My Music History

My name is Michelle Zlatkin and I am sophomore. I have a brother and sister-in-law in the army. As far as I can remember music has always been a part of my life. I have enjoyed it since I was a child and always wanted it to be a part of me. One of my greatest achievements I have in relation to music was that I began playing the piano when I was 5years old and I continued to play for about 10 or 11 years. Still today whenever I find the time at home I sit down and just play. It's something that is really relaxing to me. I was always able to hear a song and sit down on the piano and figure it out. Although it often took a lot of time and I became increasingly more frustrated, I felt great when I didn't give up. In middle school as well as high school I was apart of both choir and show choir. It was always really fun for me and I felt great when in high school I tried out and got into the advanced choir. Really for me, music was somehow involved in everything that I did. For my entire high school career I was in a theater group, known as Reality Theater. The unique thing about this group was that the entire show was put together by us and our real stories. For that reason we were allowed to experiment with things so during transitions we would have music playing and as time grew we started having complete music pieces. One of my favorite ones was that we replicated the Cell Block Tango for Chicago and did the Teenage Tango and turned into problems that teenagers have like worrying about getting their license, graduating, where to sit at lunch, etc. It was just so much fun because it was real to us. Like most people I have an ipod that I listen to all the time that has all my favorite music on there. I must say I am a very diverse person in my music preference. I like anything from oldies to rap. Some of my favorites include The Beatles who I am completely obsessed with, David Cook, Lady Antebellum, Toby Keith, Carrie Underwood, Jeniffer Lopez, and Akon. I enjoy listening to different things depending on what mood I am in. I think part of the reason I love the Beatles is because I grew up with my dad always singing "Michelle My Bell" to me so it always had an emotional keep on me. I have about 1,000 songs on my ipod and I try to update it often to keep up with the new music that I hear. I listen to it often, sometimes walking to class, when I'm getting ready, doing homework, but most often I listen to it when I am working out. It helps me stay motivated and releases energy. I even have a play list dedicated to working out so I never lose focus. That is most of my music history.

I really didn't know what to expect when I walked into this class. I never really thought about being a music teacher so I wasn't sure how I was going to incorporate it into my class. In any class when you are with people that you don't know it is hard to feel comfortable with them right away which is why I think the exercises that we did like saying hello, different people picking movements for the whole class to do, introducing ourselves gave people a chance to open up with one another, at least know that we are all in the same position and it is new to all of us. I think that the exercise we did with the drum would be a really good way for the kids in your class to get to know each other while learning a fun thing to say so that it does not get boring to them. I do think however, at times the exercises did seem to get a little bit lengthy. For instance the drum exercise might have been adapted to standing up and walking around in a circle or something to keep the kids moving. I think that is especially important when you have a large class and need to keep the kids entertained. I am really looking forward to the different music concepts that we are going to learn because I look back and see how important music was in my life and hope that I to can give that to kids.