Cello Stories: Songs, music and stories from Beanstalk Arts

Before we launch Season 2 of our Cello Stories podcast over summer '22, here's a very special bonus episode, made for bedtime, in what we're calling a 'Cello SNORE-ies' tale of Boris the Bird helping unite a village of grumpy animals by helping them cook a delicious meal of 'stone soup' together! It's full of cello tunes and ukulele songs, with me, Becky from Beanstalk Arts telling the tale.

This bonus episode focusses more on the quieter songs, ending with some gentle lullabies and we really hope it'll help your little folk drift away to sleep. This was actually a special request from my youngest, Martha, as she often listens to our podcast at bedtime, so I wanted to make a special tale without all the energetic tunes! 

If you're new to the podcast, why not check back to season 1 for a host of more energetic stories, and we're busy making season 2 at the moment, when I'll be joined by some special musical guests to introduce their instruments to tell the tales...

We're keeping these podcasts free for everyone to access and free from adverts, BUT if you're enjoying them, and would like to help us find the time to make more episodes, we would be super grateful for your support! Please do review and share, and you can support this podcast by buying us a virtual coffee over at our 'ko-fi' page at https://ko-fi.com/beanstalkarts or head over to our website www.beanstalkarts.co.uk where you can book in for a real life class, or buy a copy of an album or an instrument or puppet from our online shop. In real life, we're based in SE London and run regular preschooler classes and weekend gigs and events, or you can often find me, Becky, popping up at various arts centres, schools and museums and libraries welding a cello and ukulele :) I'm available for hire for school visits and other collaborations, so do feel free to get in touch at [email protected] 

Here is a little more info on the songs in today's podcast:

- Hello and Welcome to Beanstalk Arts (our original song) - how we start all our sessions 

- Boris the Bird - Sleepy version (our original song) ! Unlike our usual upbeat squawky song, today Boris the Bird is yawwwwwwning! 

- Storytime Song (by Becky)  as featured in our first album 'Story Songs'

- Row Your Boat (trad)- the instrument you can hear in this is the sansula, and this is the recording from our second album 'Kindness is Contagious'

- Round and Round (by Becky) - excerpt - also from 'Kindness is Contagious'

- 'Little Ripples' - we often use the lycra in our real life classes for this song, in today's recording I'm playing the amazing tongue drum I have borrowed from my friend Sharon 

- Little Birds - another one from our album 'Kindness is Contagious' - we often like to dance with our scarves for this song

- Lullaby - an original Beanstalk Arts tune from our first album

- I See the Moon - a traditional song I often sing for my girls at bedtime. I've experimented with a 'low G' on the ukulele for today's recording to try and give a mellower sound.

I really hope you enjoy today's podcast, I've loved making it for you, and I'll back very soon with our regular season 2 stories. 

This week we're adventuring again into the deep dark woods, this time with Red Riding Hood (and a little help from my cello, Boris the Bird and my ukulele!). 

I'm super grateful this week to have borrowed (with permission) some songs from some fabulous fellow musicians! The wonderful 'Stomping in the Woods' is by Ruti Lachs of Active Music, and features in her album 'Stomping in the Woods' that me and my kids LOVE.  Ruti has made some lovely online workshops around these songs too - you can find the full album of songs at https://www.activemusic.ie/stomping-in-the-woods-cd.html (utterly well worth an addition to your family music collection) and find her videos on her YouTube channel, with 'Stomping in the Wood' explored here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glEooEY-IYI

I've also again sung the 'Washing Machine' song by Steve Grocott - if you know me in real life, you'll know this is a firm favourite for a bit of a dance, and one we also learn in our after school ukulele classes. Find Steve's original version at bandcamp (and all of his albums are also GREAT for families, and car journey tonic) at https://stevegrocott.bandcamp.com. 

I do hope you enjoy this weeks' podcast! If you're local to me in SE London, do remember you can join us in real life this Autumn, with a whole host of new classes starting in September with preschooler, after school and grown up ukulele classes. You can listen to our music on Spotify at 'Becky, Boris and the Beats' and find out more on the website at www.beanstalkarts.co.uk

Please do share this with your friends and leave a review if you've enjoyed the podcast! 

This week's story is not such well-known tale, but I'm particularly excited to share this, as it's one of my all time favourites to tell. Brolga is a story of music, dancing, and finding ways to flourish in adversity. It's based on the Australian Dreamtime myth of the Brolga crane, and features a baby born who just LOVES to dance, inspiring all her friends to dance with her. As she gets older, and her friends get more and more serious, Brolga wonders if she should get a 'proper job' but the village elders assure her that dancing and joy is needed more than ever, and send her off to learn more dance moves from the animals, on the condition she returns every evening to share her new dance moves with her friends. We'll sing and dance with the birds and the spiders, before she encounters a grumpy wizard determined to capture Brolga, and stop her dancing so she can cook him dinner instead...

Fear not - Brolga is strong, fast and smart, and easily escapes the wizard using the dance moves she has learnt from the animals, but is left *slightly* changed, transformed into a bird by a stray drip of magic... At first she is very sad to have been turned into a bird, but quickly realises that whilst she looks different, her dancing soul is still the same, her friends still love her without really batting an eyelid that she's now a bird, and she lives - in crane form - happily ever after! (and if you google 'Brolga Crane' you should be able to find some videos of this dancing bird)

I'm excited to share this podcast with you - this is a story that has given me lots of comfort at rockier 'wizard facing' moments in my own life! I love that it talks about the importance of the arts, about finding our own path in life and respecting all our different choices, and ways of dealing with change. PLUS it features a brilliant, strong, determined female lead - there's no need for any princes to rescue her! 

Most of these songs are my own original compositions, or versions of traditional songs, but the song at the end 'everyone is playing along with me' is one I learnt from the incredible EY music practitioners Steve Grocott and Shirley Stump at one of their training days a few years ago. You can hear lots of Steve's music at https://stevegrocott.bandcamp.com and find out about Shirley at https://yobabymusic.wordpress.com/birthing4blokes-birth-preparation/. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast! If you do, do check out my website at www.beanstalkarts.co.uk or instagram at @beanstalkarts - if you're in SE London, you'd be welcome to join our face to face classes or ukulele groups (plus I have some online grown up and kids ukulele things a-happening!). We have a new album coming soon, but you can listen to our current tunes on Spotify by searching for 'Becky, Boris and the Beats' or on Bandcamp at https://beckyborisandthebeats.bandcamp.com. Please do share with your friends and leave a review! 

This week we're going to be trying to cross the bridge to the green green grass, watching out for trolls along the way! 

You might find it helpful to find somethings around the house to make a little 'tip tap' sound, a middle sized 'clip clop' sound and a great big loud 'stamp stomp' sound to help join in with the story today, or of course you can use body percussion too!

Our songs this week owe a great deal of thanks to the wonderful Steve Grocott, a friend,  colleague musician and fellow Early years practitioner! The troll/goats crossing song is my own slightly misremembered version of his Billy Goats Gruff songs, and if you're looking for HOURS of musical delight, do have a listen and browse at his bandcamp page with his wonderful 'Bright Sparks' collections of songs at https://stevegrocott.bandcamp.com

If you're enjoying this podcast, do remember you can find out all about our real life classes at www.beanstalkarts.co.uk and we have an online shop full of instruments, and ukulele classes for kids and grownups, both on and offline. 

Thanks for listening - I'd be so grateful if you can share this podcast with your friends! 

This week's story is a great big animal singalong - bring your shakers, scarves and singing voice, and get ready to bark, squawk, meow and bray along with our animal band as we sing and dance our way to Bremen town (or as close as we can get...)

Becky and her cello and ukulele, with a little bit of help from Boris the Bird and a host of other animals, will introduce our story this week! Beanstalk Arts is based in SE London, and you can book in for any of our real life sessions or join our ukulele classes by going to our website at www.beanstalkarts.co.uk. 

Reena the Princess just doesn't like being a princess, there's far too much sitting still, being quiet and keeping clean, and her mum and dad just can't understand why she'd prefer life as a frog, hopping around in the garden! It turns out, with a bit of magic help from her fairy God-Boris-the-Bird, she finds a way to try the amphibious life-style, and - boy - it's just as good as she thought! 

But...will she find a way to live happily and happily ever after, and will her mum and dad find a way to accept that their daughter loves life as a frog? (Spoiler alert - YEP, phew!)

This week's story is from Becky with some help from her cello and ukulele, recorded originally in my spare room in the winter lockdown for our wonderful Beanstalk Arts supporters on Patreon, it's now free for anyone to listen too. Songs include our 'little green frog' song, 'everyone is playing along with me', 'little birds' and 'dig in the garden', we have 30 minutes of music, dancing and song (and do remember to check out past episodes if you enjoyed this one!).

Beanstalk Arts is a SE London based organisation, we have real life cello stories classes starting back from the 16th August 2021, plus lots of ukulele classes for grown ups and children alike, and you can find out more and book in at our website at www.beanstalkarts.co.uk You can stream our music on Spotify by searching for 'Becky, Boris and the Beats'. This is a free podcast for all, and there will be a new story landing every Wednesday over the summer holidays, but if you're really enjoying it, you can support us by buying Becky a virtual coffee at https://ko-fi.com/beanstalkarts or picking up a musical instrument bag in our online shop, and we hope to be launching season 2 in the Autumn! 

Did you know the bunny rabbit used to have short ears and a long swishy swoosh's tail?! In today's story we'll find out all about how this changed, and how grumpy old Mr Fox had his hand in the proceedings!

Don't worry, whether her tail is long or short, Rachel rabbit is FABULOUS either which way, and I hope you're ready for a bit of sleeping bunnies, hopping and tail swishing with us :D

Hope you're ready to run run run as fast as you can with the Gingerbread Man in today's story and music podcast!

Becky, her cello and ukulele will tell today's story, with a little bit of baking in the kitchen too, and a few special guests of our podcast listeners! 

If you're really enjoying this podcast, remember you can support us by buying us a virtual coffee at https://ko-fi.com/beanstalkarts (and of course you can book for a real life class, download our music or pick up something from our online shop at www.beanstalkarts.co.uk)

This week we're going up, up, up that Beanstalk! Be ready to stomp like a giant, swoop like a bird and hopefully we'll find a little bit of magic on our way!

If you're really enjoying this podcast, remember you can support us by buying us a virtual coffee at https://ko-fi.com/beanstalkarts (and of course you can book for a real life class, download our music or pick up something from our online shop at www.beanstalkarts.co.uk)

Welcome to the first episode of our new Beanstalk Arts Cello Stories podcast!

This is a musical story aimed at preschool and KS1 children (as well as their families and older friends!), based on our sessions that run in South East London. This podcast was initially published exclusively for Patreon supporters in January 2021 during the UK covid lockdown, and I'm now delighted to share it with you all! 

This week's story is an adventure into the woods with Goldilocks and the Three Bears! You might want to bring something to shake, some teddies to cuddle and maybe something to waft and shake like a bird!

If you're really enjoying this podcast, remember you can support us by buying us a virtual coffee at https://ko-fi.com/beanstalkarts (and of course you can book for a real life class, download our music or pick up something from our online shop at www.beanstalkarts.co.uk)