Mysterious+Thelonious

Mysterious Thelonious By: Chris Raschka

This book is a very interesting resource in both the music and literacy classrooms. All of the words in the book are broken up by syllable and with each syllable change, the "words" jump around the page. Upon further examination of the text and reading various reviews (linked below) one will realize that each syllable is color coded to correspond with a note of the chromatic scale. In fact, if you wanted to, one could actually play this book on the piano, or any instrument, and it would in fact be the Thelonious Monk composition, // Misterioso //.

I included this book in my lesson for several reasons, the first being the division of the words into fragments of syllables. I am of the opinion that when improvising vocally, one has to understand the parts of the words in order to make them come across in both an instrumental and textual fashion. To see this break-up of syllables and read a book this way shows students both the importance of words, and the importance of communicating language effectively in any medium.

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