Teachers! Would your class like to write songs about abolitionists and the Emancipation Proclamation with us?

Dear Most Useful People in America (That's you, Teachers):

Would you like me to come into your class to write songs about the Emancipation Proclamation and abolitionists in Brooklyn? Of course you would.

On February 1st I'm devoting my show at Brooklyn Historical Society (I do a monthly family event there themed to their exhibits) to the Emancipation Proclamation (it's on display at BHS) and abolitionists in Brooklyn (they have a new exhibit on this that's about to open).

I'm looking for a school or schools to collaborate on this show with me. I'd come into your classroom throughout January, teach kids about the aforementioned stuff, and write songs with them about it. Then, on Feb 1st, they'd perform their compositions live on stage with me.

In answer to your potential questions:

- Do you have to teach in Brooklyn in order to participate?
Yes, but...
I'm down to do more versions of this project remotely (via Skype, FaceTime, etc) with schools outside Brooklyn or come to your school to do a special workshop / assembly program. Obviously this would take some planning / grant money / etc but we always work these things out. And if you teach in, say, Nebraska we'd figure out a lesson plan that's not only about Brooklyn but rather abolitionists in the country at large or closer to home.

- How do I sign up?
Send me an e-mail at lloydhmiller AT gmail DOT com. We'll make a plan?

More details on all of this soon.

L

This is our home (for a while at least)

The Deedle Deedle Dees are re-working our main site, www.thedeedledeedledees.com. So for now, check here for info on upcoming shows, announcements about new music, background info on our songs, and really anything else Dee-related you'd like to know.

Here's the latest:

- I'm releasing a solo sing-a-long album Sept 24th under my own name, Lloyd H. Miller. Read about it here.

- I'm doing a CD release show for the solo record on Oct. 13th at Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn. Details and tickets here.

- The Deedle Deedle Dees are currently writing a new album they hope to release in 2014.

Set list for Madison Square Park 6/18/13

Here's what we played today. I can't remember if this is the exact order.

I'm Gonna Light Up the World
- a song I wrote in Haiti while on a trip with my friend's nonprofit to distribute solar lights. i made it very simple so kids who don't speak English could sing it. i also recently sang it with a bunch of kids at a benefit for Gabby Giffords' organization.
- appears on S.S. Brooklyn, my solo sing-a-long album that's coming out this September.

Nellie Bly
- Nellie Bly was a reporter who took a trip around the world as a publicity stunt for a newspaper in 1889.
- the arrangement we played today we call the "Unchain my Heart" version because it re-works this longtime Dees fan favorite in a Ray Charles-esque way
- appears on Freedom in a Box
- watch us singing the original version on the streets of NewYork here

Cool Papa Bell
- Cool Papa Bell was a player in the Negro Leagues who was known for his amazing speed
- read more about Cool Papa and other Negro League baseball greats in Kadir Nelson's beautiful book, We Are the Ship
- watch a solo sing-a-long living room version of the tune here
- appears on Strange Dees, Indeed

Brooklyn by Bike
- a song about biking around Brooklyn by myself and on trips with my kids
- appears on S.S. Brooklyn, my solo sing-a-long album that's coming out this September.

Standing in the Garden / Visions
- written with a 4th grader for an event at the Met Museum. the song was inspired by Bastien-Lepage's  painting of Joan of Arc
- read more about Joan of Arc in Diane Stanley's cool book
- slated to appear on the Deedle Deedle Dees' next album (coming out, we hope, spring 2014)

Seventeen Years (a cicada love song)
- inspired by the seventeen-year cicadas that have come out this spring and summer
- watch a video of the tune here
- read more about cicadas on the fabulous website, Cicada Mania
- appears on S.S. Brooklyn, my solo sing-a-long album that's coming out this September.

Henry (Hudson), How Ya Gonna Find a Way?
- a song about the real explorer Henry Hudson that also references the fictional Henrik Hudson who appears in Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle
- sing along with me on this backyard video
- appears on Strange Dees, Indeed. Also an acoustic sing-a-long version will be on S.S. Brooklyn (Sept 2013).

Skating in Old Bryant Park
- a song that ponders: "What if the statue of William Cullen Bryant (for whom NYC's Bryant Park is named) got up and starting ice skating with everyone else one winter?
- appears on Strange Dees, Indeed

Marie Curie
- a scientist who did some of the early experiments with radium and other dangerous materials, Marie Curie is someone we admire quite a bit.
- this graphic novel about MC and her husband should be on your coffee table.
- appears on Strange Dees, Indeed

Sacagawea
- inspired by the woman who accompanied Lewis & Clark across the country, translating for them and helping them in many other ways. and with a baby on her back.
- i still haven't found a great kid book about her but this one is interesting
- appears on Strange Dees, Indeed

Baldy
- Baldy was General George Meade's horse in the Civil War. he got shot 14 times and lived. we thought he deserved a rousing hip hop anthem.
- appears on Freedom in a Box

The Brooklyn Bridge Song
- a song about a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with my daughter, the history of building the bridge, and my meditations on death and time passing
- appears on American History + Rock-n-Roll = The Deedle Deedle Dees

Music in schools panel at KindieFest

Here's who's on it. I'll post more details later.

Lloyd H. Miller
moderator
For 10 years, Lloyd (leader of the educational band, the Deedle Deedle Dees) has worked as a teaching artist in public and private schools in New York City and elsewhere. His specialty is creating original musical productions with students. He has co-written and performed shows featuring all-original music based on classic literature like Hamlet, The Aeneid, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Myth of Osiris, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. He's also done a number of shows inspired by the curriculum of a particular class or school like The Truth About New Jersey (a song cycle about the history of the state written with fourth graders) and Who Stole the Sousaphone? (a whodunnit developed with an entire second grade that incorporated student research about their hometown, Port Washington, Long Island).

Lloyd is currently in final rehearsals for a 6th, 7th, and 8th grade production of Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid. Re-imagined as a 1950s musical, the show features all brand-new songs composed by Lloyd and the kids. He's also working on a show based on The Araboolies of Liberty Street with his wife's second-grade class, a grown-up jazz musical about the foreclosure crisis in America called Trashed Out with jazz legend Roy Nathanson, and a sing-a-long album with producer Dean Jones tentatively titled S.S. Brooklyn.
Hear second graders sing the songs they wrote with Lloyd for Hamlet here: http://lloydmiller.bandcamp.com/album/hamlet-the-album
www.lloydhmiller.com
www.thedeedledeedledees.com
roynathanson.tumblr.com


Patricia Shih
For the past 27 years Patricia has offered up to 18 assembly concerts for grades pre-K through 6 (and sometimes 7 & 8) based on "Big Ideas!" themes.  "BI" is the umbrella title for all 18 shows, because every song in every show is about an important issue such as Bullies, Character Education, The Environment, Multiculturalism, Disabilities and more.  She offers 5 workshops and 2 residencies, where in the latter she helps the kids write a musical and then produce it for the entire school or community.  The workshops range from songwriting to Chinese culture.

A multi-instrumentalist, Ms. Shih plays 6 and 12 string guitars, piano, Marxophone, Chinese flower drum, and soprano recorder. She has six albums to her credit: two for adults, "Woman With One Closed Eye" (Glass Records) and "Leap of Faith" (Flying Fish Records); and four family/children's albums, "Your ImaginEngine!,""The Power of One" (NAPPA Gold Award & Parents' Choice Approved Award), "Big Ideas!" and "Making Fun!"(1997 Parents Choice Approval Award) on Glass Records. Her work is also included on three anthology albums: "Sharing Thoughts," "Early Ears" (Zoom Express, BMG), and "Rainbow Sign" (Rounder Records), which was honored by the American Library Association Notable Children's Recording Award, Parents' Choice Award, Parents' Prize, NAAPA Gold Medal, and the L.A. Times "Best of 1993" list. She is the author of two books about music: Gigging: A Practical Guide for Musicians (Allworth Press, NYC) and Truly Rotten Gigs from Hell: The Funny, The Sad, The Unbelievably Bad True Tales from the Music Trenches (Uncommon Publishing, Xlibris)
http://www.patriciashih.com/


Robbie Kumalo
Robbi Hall Kumalo is an artist with an incredible voice with tons of charisma and charm to win over any audience. Robbi started in the music business singing with a host of legendary artists including Aretha Franklin, Eileen Ivers, Arif Mardin, Jewel, Diana Ross, Jimmy Owens, Ashford & Simpson, Edie Brickell, Chieli Minucci, Gino Sitson, Bakithi Kumalo, John Hiatt, Chaka Khan, Rod Stewart, Mary J. Blige, and Harry Belafonte among many others. Bringing to the stage a level of excitement, Robbi gives to her audiences freely and unselfishly. Her band members are versatile and extraordinary players, who have performed with many music legends themselves. Robbi's personable demeanor is the essence of her show; first going deep into her own zone then pouring it all out in song. Robbi's larger than life stage presence and enticingly beautiful voice have given her the opportunity to perform in many settings, always with great success.

In addition, Robbi is very passionate about arts education and has spent nearly 25 years classrooms in schools all over the globe as Teaching Artist for Aesthetic Education.  Using music and theater arts as a mode of communication to teach everything from the sciences, to history, to culture, and to character, Robbi truly has found her calling by combining her ease of performance with her love to nurture young minds.  She is a teaching artist with New Jersey PAC and The Tilles Center.  Whether a school assembly, artist residency, or professional development workshop, Robbi has a lot to offer!
http://www.robbikumalo.com/fr_home.cfm



Uncle Devin
"I have been performing children's music for over 10 years and, most recently, have been selected as an artist with the Young Audiences/Arts for Learning - Maryland (YAMD) for the 2013-2015 school years.  YAMD is Maryland's leader in Arts-in-Education programs in the state.  I have primarily performed workshops and assemblies, but can also conduct residencies as well.  In addition to the schools, I have found great teaching opportunities performing at numerous summer camps, day care centers and libraries as well.

The Uncle Devin Show takes students on a magical journey through the Land of Percussion, allowing them to hear, see, and play different percussion instruments while gaining an understanding of the history of percussion and why it is the easiest, oldest, and most diverse form of musical creativity.  I can conduct the show solo, but most of the time, I use the assistance of my flute playing sidekick Mr. Grasshopper.  Together, we will have students bouncing to different genres of music while showing them how percussion is the heartbeat of them all.  Professionally, I am an Equal Opportunity and Dispute Resolution trainer, investigator and counselor, working in both the public and private sector for over 18 years.  I transfer these same techniques to my music to teach the value of diversity, self-identity and respect."
- Uncle Devin
http://theuncledevinshow.com/

Solve this real Revolutionary War era code and win a prize

The lyrics to "Cipher Cipher," our new song based on events in the life of Benjamin Church, contain a real Revolutionary War era code. I wrote the song with Arden Gill, a middle schooler I teach electric bass and ukulele. The Deedle Deedle Dees debuted this song at our show at BAM this past weekend -- and Arden helped us perform it.

Church was the head doctor in the Continental Army, but he was also a spy for the British and sent their leaders messages in code. Arden wrote a report about him for English class and her teacher suggested she write a song about him with me.

The chorus to our song is all numbers. The numbers stand for the letters of two words, the names of places where the Continental Army had arsenals (places where they kept weapons). We translated the names of the two places into code using Lovell's Cipher, an actual code used by leaders of the Continental Army. As Church was sending secrets to the British I guess he would have used a different code but I felt Lovell's system was a nice simple one for us to use in the song and to teach kids about how codes work.

Cipher Cipher
LYRICS

4X 

Cipher cipher

don't write the words down

else they gonna know

we're down with the crown

LLOYD

benjamin church

yeah my hands are red now

ARDEN

cos you're a surgeon?

LLOYD

nah nah nah take this down...

Eleven 

twenty-two 

six 

ten 

twenty 

twenty-six 

eight 

twelve 

six

Eighteen 

twenty-two 

two 

ten 

three 

twenty-five

nineteen

LLOYD

number one doctor

answer to GEE DOUBLE U

cept when I'm taking money

in the backroom

location of the arsenals

i just sent it to ya

do you know the cipher?

did they explain it to ya?

ARDEN

keyword is "mustache" 

spelled "M-U"

don't keep the letter

i sent you

tear it up

throw it on the fire

else they gonna know

I'm a liar

Here's how Lovell's system works. When you send someone a message, you also include a keyword. This keyword tells you which letter is represented by each number. If you read the link above, you might already understand how this works, but here, in brief, is how you do it:

1. Lay a piece of paper longways. Write numbers 1-27 across the top of the page. Write small because it's hard to fit all those numbers on one line. Why 27 when there are 26 letters in the alphabet? It's because there's an "&" in addition to the 26 letters -- just to make the code a bit more difficult.

2. Write the alphabet starting with the first letter of the keyword on the next line so that the letters line up with the numbers above. The keyword Arden chose was "mustache." In the interest of keeping our code relatively easy to solve we only used the first two letters of this word. So the alphabet you write under the numbers should start with the letter M. When you get to Z, don't write A next. Instead put an "&" symbol then write A under the next number.

3. Underneath this alphabet, write another alphabet starting with the second letter of your keyword, which in this case is U. Don't forget to put an "&" in between Z and A.

(Note: if you need help with steps 1-3, see the example in the picture below)

4. Write down the letter that corresponds to each number BUT switch lines with each new number. Above, for example, the first number is 11 which goes with W on the first line. Now switch to the second line for the second number 22. In the second line of alphabet, 22 goes with the letter O. For the third letter go back to the first line; for the fourth, the second line; and so on.

5. Once you've figured out the first word, return to the first line to start deciphering the second one.

6. Send us what you find out. Send your solution to thedeedledeedledees AT yahoo DOT com. The first person to send us the right answer will win four tickets for his or her family to see us at Symphony Space on March 2nd. The next four people to send us the right answer will win a signed poster for the show.

Set lists from the Met Museum Family Benefit 2/4/13

We're going to post lyrics and videos for the brand-new stuff we wrote for this event inspired by works from the Met's collection, but for now here are the songs we played. In the spirit of the event theme, we played all songs about "Heroes & Heroines."

SET 1, 6pm
Cool Papa Bell
a song about the Negro League baseball star

Parading Through Rome (is no fun on the ground)
inspired by Tiepolo's "The Triumph of Marius"

Standing in the Garden / Visions
inspired by Bastien-Lepage's "Joan of Arc." I wrote this with Bella Butler, a 4th-grade student who also performed the tune with the band last night.

Ah Ahimsa
a song about Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence

Henry (Hudson), How Ya Gonna Find a Way?
a tune about the explorer that got a river named after him

Little Red Airplane
a song about Amelia Earhart


SET 2, 7pm
Henry Box Brown
a song about the man who mailed himself to freedom from slavery in a box

Tub Tub Ma Ma Ga Ga
a song about Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi

Marie Curie
this song tells a cool story from the great scientist's life

Sandstone Bodhisattva Blues
inspired by the sandstone bodhisattva, ca. 550-560, China

Everybody Flat Against the Wall
a new dance craze (we hope), inspired by the Assyrian reliefs 

Sacagawea
about the woman who traveled across the country with Lewis, Clark, and a baby on her back

Baldy
a true tale of a very durable Civil War horse

Set list from BAM 2/2/13

Here's what we played during our two sets at BAM this past Saturday, Feb 2, 2013. Most of these songs are on albums but some are brand-new. Lyrics and notes to nearly all these can be found on this blog -- and some we're adding this week.

"Cipher Cipher" is a brand-new song based on events in the life of Benjamin Church, a doctor for the Colonial army & spy for the British during the Revolutionary War. This one contains a real Revolutionary-era code that we'll put up in separate post specifically about that song.

Words & music for all these by Lloyd H. Miller (me) except "Mean-Talkin' Blues," words and music by Woody Guthrie, arrangement by me, Chris Johnson, and Roy Nathanson.

12noon SET

Little Red Airplane ( featuring Gabe Nathanson on trumpet)

Skating in Old Bryant Park

The Golem (featuring Gabe Nathanson on trumpet, Roy Nathanson on sax, Maya Chatterjee, Emily Serotta, and my kids on vocals)

Birds of American Don't Care-Oh (w/ Gabe & Roy)

Whaleship Essex

Tub Tub Ma Ma Ga Ga

Baldy

Sacagawea

Mean-Talkin' Blues (w/ Gabe and Roy) -- studio version appears on this album: http://sparetherock.com/wordpress/releases/keep-hoping-machine-running-songs-of-woody-guthrie/



2:30pm SET

Cool Papa Bell

Camperdown Elm (w/ Arden Gill on ukulele)

Time Machine (featuring Emily Serotta & Margaret Grabar-Sage on vocals, Arden Gill on electric bass)

Working on a Bridge (w/ Emily, Margaret, and Arden on vocals)

Cipher Cipher (w/ Arden on vocals)

a song for Abigail Adams

Ah Ahimsa (w/ Emily)

Henry (Hudson), How Ya Gonna Find a Way? (w/ Arden on Margaret on vocals)

Marie Curie (w/ Emily on vocals)

Henry Box Brown