sticks short of being able to specify ta/ti-ti by colour, so went with phrases instead).
20/10/2023
Setting off nice early today to give a presentation on ‘Singing in the KS3 Classroom’ as part of Hampshire Music Service’s Music Conference! 🥰 Love a bit of Whitney to start the day 🙌
09/07/2023
Held an open lesson with my Yr6 class at Guildhall yesterday so parents could sit in. We sang through an extract from ‘The Magic Flute’ in 3 parts and then focused on the bass line. We sang through the chords and functions before looking at creating logical harmony lines between the chord progression I, IV, V, I. Parents even joined in and sang some parts with us!! 🙌 Very advanced work for Yr6s, but Kodály musicianship triumphs again! 🥰
08/07/2023
Last day of term at Guildhall today and I got to conduct this gorgeous song with the Yr5/6 choir which focused on the la-pentachord that we had been working on in musicianship classes! Always a pleasure working alongside the wonderful Esther Vető Hargittai who conducted a piece in Hungarian and another in Japanese. What a dream team effort in a wonderful send off concert involving our Yr6 leavers, they all sang beautifully 🥰
24/04/2023
Time for a new batch of musicianship classes this summer term! I’ll be teaching the Level 3 course if you’re curious about Kodály and want a friendly face then come along and get involved! 🙌
12/03/2023
Top right - Yr5 learned Bartók’s The Gnat from hand signs, then notated and sang in canon. Working on their la-pentachord practice. I left it on the board for Yr6 to use The Gnat as sight-reading before expanding to the natural minor scale and using Engine, Engine No.9 as a composition framework with open/closed phrases and a form structure AAvBBvC. Class example bottom right, student work middle left 🙌