How Can Music Students Work Smarter?

This week I will be conducting my students in performances of Grease School Version. Because of my schedule associated with the production, my next post here will be Sunday, May 25. It will be good to see you here then. We’ve all heard the saying, work smarter, not harder. In music performance, this is especially good … Continue reading How Can Music Students Work Smarter?

What’s Your Interpretation?

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?

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 Can Symphony Orchestras Attract Young Audiences?

Many have considered the problem of how to cause classical music to become more popular, especially with younger audiences. Data indicating a shrinking audience for live concerts, particularly among younger people, have worried arts organizations and educators for some time. It has also been noted that while attendance at live classical concerts has often decreased, … Continue reading How Can Symphony Orchestras Attract Young Audiences?

Does That Instrument Always Sound Like That?

Tomorrow, my fourth grade students will attend a young peoples concert, put on by the local symphony orchestra. This is an annual event, and is by no means the same program each year; however this year, the concert will focus on introducing the audience to the various instruments and instrument families of the orchestra. One … Continue reading Does That Instrument Always Sound Like That?

Solving the Problem of Students who Don’t Practice

For those of who play orchestral instruments and guitar, recorder, keyboard, accordion, harmonica, ukulele or whatever, disciplined practice is still necessary for advancing and achieving success. At the same time, we all have students who are less than willing to bother practicing. It also happens fairly often that a student will claim to be practicing, but … Continue reading Solving the Problem of Students who Don’t Practice

Effective Strategies for Teaching Students to Play In Tune

Teaching students to tune is an area of concern for many music teachers. Students, particularly young ones, often need frequent attention to help them tune correctly. While there may be times that student difficulties tuning are physical, such as an inability to turn a tuning peg on a string instrument, many times the difficulty is … Continue reading Effective Strategies for Teaching Students to Play In Tune