Giving students meaningful choices can teach me quite a bit. Today, I was teaching hip-hop rhythms to a seventh grade class so that the students could perform a groove and improvise over it. One student was successfully playing the high-hat rhythm, while another student was attempting to play the back beats. Although I had introduced … Continue reading With An Eye To Differences in How Students Learn
Instrumental Music
Small Group Instruction in the Music Classroom
Small groups are all the rage these days in education. They are an effective way of differentiating instruction, and enable teachers to give students meaningful choices affecting their learning. A group leader who may be the teacher or a student can teach students in small groups, or students can teach students and collaborate in the … Continue reading Small Group Instruction in the Music Classroom
Components of Exemplary Teaching for Music Teachers
Exemplary teaching in today’s educational climate can be broken down into three areas each of which dictates to some extent what teachers do and what students do. While these nine areas apply to teachers in all disciplines, they can be discussed at the application level within a single discipline such as music. Today I will … Continue reading Components of Exemplary Teaching for Music Teachers
Four Pieces of Advice for Improving Music Teaching and Learning
Recently, Patrick McKenna published an insightful article on begin an effective leader. The main point was that good leaders understand the importance of relationships with those they lead, and take a genuine interest in their needs and wants. This is not only good for business; it is also good for teaching. Music teachers are in … Continue reading Four Pieces of Advice for Improving Music Teaching and Learning
Assessment Ideas for the Music Classroom
By now, most music teachers are familiar with and using some form of assessment in their classrooms. Directors of performing ensembles give periodic playing or singings tests and quizzes, and may also administer written tasks to assess knowledge of music reading and analysis. General music teachers have become accustomed to collecting written student work, and … Continue reading Assessment Ideas for the Music Classroom
Varieties of Musical Dissonance
One of the fascinating things about music history is how people have gradually over the centuries changed in how dissonance is regarded. From the position that all dissonance was bad and even evil, to the twentieth century view that dissonance can be beautiful, we have accepted and embraced more and more dissonance in our art … Continue reading Varieties of Musical Dissonance
What Is Music Theory and How Does It Fit Into Music Education?
A casual survey of so-called music theory books used by piano and violin teachers reveals that music theory is frequently understood to be the body of knowledge needed to read music. When students using these materials “learn music theory,” they are asked to name notes and chords, identify and define symbols such as key and … Continue reading What Is Music Theory and How Does It Fit Into Music Education?
Thinking In Music is the Key to Music Literacy
One of the reasons teaching music reading and writing is so challenging for students and music teachers is that music is not used nearly as often as a basis for thought and actions. Every action begins with a thought, and thoughts are generally pictures or words; images or descriptions. Music for most people is something … Continue reading Thinking In Music is the Key to Music Literacy
What Does Music Have To Do With Social Development?
School is a social environment. Learning takes place in classes where groups of children are gathered, usually 20-25 at a time. When everything is going smoothly, students are listening to a teacher and to each other, are asking and answering questions, responding to prompts, understanding what is being said or done, and keeping their attention … Continue reading What Does Music Have To Do With Social Development?
A Tale of Two Temperings
In our well-tempered musical culture, all musical keys tend to sound the same, except for being higher or lower. Yet throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, composers enjoyed the rich and expressive variety in the way different keys sounded. Rousseau described D major as being suited for “gaiety or brilliance,” Schumann spoke of C major … Continue reading A Tale of Two Temperings
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