There’s a new “Idea to Try” in the MusiKinesis Collection! It’s a children’s song titled Spring Rain, with a metric shift between simple and compound two.

This comes from one of Eleanor Smith’s books. A composer and music teacher, Smith (1858-1942) was a proponent of Friedrich Fröbel’s educational theories. She taught for many years at Hull House in Chicago, also known as the Jane Addams Hull House. She published numerous works including a full series of books for teaching classroom music.

I’ve used several of her songs when I taught at Lucy School. They are well-suited to echoing, ear training, scale and interval studies. From there, it is fun to find ways of representing the sounds and intervals and make games out of the exercises.

While I have old hardcover copies of her books, many have probably fallen into the public domain, so it’s likely they are digitized and available free online by now.

Sources:

Eleanor Smith: http://www.sandyn.com/women/smith.htm

Hull House Songs: http://hullhousesongs.org

If you like antiquarian children’s songs, you might like these Winter Rounds and three Clock Songs, too.

Eleanor Smith