Over the course of my teaching career, I have had my students do a variety of things under the guise of creating or composing music. Too often, I have expected them to go further with composing than than I had prepared them to go. Part of the the problem for me was that I confused exploration, improvisation, … Continue reading Understanding How Music Composition Works
What Are Music Teachers Really Trying To Accomplish?
Ask a Language Arts teacher what they are trying to achieve with their students, and that teacher will probably mention growth in literacy. He or she wants students to read and write effectively, with understanding and comprehension. Students are likely being asked questions like, "what is the author trying to say?" "How does the author … Continue reading What Are Music Teachers Really Trying To Accomplish?
Piano Instruction Cannot Be at the Center of General Music Education
Recently I have read the proposition that music education centered on singing as a means for teaching music literacy is ineffective and obsolete. The author maintained that the methodologies of Kodaly and Orff were products of a time when nothing better was possible, and that now with the availability of technology, keyboard centered music education … Continue reading Piano Instruction Cannot Be at the Center of General Music Education
What Do You Want Your Parents to Know About Your Music Program?
Although it seems we have had high stakes testing, district assessments, UbD, PBIS, NCAS, and any number of other strings of letters forever, most of the parents of our students remember music class as just a place where they went to sing songs, play instruments, and be entertained. The idea that there are standards, assessments, … Continue reading What Do You Want Your Parents to Know About Your Music Program?
Selecting Music to Experience
One of the more challenging piece of the National Core Arts Standards (NCAS) for music has been having students select music to experience. For years, I chose the music my students would rehearse, perform, and listen to. This was expedient, because I could select music based on what I wanted my students to learn and … Continue reading Selecting Music to Experience
Evaluate or Judge?
One of the mainstays of standards for music education has been to evaluate musical works. Whereas evaluating is a generally well understood concept when it comes to student work, evaluating artistic work has often been more problematic; it has been confused with editorializing. Under this confusion, if I like a musical work, then it is … Continue reading Evaluate or Judge?
Constructing a Music Assessment
In my last post, I began discussing assessment in the music classroom. I explained that conceptualizing the assessment must take place early in the planning process, right after the goal, enduring understanding, and essential question is stated, and before the instructional sequence is written. From our example in that post, the goal was stated in the … Continue reading Constructing a Music Assessment
Assessment Is Important in Music
Assessment and data collection can be a irksome thing for music teachers. On the one hand, our subject is typically not included in mandated standardized testing, so there are not mandated assessments and reporting systems in place for us. On the other hand, we often feel as though music can not be assessed, because artistic work is subjective … Continue reading Assessment Is Important in Music
How Is Music A Way of Knowing?
Music is sometimes referred to as a way of knowing. On the surface, this may seem like a strange claim. We are used to thinking of music as being expressive, or entertaining, worshipful, celebratory and certainly as fun, but to think of music as a way of knowing seems at first like almost a let … Continue reading How Is Music A Way of Knowing?
Why Music Is More than What We Hear
What follows are thoughts that came to mind while watching this video: https://www.facebook.com/steveweissmusic/videos/10154201499635861/ As I watch these musicians, I realized that while I could simply listen to what they were doing and enjoy the music, for them, their enjoyment and experience of the music was as much in their movements as it was in the … Continue reading Why Music Is More than What We Hear
mister a music place 
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