What is literacy? The word is used across all disciplines, including music, yet I find a surprising range of understandings of just what literacy is. Does literacy refer to just reading? Does it include writing? Must someone be an effective communicator orally in order to be considered literate? Is there any requirement for being able … Continue reading What Is Music Literacy?
music literacy
Using Core Arts Standards To Teach Students How To Analyze Repertoire
Once a musical work has been selected (see my post for yesterday on selecting repertoire) the next step in the process of preparing it for performance is to analyze. The focus of the analysis should be constrained to what will be useful to the student, and to what interests the student in the work. Students … Continue reading Using Core Arts Standards To Teach Students How To Analyze Repertoire
Jaques-Dalcroze and Rhythm Training
Yesterday, I discussed solfege exercises developed by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. Today I will examine some of his rhythm exercises. Like contemporary scholars, Jaques-Dalcroze found that rhythm and pitch are more easily taught separately than integrated together. Jaques-Dalcroze also believed that because movement, through which rhythm is expressed, is natural to humans, whereas pitch is not, it … Continue reading Jaques-Dalcroze and Rhythm Training
Can Tone and Chord Functions Be Taught With Fixed Do?
When it comes to choosing a system of syllables to sing for teaching ear training and sight singing, there seems to be a consensus that moveable do, sometimes called functional solfege, is needed for teaching chord and tone functions. To be sure, moving do to wherever the tonic is does help a singer remember where … Continue reading Can Tone and Chord Functions Be Taught With Fixed Do?
Is There Madness in the Method?
Music teachers are often concerned with method. If you go to most music education conferences, you’ll find sessions on the Kodaly Method, the Dalcroze Method, Gordon Music Learning Theory, the Orff Method, Feierabend’s Conversational Solfege, the Suzuki Method, to name a few. Music teaching methods are like Protestant denominations: there are many of them, they … Continue reading Is There Madness in the Method?
A Better Way To Teach Rhythm
I have noticed that there is a great deal of interest in how best to teach rhythm. Perhaps this reveals challenges that music teachers find in teaching rhythm, made manifest in students’ difficulty in performing rhythms accurately. While I cannot know what transpires in every music classroom, I can at least address problems I have … Continue reading A Better Way To Teach Rhythm
How Do Math and Music Mix in a Music Classroom?
Most people I know, both teachers and non-teachers, musicians and non-musicians, believe that students use a lot of math concepts when making music. In the current environment created by core curriculum state standards, this belief can easily lead to the desire for music teachers to explicitly teach, or at the very least reinforce math concepts … Continue reading How Do Math and Music Mix in a Music Classroom?
Where Is That Meter?
Recently, I attended a chamber music concert that included the first of Beethoven’s “Razumofsky” string quartets, the Op. 59, no. 1. The performance was by an ensemble made of advanced musicians from prestigious music conservatories that had gathered to attend a music festival. As the performance got under way, I quickly became unsettled. I couldn’t … Continue reading Where Is That Meter?
What Are The Best Pitch Combinations For Teaching Our Youngest Children Singing?
The popularity and success of the Kodaly approach to teaching music in schools has resulted in a widespread practice of using songs and chants comprised of a minor third when beginning formal music education with young children. There is much to recommend this practice, including the ease with which a small interval can be sung, … Continue reading What Are The Best Pitch Combinations For Teaching Our Youngest Children Singing?
What Does A Classroom Where Everyone Is Teaching and Learning Look Like? (Creating Music Part 2)
Today's post is a continuation of yesterday's article, where I began to describe using the core arts standards for creating to design a classroom environment where ideas and knowledge are shared freely as a key part of a rich educational culture. Once musical ideas have been created and selected, they are evaluated. The student is … Continue reading What Does A Classroom Where Everyone Is Teaching and Learning Look Like? (Creating Music Part 2)
mister a music place 
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