When I was in elementary school lo those many years ago, there were a few years when I had trouble with math. I tried really hard, and spent a lot of time at home trying to get it, and practiced many strategies for understanding concepts and coming up with the right answer. Sometimes, after I … Continue reading Using A Little Common Sense To Help Music Reading
General Music
Student Choice in Selecting Repertoire
One of the challenges that often face music teachers is a tension that develops between students playing music they enjoy, and teachers who want their students to play music that facilitates growth in musicianship. Often, this comes down to the teacher wanting the student to play classical music, and the student wanting to play popular … Continue reading Student Choice in Selecting Repertoire
The Pre-Recorded Technology Trap
When it comes to performing music, I think most music educators agree that through some combination of general music classes, ensembles, chamber music, peer teaching and learning, and private lessons, our students will develop the musicianship necessary for them to have a lifelong relationship with music that includes taking on the roles of audience, performer, and creator … Continue reading The Pre-Recorded Technology Trap
The Concert Is Only Part of the Performance Process
Many of us will be giving our winter or holiday concerts in the coming weeks. With the rolling out of the new core arts standards for music, our concerts will be the performance process and the present standard. The interesting thing about the way the standards are laid out for performance is that all of … Continue reading The Concert Is Only Part of the Performance Process
Teaching Improvisation
I view improvisation as a form of conversation. Unless we are giving a prepared speech, people don’t know ahead of time every word they are going to speak. We speak thoughts as they come to mind, respond to what we read, see and hear other people say, forming thoughts that turn into words we speak … Continue reading Teaching Improvisation
The Exit Ticket for Music
If there's anything that music standards have done to help me improve my teaching over the years, it is to get me beyond singing songs and playing instruments to teaching musical concepts, skills, and processes through singing songs and playing instruments. In other words, standards have taught me that the song is not the objective, it is … Continue reading The Exit Ticket for Music
Why Do Kids Want To Take Music Lessons?
Why do people take music classes or music lessons? It's an interesting question. There is no shortage of articles and even books on why people should take music lessons, but that is a different issue. While there may be some children of overly ambitious parents who take music lessons to improve their math scores, for example, … Continue reading Why Do Kids Want To Take Music Lessons?
Up Is The Way To Go
When a boy realizes his voice has deepened, it can become difficult to convince him to sing in his upper range. Many are proud of their deeper voices, and do not want to sound like younger boys whose voices have not yet changed, and they are more secure singing down. In spite of this resistance, it is important to … Continue reading Up Is The Way To Go
The Way of Musical Beat Development
In music, awareness and sense of beat develops from a largely kinesthetic-motor response in the pre-kindergarten years, to a more internalized understanding with older children. Beat can be felt in any of a number of locations in the body, but it must be felt. Beat is not something that can be understood only from an … Continue reading The Way of Musical Beat Development
Life’s Lesson Brought To You Through Music
There’s a quote going around the internet that goes like this: “if you've never failed, you’ve never tried anything new.” Implicit in this saying is the expectation that most people will not succeed at most things the first time they try. In order to succeed, skill and expertise will need to be developed through hard … Continue reading Life’s Lesson Brought To You Through Music
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