Portfolios in education are collections of student work and of documents related to those pieces of student work. They make possible the documentation of student activity and learning, the reflecting upon work even days or weeks after it is completed, and the charting of progress over time as work collected at various moments is compared … Continue reading Using Portfolios to Improve Music Instruction
Conversational Solfege and the National Core Arts Standards
Conversational solfege is a curriculum for teaching music literacy developed by Dr. John Feierabend. It is a literature based curriculum that is grounded in Music Learning Theory and the Kodaly philosophy for music education. It is not a method that one uses to the exclusion of all others, but rather an effective way of teaching … Continue reading Conversational Solfege and the National Core Arts Standards
Setting Up Chairs and Desks in a Music Classroom
The arrangement of chairs, desks, and tables in any classroom is important in establishing the learning climate. Depending on how a class will be run, there are several options when it comes to setting up chairs and tables or desks. The days of rows of chairs all facing the front of the classroom, where a … Continue reading Setting Up Chairs and Desks in a Music Classroom
What Are The Fundamentals of Teaching Elementary Music?
Whether you will be starting your music teaching career next fall, are assuming your first ever elementary music position after previously teaching at another level or an instrumental program, or are a seasoned elementary music teacher who benefits from reminders and self-challenges (that's me, by the way), I thought it would be helpful to go … Continue reading What Are The Fundamentals of Teaching Elementary Music?
After The Concert
Recently, a sort of firestorm on Facebook was started by a music teacher sharply criticizing colleagues who stop teaching the curriculum after the final concert of the year. He stated that in doing so, these teachers are "degrading" their music programs. He went on to vent and in so doing offended some. The post was … Continue reading After The Concert
Aspects of the “Creating” Artistic Process
Creating music is often divided into two broad categories: composing and improvising. Frequently, music teachers distinguish the two by maintaining that one is composing when notes are written down, and one is improvising when notes are performed spontaneously. According to this way of thinking, when, for example, Charlie Parker played a solo, he was improvising, … Continue reading Aspects of the “Creating” Artistic Process
Should We Be Teaching The Names of Lines and Spaces on the Musical Staff?
Chances are, if you are a musician, you were taught somewhere along the way, the names of the lines and spaces on the musical staff. Chances are also good that the teacher used some kind of mnemonic device, like "every good bird does fly" for the lines of the treble staff, and "face" for the … Continue reading Should We Be Teaching The Names of Lines and Spaces on the Musical Staff?
Assessment Is A Good Thing–Even For Music Teachers
There is a feeling among many music teachers, especially at this time of year when student progress must be documented, that assessment in music is a necessary evil, required by mandated teacher evaluation and/or school districts. While assessment is required by these authorities, it should not be handled merely as nuisance paperwork, because there is … Continue reading Assessment Is A Good Thing–Even For Music Teachers
Problems in Responding to Music
There are essentially three things to which a person can respond in music; structure, form, and emotions. Structure are those things in music that we intuitively understand, such as beat, phrasing, and meter. Because of the natural way we perceive these structures, we are able to sort out the musical sounds and organize them in … Continue reading Problems in Responding to Music
Fixed and Movable Do
As originally conceived, solfege was a movable do system. Whatever pitch was the tonic would be assigned the syllable "do" and the other syllables, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti followed upward by step. In today's usage, these movable do syllables are referred to as tonal syllables. They are called tonal syllables because they … Continue reading Fixed and Movable Do
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