If you're a director of a school music ensemble, then you are now heading into festival and contest season. There are plenty of music festivals vying for your business. Most are good to excellent and offer something valuable (besides a ribbon or trophy) for you and your students to take home with you. With all … Continue reading It’s Music Festival Season–Which One Should You Choose?
Music Education
A practical guide to planning, teaching, and assessing music instruction.
Why Do Essential Questions Improve Music Teaching and Learning?
In my school district, the objective at the top of each lesson plan, and the objective must begin with the phrase "students will be able to." The idea is to state an objective in terms of what I want the students to know and do as a result of the lesson. This is a helpful way … Continue reading Why Do Essential Questions Improve Music Teaching and Learning?
A Learning Sequence for Music Rehearsals
Beginning rehearsal on a new musical work is always a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, it is exciting to begin a new piece, and I look forward to starting work on it, foreseeing the day when my ensemble arrives at the point where the audiated performance in my imagination meets or exceeds … Continue reading A Learning Sequence for Music Rehearsals
Strengths and Weaknesses of Orff Schulwerk
Today I will discuss the advantage and disadvantages of the Orff Schulwerk Approach to music education. At the outset, I should mention that no single method of teaching music is sufficient for meeting the needs of all children, or for teaching all aspects of music. Each method bring valuable perspectives into the music classroom, and … Continue reading Strengths and Weaknesses of Orff Schulwerk
Staying Focused as a Music Teacher
If there is one thing that I don't like about being a music teacher, it is this: I only see my students once a week for forty-five minutes. The problem with this is that over the course of an entire school year, I see my classes a maximum of forty times. That's as many times … Continue reading Staying Focused as a Music Teacher
The Difference Between Rhythm and Beat
The term "beat" is arguably the most misunderstood in music. This is evident from the disparate ways the word is used, even among music educators and professional musicians. For example, is a beat something musicians see, hear, or audiate? Directors often tell students in their ensemble to "follow the beat," intending that the musicians see … Continue reading The Difference Between Rhythm and Beat
What Do Music Notes Mean?
I searched the title of this post today, and the results were any number of explanations of how to read music; what the note names were, the different kinds of notes, the treble and bass clefs, and so forth. But is this really what those notes on a page mean? Not at all. As you … Continue reading What Do Music Notes Mean?
Working Aurally With Key Signatures
In my post, Do You Really Know What A Key Signature Is? I made the point that we must not overlook the importance of audiation and teaching keyalities and tonalities aurally before teaching written key signatures. I mentioned singing and playing scales and arpeggios by ear in different keyalities and tonalities. Today, I would like to hone … Continue reading Working Aurally With Key Signatures
What are Antecedent & Consequent Phrases in Music?
Good music, and great music too, has a certain quality that Leonard Bernstein described as inevitability. He was describing that quality of music that leaves the listener with the sense that what he or she just heard was the only possible group of notes that the composer could have written; that any other melodic turn … Continue reading What are Antecedent & Consequent Phrases in Music?
Do You Really Know What A Key Signature Is?
I'm fairly certain that if I asked a room full of music teachers to tell me what a key signature is, nearly everyone would tell me something akin to "it is an indication of which pitches will be sharped or flatted throughout the piece of music." As accurate as that is, it is also simplistic … Continue reading Do You Really Know What A Key Signature Is?
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