Whether you will be starting your music teaching career next fall, are assuming your first ever elementary music position after previously teaching at another level or an instrumental program, or are a seasoned elementary music teacher who benefits from reminders and self-challenges (that's me, by the way), I thought it would be helpful to go … Continue reading What Are The Fundamentals of Teaching Elementary Music?
music literacy
After The Concert
Recently, a sort of firestorm on Facebook was started by a music teacher sharply criticizing colleagues who stop teaching the curriculum after the final concert of the year. He stated that in doing so, these teachers are "degrading" their music programs. He went on to vent and in so doing offended some. The post was … Continue reading After The Concert
Aspects of the “Creating” Artistic Process
Creating music is often divided into two broad categories: composing and improvising. Frequently, music teachers distinguish the two by maintaining that one is composing when notes are written down, and one is improvising when notes are performed spontaneously. According to this way of thinking, when, for example, Charlie Parker played a solo, he was improvising, … Continue reading Aspects of the “Creating” Artistic Process
Should We Be Teaching The Names of Lines and Spaces on the Musical Staff?
Chances are, if you are a musician, you were taught somewhere along the way, the names of the lines and spaces on the musical staff. Chances are also good that the teacher used some kind of mnemonic device, like "every good bird does fly" for the lines of the treble staff, and "face" for the … Continue reading Should We Be Teaching The Names of Lines and Spaces on the Musical Staff?
Assessment Is A Good Thing–Even For Music Teachers
There is a feeling among many music teachers, especially at this time of year when student progress must be documented, that assessment in music is a necessary evil, required by mandated teacher evaluation and/or school districts. While assessment is required by these authorities, it should not be handled merely as nuisance paperwork, because there is … Continue reading Assessment Is A Good Thing–Even For Music Teachers
Problems in Responding to Music
There are essentially three things to which a person can respond in music; structure, form, and emotions. Structure are those things in music that we intuitively understand, such as beat, phrasing, and meter. Because of the natural way we perceive these structures, we are able to sort out the musical sounds and organize them in … Continue reading Problems in Responding to Music
What Does ‘Explain and Demonstrate’ Mean?
As teachers, we are all familiar with asking students to explain something. Explaining requires that students go beyond reciting a memorized answer, or randomly deciding on a response. Explaining involves giving reasons for why an answer was given, and the giving of evidence from a text. Demonstrating, on the other hand, is showing or doing … Continue reading What Does ‘Explain and Demonstrate’ Mean?
Sound Before Sight Is About More Than Teaching Songs
"Sound before sight" is a popular way of saying that music is most effectively taught first aurally, and then by associating what has been learned aurally with visual representations, such as standard music notation. Music Learning Theory and the numerous resources that follow it guide teachers in developing musical literacy according to these principles. Generally, … Continue reading Sound Before Sight Is About More Than Teaching Songs
Responding To Music: Subjective or Objective?
The National Core Arts Standards include three anchor standards for responding that lay out the ways a person can respond to music. When our students respond to music in our classrooms or on their own in other settings, they are probably doing so in one of the ways described in these anchor standards. They are … Continue reading Responding To Music: Subjective or Objective?
Making Lessons Interesting and Important
Any classroom will run more smoothly and be a place of effective learning when the lessons taught are both interesting and important to students. Lessons that are interesting to students are about things that students can use, want to use, and to which they can make connections with their personal lives, their other classes, their … Continue reading Making Lessons Interesting and Important
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