Parents, Money, and Music

When I was in High School the parents of the "music kids" were incredibly involved in helping us put together our performances. There were parent organizations such as "Choral Parents" that ran fundraising and organized buying the choir gowns and tuxedoes. They were in charge of selling roses and refreshments at concerts. For marching band, parents were in charge of handing out uniforms, helping to organize events, and moved equipment to the different competitions. Parents ran the fundraising programs that helped to pay for competitions, music, instruments, and scholarships. We were incredibly fortunate to have so many parents who valued our work enough to dedicate their time to helping us. Their help and dedication gave our directors time to focus on helping us improve our music, instead of focusing on the many logistics that go into operating a thriving music program.

Unfortunately, this is not a reality for many schools. The question that we face is, should we have to rely on parents and fundraising to run a modern BOJC program?

If a teacher is fortunate enough that they have parents that want to be involved they should utilize that incredible resource. It is important for students to see that their parents support what they're doing. One of the amazing things about music is that it has the ability to bring people together, to form communities. Parents were always an important part of my high school music community. By making parents a part of your musical community, students feel supported. They know that their music is important because their parents show that they believe it is important also. It's easy for a student to believe music is not serious if that's the message they receive at home. 
However, although parent support is wonderful, a program must be able to survive without it. It is not always feasible for parents to be as involved. If a program does not have parent support it is up to the teacher to make up the difference. I believe that fundraising is important because music is expensive. Fundraising takes some of the financial burden off the students and their parents. Parents should be encouraged to help, but teachers should be prepared to create a successful program without them. 

Technology in the Music Classroom

The first time I substitute taught in an elementary school after I was dumbfounded by the amount of technology these students have access. It had only been about three years since I had been in an elementary school, but  technology in the school had completely changed. Every classroom had a Smartboard and many students had Ipod touches and Ipads. I was able to see how teachers utilize this technology to enhance their teaching and engage their students. How has this technology changed in the Music classrooms?

Students now expect technology to be a part of their education. And why not? Technology provides so many resources that can be utilized in the classroom. Students may no longer be interested in or be engaged by writing on paper or the chalkboard, or even listening to you talk.

Youtube is an excellent resource for any music classroom. There are so many ways you can utilize it in your classroom. People often post videos of their performances on Youtube. Before starting a new piece with your ensemble you can find an example of an ensemble who did an EXCELLENT performance of that piece to inspire your group.With parent permission you may even be able to share videos of your ensembles performances. Students get very excited when they are able to share their work with the world.

Youtube is also a wonderful source for video tutorials. If you have a class of beginning trumpeters, you can find a tutorial on Youtube to recommend to them for practice at home with. This means that they don't need to waste time at home practicing incorrectly or getting discouraged because they can't remember what was done in class. You could even make a Youtube video yourself!

Musictheory.net is one of my favorite resources for practicing musical skills. The website provides practice for concepts as basic as staffs and note reading, to advanced analysis. This is an excellent source for students to practice concepts learned in the classroom. They can even make a game out of it! The website also has lessons for students to review the concepts. 

Teachers also use the internet to post their own lesson ideas. Through technology we can build an even larger community of music educators. In his blog post, What Does it Take, Chris Johnson writes that music educators must be thieves. We make music education better by learning from other teachers, and in turn we can share our own ideas. A music teacher in Plattsburgh, NY created a website with links to different music lessons that utilize the Smartboard. By using the Smartboard for these lessons students can visualize and engage in music in a new way.

Choral Warm-up

In addition to the clarinet lesson, I had to lead my class in a choral warm-up yesterday. This experience was very intimidating, but also a lot of fun. There were three main lessons that I learned from this exercise:

I consider myself to be a very positive person, so it seemed natural for me to say "good" or "excellent" at the end of a particular warm-up. It turns out too much positive reinforcement is a bad thing. Particularly when the students didn't do anything to reinforce, or you're really just reinforcing bad happens. It would have been much more effective for me to be specific, to really listen to who's doing something right and draw their attention to that. This reinforces the good work, and provides a positive teachable for the other students who may not be doing it right. This gives them information about how to correct themselves without you saying "Johnny don't sing like that!"

I also definitely should have listened more. Instead of listening I sang with the students. It hadn't really occurred to me that this could be a bad idea. I sang with them out of habit, but also because of my lack of piano ability. I felt that if I couldn't play the warm-up with them I should sing it with them to keep them on track. This was not necessary the students knew what they were doing. Also, by singing with them I wasn't able to really hear the students well enough to make corrections. If corrections and reinforcements are not given during warm-ups it tells the students its ok to be lazy at warm-ups and creates bad habits for future warm-ups and repertoire.

Warm-ups are about more than simply warming up the individual voices. Warm-ups should also prepare the choir for the rehearsal. Warm-ups using harmonies help get readjusted to the sound of the choir. It helps them focus on tuning and blending with the other choir members.

Clarinet "Lesson"

Yesterday I had the exciting task of teaching my very first clarinet lesson. My job was to pretend my professor was a fifth grader who was there for his first clarinet lesson (we were both new to the instrument). The lesson was to be taught in front of the other students in my secondary methods class.

My goal for this first lesson was to teach the student proper posture and breathing techniques. I believed by doing this we would create a solid foundation that could be built upon. I think a lot of what I had to say may have gone over the student's head. In my own musical training I have learned to breathe using very technical terms. I knew these would be too complicated for the student, especially in 5 minutes, so I tried to explain it in ways he would understand. I don't think he needed to understand it as fully as I wanted to teach him. The foundation could have been simpler.

If I were to do it again, I would teach him posture and begin to get him thinking about breath. It is unreasonable for me to expect him to find the low connection to breath (which took me years to learn) in five minutes. This goal overwhelmed both of us and the lesson was not as productive as it could have been. I would then begin to teach the student some basics of the actual instrument. In real life, the student would have been very bored and frustrated by this lesson and likely would not have returned for a second one.

Beyond Rubrics- Inspiring a more complete musician

In his article, The Trouble with Rubrics, Alfie Kohn looks at the merits and deficiencies of using rubrics as a standard for assessing students'  work. When students are given a rubric for an assignment Kohn states:

Studies have shown that too much attention to the quality of one’s performance is associated with more superficial thinking, less interest in whatever one is doing, less perseverance in the face of failure, and a tendency to attribute the outcome to innate ability and other factors thought to be beyond one’s control.

I agree with this statement. Students who are most interested in receiving the highest grade possible may be so focused on giving the teacher what they think the teacher wants that they may not explore their own opinions and ideas for the project. If a student is not told exactly what to do for an assignment, or exactly what information to put in an assignment, the student will be forced to rely on their own creativity and knowledge to fulfill the assignment. This would lead to more genuine and complete work.

I recently attended a masterclass taught by the countertenor, Philippe Jaroussky. Mr. Jaroussky achieved international fame through his hard work. When his teachers told him he could not be a countertenor, he did not allow their words to limit his musical pursuit. Teachers sometimes have a rubric in their mind that tells them what they believe makes an excellent countertenor, soprano, violist, pianist, etc. However, a musician is more than check marks on a list of standards. Mr. Jaroussky ignored these standards and pushed himself beyond them. He found success because he was intrinsically motivated to be the best musician that he could, not because he followed everyone's standards. When he performs, this passion and unique ability is part of what makes him so enjoyable to watch. Mr. Jaroussky knew that many of us in the audience aspire to be great musicians and continue to pursue this goal. He advised us not to try to give judges and directors what you think they want when auditioning, instead show them the best version of yourself and your music. Like all art, music is about interpretation and not everyone will agree. You must be able to form your own opinions and always seek to grow to be a musician.

Furthermore, rubrics can help to limit students by giving them the opportunity to decide how much work they would like to put in to a project, and how much they would like to leave out. It allows them to weigh the loss of credit to the amount of effort that they put in.

Each year I adjudicate a music competition for high schoolers. Adjudicators score students based on a rubric provided by the organization. The students who score highest in each section; vocal, band,  orchestra, or jazz are selected to join the ensemble. This rubric is necessary because hundreds of students audition in front of different adjudicators and the organization needs a way to select students fairly. Although this rubric covers many criteria that make up a good musician, it is impossible to cover all. The rubric also gives students and their teachers the opportunity to strategize in a way that is not a fair representation of them as musicians, and denies the student an opportunity to assess their own progress and abilities. As part of the audition, students must sight read. On the rubric students receive points for maintaining a steady tempo, maintaining the key, and note accuracy. For most students, note accuracy is the most difficult part. Some teachers instruct their students to focus on the rhythm and sing everything on the same note. Therefore, the points they receive for rhythm and maintaining a key outweighs the points they lose for note accuracy. Students who advance because of this strategy over students who tried to do the sight reading fully may not always be better musicians.

However, when assigning students tasks, clarity is very important. It would not be fair to deduct points for not including something the student did not know was expected. Rubrics are a quick tool that can make their expectations clear, but this is often used as a crutch. Teachers should be able to make their expectations clear, without relying on the crutch of rubrics.

I believe with music, students should be assessed on effort and improvement. This can be difficult to assess, so it requires lots of communication between the teacher and the individual students. I would assess students at the beginning and set goals for the students to achieve. If a teacher makes these goals important to the student the student will not be limited to them. The teacher and student must have a constant dialogue on what can be improved. Therefore, the teacher may make their expectations clear, without setting limitations. If teachers believe in the students and give them the opportunity for improvement, students will be validated and will want to work hard for themselves and their work will be more genuine and organic.

"Creating Musical Flexibility Through the Ensemble"

Brandt Schneider opens his article, "Creating Musical Flexibility Through the Ensemble" by stating "Bands and orchestras are often repertoire machines – churning out a fixed collection of pieces year after year." I would amend this statement to include choirs as well. This was my experience in my own music education, class time was spent learning a number of pieces and focused on performing. As I begin to think about developing my own class room, I was unsure of how I can teach students music for the concerts while still incorporating the other skills I must teach them. This article is tremendously useful providing advice on how to help students develop as all around musicians and make your ensemble more than a "repertoire machine." 

To begin Mr. Schneider assessed his ensemble and determined the four areas he would like to improve; musical discipline, technique, theory, composition. These techniques are vital to being a good musician, and can often be overlooked in the context of an ensemble. I like how Mr. Schneider recognized that repetition is a good way for students to learn, so he included listening and ear training exercises in every rehearsal. He incorporated singing solfege with playing the songs on their instruments. This helps them to hear the intervals and develop their listening skills. He also had his students work on the same songs in all 12 keys. Transposition is a very important and difficult skill, by creating a sort of game for the practice the challenge is also fun and less stressful. The "Switching Genres" game also helps to keep the practice entertaining by letting the students play with the style of the song. This game helps students understand the characteristics of other genres and how to apply it to the music. In addition, the students played each instrument part. This also helps them practice their listening ability. I also like this technique because it helps them develop an understanding of how their individual part fits in with the rest of the ensemble. It helps them appreciate what parts they should listen for and helps the overall blend of the ensemble. 

The article includes a recording from the earlier portion of Mr. Schneider's rehearsal process. The ensemble has many pitch issues. However, it is still impressive that some of the students can accomplish that with only four weeks on their instruments. Later in the year, Mr. Schneider says they went to a festival and shared this rehearsal technique with an audience and it went very well! It is very impressive that they were able to accomplish that from where they began the year!

Jazz and Folk Music

As a classically trained musician, the majority of my musical knowledge relates to classical music. However, it is important to be an expert in other genres as music educators. I believe that students should be required to learn about the great composers of the classical genre and their music. Although it is vital to learn about these composers, to only teach classical music would deprive the students of a complete music education and history. Furthermore, it may distance some students so they would not benefit from their teacher's teaching. Students should be exposed to a wide range of music so they may develop their identity as a musician and be well rounded. 

Jazz and American folk music should both be vital parts of music education in this country.  Jazz and American folk music make up a rich part of our country's history and the development of music within it. Music teachers should be well versed in these genres as well as classical. Although teachers should be experts in both folk and jazz, I believe they should begin with folk music because folk music builds a very sturdy foundation that teachers can build upon with other genres. The music is accessible and are rich with history and musical merit.

There are some songs everyone will have to sing multiple times in their lives no matter what age they are. These songs are important parts of our culture. They must be able to sing these songs well and with confidence.  As music educators, we must teach them these songs over the course of their education.

• Happy Birthday- Every musician knows what it's like to be at a birthday party, and cringe when it comes time to sing this song. Imagine if it could be sung well every time! 
• Patriotic Songs- These are an important part of heritage. Students should take pride in being able to sing these songs and appreciate the meaning behind them.
• National Anthem
• America the Beautiful
• This land is Your Land
• Amazing Grace
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star