Today I would like to share a lesson plan with you, and explain it as I go along. It is intended for a first grade class lasting forty-five minutes. The objective of the lesson is that students will be able to associate written note types with notes of that duration when heard. Throughout the lesson, … Continue reading An Annotated General Music Lesson Plan
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What Is Music Literacy?
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?
Teaching Students to Manage Their Emotions
As much as we might want it to be otherwise, teaching music does not just involve teaching music. Because we are teaching children and teens, we must sometimes or even often teach our students non-music specific life skills so that they will be equipped to learn music. One of the most challenging areas for many … Continue reading Teaching Students to Manage Their Emotions
When Students Exactly Learn What We Did Not Intend To Teach
Teaching may not always be an exact science, but often what children learn is more exact than what we have taught. Let me explain. Suppose I want to teach children about legato using movement. Legato is a term used in both music and dance, so it is especially fitting that I use both to teach … Continue reading When Students Exactly Learn What We Did Not Intend To Teach
Reflections on a New School Year
As the new school year begins, it seems fitting to call to mind the things teachers do to get themselves and their students off to a good start. Students need five things from teachers to succeed in school, and they are never more receptive to them than at the beginning of the year. Those five … Continue reading Reflections on a New School Year
How To Use The Core Arts Standards To Teach Students to Interpret, Evaluate, and Rehearse
Over the last two days, we have looked at teaching students to select and analyze musical works they intend to perform. Through selecting, students learn about the music and reflect on their own interests and skills. Through analyzing, students learn how the music is put together; how it works. With this information in hand, the … Continue reading How To Use The Core Arts Standards To Teach Students to Interpret, Evaluate, and Rehearse
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
Using Core Arts Standards to Teach Students How To Select Repertoire
The new core arts standards are made in the same form as the Common Core State Standards, and contain similar vocabulary. Because of this, we can plan, give and assess music instruction with Common Core connections already embedded by using the Core Arts Standards as our foundation. The heart of the matter is expressed in … Continue reading Using Core Arts Standards to Teach Students How To Select Repertoire
Why Do We Have Students Play Musical Instruments?
Today, I want us to think about a question that most of us have either overlooked or taken for granted. I want to explore why we teach people to play musical instruments. This is a deceptively important question, because how we answer it affects everything we do with our instrumental students; it affects what we … Continue reading Why Do We Have Students Play Musical Instruments?
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
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