Music
School Year 2021-2022
Holiday Lessons
After recovering from Laryngitis, Mr. Butler had students create a live soundtrack for The Star Tree, a delightful Holiday story book with a long history in the Claxton music program. This book, which tells the story of a little old man who helps his neighbors discover old Holiday traditions from simpler times-gone-by, was found by Mr. Butler in the Claxton music room when he started teaching here in 2007. It still had notes in it from long-time Claxton music teacher Deborah Sizemore, who taught music at Claxton from 1990 - 2005. Just like the main character of the story, Mr. Butler is "happy to share the simple pleasures of Holidays long ago."
Students across the grades also enjoyed ringing hand bells along with Holiday favorites. The colored hand bells help us develop hand-eye coordination and learn about pitch and melody, important musical skills and concepts. They also allow for engagement for all learners, despite musical ability level.
"The stars reflected the light of a full December moon . . ."
Glockenspiels provide the twinkling of the Holiday stars.
Xylophone and bass bars provide theme music for the little old man.
Car horns of the big noisy city traffic in The Star Tree.
Oh no! Laryngitis!
In early December, for the first time in his career, Mr. Butler came down with a case of laryngitis and completely lost his voice for over a week! Feeling fine otherwise, and after a negative COVID test (shew!), he tried whispering in a microphone for a few days to lead music lessons but then found out that whispering is actually one of the worst things you can do for your voice when you have laryngitis! With the help of colleagues reading instructions at the music door and writing instructions on the board, our lessons were able to continue, though we did resort to some video help . . .
Chanuka at Bubbe's
This delightful video from the 1990's does a great job explaining the Chanuka tradition with fun music and puppet characters.
Click on photo to view on YouTube.
Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas
This timeless Jim Henson classic also helped get us through a week of music teacher laryngitis in the upper grades as the Holidays were approaching. Click on photo to view on YouTube.
Claxton Fall Carnival
After a weather postponement of two weeks, we celebrated our Claxton Fall Carnival on a beautiful Friday evening, November 12th. 1st and 2nd graders performed music, along with Mr. Butler's Monkey Club Band and Dinah's Daydream, a Gypsy Jazz band featuring Claxton 2nd grade parent Mike Kenton.
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Music Lesson Show & Tell!
Claxton students have an open invitation to bring instruments from home to show and tell what they can play and what they know about them! Here are some photos of Claxton musicians showing their stuff this school year.
Julian plays banjo for us.
Savanna & Paxton treat us to a duet on violins.
Eleanor shares her skills on the cello.
Oliver's shows off his amazing guitar with custom made artwork by his aunt.
Click on picture to view a video of Claxton 5th grade drummers performing at LEAF this fall!
Giving Tree Music & LEAF Drum Building Residency
Thanks to support from our amazing Claxton PTO and our local East Asheville Home Depo, our annual tradition of having 5th graders build their own ashiko hand drums and performing with them at the Lake Eden Arts festival continued this fall. See more on our CLX Specialist Residencies page.
Singing and Dancing the Monarch Butterfly Migration and Life Cycle
In a cross-curricular collaboration, Claxton 2nd graders learned all about Monarch butterflies this September. Singing and dancing in music lessons helped bring active arts-integrated learning to 2nd grade science curriculum.
Welcome to the 2021-2022 school year at Claxton Elementary School from your music teacher, Mr. Butler! I am so excited to be back in person with our Claxton musicians. Although we will have to face the challenges of wearing masks and social distancing, I know this will be a great school year of learning and music making. Our music room had a lonely year last school year and our instruments have missed being played and they are ready to be brought to life again.
Speaking of instruments, this year we will jump right in with group drumming lessons with our West African drums. As we adjust to the new safety protocols of masking and distancing, we will still be able to discover the joy of active group music making in the music room drum circle. Other hand percussion will come into play soon after and in grades 3rd through 5th, we will be strumming ukuleles by late October/early November. Hand bells and other small percussion will help us celebrate the Holidays we encounter with spooky songs for Halloween, patriotic songs for Veteran's Day, and seasonal favorites as we approach Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas.
Here on my webpage, you will find important communications about the music program and posts on our recent music lessons. I hope you will check in often and explore other parts of my website where you can find fun on-line music resources and visit memories of past school years.
But more about me . . . .
I began teaching music at Claxton Elementary in 2007. I grew up in Raleigh, N.C. and graduated high school in Morehead City, N.C., where my family moved when I was a junior in high school. I ran for the hills to attend Western Carolina University for my undergraduate degrees in Spanish and Music, where I graduated in 1993. After making a go as a professional guitarist in my 20's, in 1998 I returned to school for a Masters of Science in Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
I first discovered my love of teaching by giving guitar lessons in my late teens and early twenties and began my professional career as a classroom teacher in Knox Co. Schools, Tennessee, as a high school Spanish teacher. After stints in the San Francisco Bay area and Miami, Florida, where I taught as a Spanish, music, and grade-level class teacher in Waldorf Schools, I moved back to western N.C. in 2006 and began teaching in Asheville City Schools.
I love all things musical, but especially love the great "classic rock" era of the late 1960's and early '70's. It was the music of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the like that inspired me to pick up guitar and start my journey as a musician. Over the years, I have performed as a solo guitarist and singer/songwriter, as the member of countless bands, and as a wedding musician. I am so grateful to share my love of music with my students and feel very fortunate to be a music teacher in such a musical city as Asheville. My wife and I love attending concerts, gardening, hiking, spending time with friends and family, or hanging out with our fat orange kitty-cat, Barnaby Jones.
Mr. Barnaby Jones
The Maestro!
The Chinese Lion
Exploring digital music making in the music room.
Former 1st graders bring a story to life with incidental music.