Yesterday, I discussed creativity in the music classroom. When children perform music, and when I say perform I include practice, rehearsal, and concertizing, they need freedom to explore the interpretive possibilities before them. I think it is an unfortunate result of our pre-service training and perhaps also of our experience playing and singing under some … Continue reading What’s Your Interpretation?
Creative Thinking in Music Classes
Among the many reasons for a person and a culture to have music is that making music is a creative enterprise, and creative thinking helps us cope with life, solve problems, and make things that we can enjoy and benefit from. At the very heart of creative activity is the act of making something. Indeed, … Continue reading Creative Thinking in Music Classes
What’s All The Movement About?
Movement and music are a natural pair. When we listen to music, we naturally want to move. Researchers have found that just listening to music stimulates the motion center of the brain just as if we were actually moving. There is also an emotional aspect of movement as well. This morning, during my pre-kindergarten class … Continue reading What’s All The Movement About?
What Are Strategies for Keeping Students’ Attention?
I think that the single most difficult obstacle to overcome when teaching is keeping students attention focused on what I have planned for them to be doing. This is especially true if the activity requires them to problem solve or practice something over a time span of five minutes or more. Because practice, refinement, and … Continue reading What Are Strategies for Keeping Students’ Attention?
What Is So Important About Music?
Life is all about relationships. Relationships with people, with God, with things we enjoy doing and making. Being alone is not good. Music is so powerful in the lives of people because it offers us multiple relationships. First, each individual person has a relationship with music. Our musical experiences are always interactive. Music elicits movement, … Continue reading What Is So Important About Music?
Musical Ups and Downs–Why is Contour Important?
Sometimes, when a person has been studying and practicing something for a long time, acquiring a high level of expertise in it, it becomes easy to overlook the simpler aspects of the discipline—those concepts that one learned when first being introduced to the discipline, and then forgotten once more advanced levels were reached. In music, … Continue reading Musical Ups and Downs–Why is Contour Important?
How Can A Musical Score Be Used As A Listening Map?
Many of us use listening maps to guide our students through musical works. When you think about it, listening maps are really music scores for non-music readers. They typically represent the main themes and sections of a piece with pictures or graphics. It is also possible to use an actual music score as a listening … Continue reading How Can A Musical Score Be Used As A Listening Map?
What Is A Good Age To Begin Taking Musical Instrument Lessons?
Parents often ask and teachers often debate what is a good age at which to begin music lessons? There is no single answer to this question. Many factors must be considered on an individual basis. Physical development, musical background, and instrument size are three of the most important things to consider. In this post, I … Continue reading What Is A Good Age To Begin Taking Musical Instrument Lessons?
How Often Does Your Music Room Teach Music?
The next time you walk into your music room, take a good look. What can your students learn just from looking around the room? What can they find to ask questions about? What answers can they find? As I am writing this post, I am surveying my room today with these questions in mind. I … Continue reading How Often Does Your Music Room Teach Music?
Why Do Music Teachers Teach What They Teach?
Motivation is important to everyone and to everything we do. Motivation is not about what we do, but about why we do it. People do what they do for a reason. There is always something that drives a person's motivation. Today, I want to ask the question, “what motivates music teachers to teach what they teach?” … Continue reading Why Do Music Teachers Teach What They Teach?
mister a music place 
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