Verse & Chorus Repeat

In preparation for reteaching my lesson on Verse and Chorus song form, I made several changes:

1. I wrote explicit instructions at the top of each handout, to aid the groups in understanding their tasks.
2. I restructured the lyric sheets to be graphic organizers.
3. I gave the piano group a place to write down their ideas as they worked.
4. I added presentation slides about Verse, Chorus, and Harmony respectively to help the students better connect with the essential understanding of the lesson.
5. I kept a timer posted on the SMART board to help students manage their time effectively.
6. I stopped the groups halfway through their allotted time to check in and have them deliver one important piece of information to the other groups.

I would say that all of these things improved my lesson to some degree, although some could have been better implemented during the activity. I will reflect on each change and its effect on the lesson:

1. The instructions at the top of each page could not have hurt. I think this is a positive improvement in many ways, evidenced primarily by the fact that groups seemed to immediately understand what they were doing. (Granted, it was this group's second time doing the lesson, but there were still clarifying questions asked- simply fewer than last time) Further, this helps differentiate the lesson for students who need more explicit instructions or who benefit from having them available to refer to at any time. This also cut down on the need for me to spend valuable time clarifying the assignment, which allowed me to focus on keeping the groups moving with their own momentum, rather than pushing them to start.
2. This change could only help. All groups used it effectively and it also helped me to stay organized at the end when I sang their lyrics. Making things more visual and clear is always for the better!
3. I'm not sure that the piano group needed this per se, but I think that it did two positive things. It gave the piano group a way to organize their thoughts and resist the temptation to constantly change what they had written, and it allowed multiple student musicians to play the piece at the end without getting confused about what chords wen with each section. (An unintended consequence, I admit- but a good one!) Beyond this, both the harmony sheet and the better-organized lyrics sheets provided me with concrete student work at the end of the lesson- something that I did not have last time. This is work that I would be able to evaluate to assess each groups understanding, although it would be difficult to separate each students contribution individually. (I'll address this further at the end of the post.)
4. These slides were absolutely a positive change. I felt as though I communicated much more about my topic in this lesson as opposed to last time. Due to the time constraints of the lesson, this portion went by very quickly, and I think that in the future I would like to keep those three slides (or a summary of them, at least) posted on the board during the lesson for students to refer to. I think the information contained on them was too valuable to disappear so quickly. If students could refer to that information while writing their lyrics and harmony, I think it would help to keep them more cognizant of the essential understandings which underpin the activity.
5. I feel that the timer was positive for both the students and I. I think this is evidenced by the fact that all groups finished in the allotted time despite the fact that they were working on a significantly more difficult song than with the last lesson. It allowed me to keep them on task and stop them at clear points to ask them about what they were doing. I feel as though I could have directed the students attention to the timer better, as I don't think that all students knew that it was there.
6. I think that this went very well. The Chorus group shared the song title, and the verse group responded by making sure their lyrics led nicely to that theme. After the Verse and Chorus groups described what they were doing, I conferenced with the piano group to help them use that information to better create their part. In hindsight, I would have liked to do this part in front of the class, so all students could see how the parts were connected. It would only have taken a small amount of time and I think it would have been worthwhile.

A few final notes:

The students picked the easier of the two songs in the first lesson, so I was excited to see how the lesson worked with a more difficult song. (By difficult I really mean that it was more verbose, and had a more complicated structure and rhyme scheme) The students did a great job with it and had little trouble adapting to the new material, but I think that it strongly affected my ability to craft the final result. In future implementations of this lesson I would probably make all of the student options for songs of equal "difficulty" as to better guarantee an effective song at the end of the lesson. It is very important to me that the end of the lesson be powerful, so the lesson should be set up from the beginning to succeed in this goal.

On the same note, there was some miscommunication between D'Andre and I during the final performance of the student song. This is really my fault, because the structure of the lyrics was more complicated than the structure I asked the piano group to create. I think it may be better to perform the final song myself, so that I can adapt spontaneously to the form of the lyrics. This will help create a seamless final product.

Finally, it was mentioned to me that the next step in refining this lesson is developing reliable assessment. I think that this iteration did a better job than the last because of the handouts from each group- but individual assessment using these would be impossible. It would be helpful to develop a rubric or list of expectations that could allow me to grade each students performance as I evaluate them informally in their groups. With slightly more time, I could possibly distribute an exit slip or post-assessment on the essential understandings. (What is a chorus, what section leads to the chorus, what are some strategies to write effective verses/choruses) In this case I would probably leave the slide information (from change 4 above) on the board for students to refer to. This would solidify their reception of the lesson's objective and create a basis for future instruction and assessment on the topic.

Building an Audience

Should music educators be concerned with building an audience for their music program?

This is an incredibly important question, and I think that however one answers it philosophically, the reality prevails: the benefits of generating an audience or "fanbase" for your music program are too great to be ignored.

As arts teachers in today's world, the more support there is for our programs the better. We cannot possibly have enough support. While it is unfortunate that we must constantly look for outside support to justify our programs, there is also a benefit to this: we can generate support. Not just a little, but a lot. We can generate a thriving fan community if we work hard enough. Other disciplines have no opportunities to generate community support in this way. Sure, they are reliably funded from the district, but parents and community leaders rarely turn out to show their support of the math program, no matter how good it is. With an effective music program and marketing strategy, concerts and shows can become important community events whose value is evident. And what more could we ask for than the value of our programs being evident?

I'm sure that there are thousands of opinions on how best to generate an audience, but I am going to suggest some methods that come from my background in dealing with rock and indie bands that I think would be both unique and effective for a secondary music program.

1. Quantity. Play as often as possible. Book the maximum amount of performances. Bands need both exposure and performance practice to become community staples, and this gives them both. There will obviously be limitations for a high school group, especially if it is large- but it isn't necessarily one specific band that you need at every event. You simply need groups of students (big or small) that represent the music program.
2. Get online. And I don't mean have a website, or have a YouTube page. I mean actively cultivate the program's social media. This is how people find things these days, and you need to be easy to find. Post things the band is working on, take polls and suggestions from parents and non-music students, do social media raffles, get people following you because they want to access your page's content. Make your social media presence such that someone in California would want to follow your page simply because it's a great page to follow. Get students involved in this process, they know better than anyone what works.
3. Play music that people want to hear. Cater to your audience. Surely you should make your own artistic decisions as a group as well, but always consider what the audience wants. The more you give them what they want to hear, the more they'll come back to hear it. Also, play covers! Cover pop tunes and put them on YouTube- maybe even regularly. Nobody is on YouTube searching for the name of your band, but they are searching the name of their favorite song...
4. Entertain people. Music is entertainment, and I don't think there's any shame in playing that up. Make sure that concerts and shows are enjoyable places to go with plenty to do. Combine events with other performing groups and other disciplines entirely. Teach people how to dance to the music you play. Have people participate. Break down the wall between performers and audience. 

These are just a few ideas, but I suppose I could boil it down to one overarching concept. If one wants to generate and sustain an audience, they need to engage with that audience as much as humanly possible. Seek every way to engage with the community, parents, and other kids. Most of all, give that audience something tangible to engage with, not just a seated performance twice a year!

Creating a Love of Music

In the last year of my life I have done a great deal of thinking on the subject of music education. Topics of interest have ranged from the very purpose of education itself to the costs and benefits of different solfège syllables. But perhaps the most important discussion I've had so far was a quick one in our Secondary Methods class about defining a singular objective for one's music program. Discussion progressed around the table as we each came up with one idea that we felt was most crucial to pass on to our students. Said in other terms: if our students were to leave our program with just one thing- what would it be?

Since that conversation I have started to apply this way of thinking to all of my thoughts on education. How often in our schooling (music and otherwise) did we leave the room with a take-away that was totally different than what the teacher wanted? How much of what I remember from high-school represents teacher-planned objectives? When you multiply this sentiment across the 180 or so classes you take in a subject per year, the question is only magnified. What was the one thing my sophomore U.S. History teacher wanted me to take from her course? Did I get it? Did I leave with "the point"? Or did I leave with something entirely different? Did the teacher think and plan for this, or did I simply leave with the unplanned, culminating result of the individual classes I sat through?

Personally, as I enter the field the education, I find this concept simultaneously daunting and encouraging.

On the one hand, it means that we as teachers must be purposeful in everything we do. Too often we teach things disparately without thinking about the fact that what truly matters is what's left 10 years later when the student has forgotten the specifics.

On the other hand, it's liberating to remember that the true goal of your program can be singular, simple, and something that- with enough effort- you are sure to impart on your students.

So what is that goal for me?

I want to pass on music's power, influence, and above all- accessibility. 

I hope that my students will leave my class understanding harmony. I hope that my students will improvise effectively. I hope that my students will feel comfortable composing. But I need my students to see music as something they have the power to interact with.

So what does an ideal world look like if this is my guiding principle? I would want every student to leave my class self-identifying as a musician. I would want every student to leave with a love of music, and I would want every one of them to continue interacting with music on some level for the rest of their lives. I recognize this as idealistic, but I truly believe it to be possible in theory- particularly if supported through the entirety of a child's education.

How does one cultivate this love of music and desire to continue "musicing?" I believe by handing music over to the students.

A great teacher allows students to take ownership of what they do. A great teacher fosters an environment where students learn on their own. A great teacher serves as a model and resource for students, demonstrating what students didn't even know they were capable of.

As much as I want to share my love of music with students and transmit it to them- I have never fallen in love with something because someone asked or told me to. I have fallen in love with things I have experienced and done. I fell in love with music because I fell in love with doing it.

While watching the inspirational story of Conrad Johnson and the Kashmere Stage Band, I recognized many of the qualities that I think will help me to achieve my aforementioned objective.

"Prof" Johnson understood that handing the music to his students was necessary to foster the love and lasting power of his music program. He worked tirelessly to bring their music into the curriculum and give them ownership of the music they played. He showed them that they could achieve excellence- and he carried that concept as far as he possibly could. He mentions in the documentary that he wanted to show his students that they could play just as well as any professional musicians- and he really did show them that.

This is what I want for my music program- to show my students that they have control, and they can interact with music on a real level. I want, as so clearly modeled by Johnson, to break down the barrier between "school music" and "music." That's a barrier that I don't think should exist.

One of my favorite parts of watching Johnson in Thunder Soul was that he never sacrificed the integrity of his music program. If they were going to play funk and soul, they were going to play it with the highest possible standards. The mere fact that he wrote charts to incorporate those elements into existing traditions shows his dedication to the craft and willingness to let the students lead while still educating them to the highest possible degree.

There isn't any reason that a high school band teacher couldn't do exactly the same thing today- and while I don't plan on being a band director I hope to use the same principles to inspire my students and hand music over to them. I can't wait to see what they do with it.

Verse/Chorus/Lesson/Reflection

My experience teaching a ten-minute demo lesson on verse/chorus song form was hectic, but a lot of fun.

While I understood that the underlying process of the activity (assigning rewritten pop lyrics to a new melody and chords to create a new song) worked very well, I honestly had no idea if it as possible to do it in the time allotted. I'm extremely excited that it worked as well as it did, though I suspect it would be difficult to pull off in 10 minutes with 8th graders.

Before analyzing my lesson I should note that this activity did not come directly from my brain. There is a book I've had for years that I consider indispensable to anyone who has any interest in song writing- and you'll have to please excuse it's corny/flashy cover and cheesy title. You know what they say about books and covers...

Click the picture to see it on Amazon!

This was a book I've treasured for a while, and I only recently came back to it looking through a teaching lens- and I would honestly recommend it highly for anyone who thinks they might ever teach songwriting at all. The book contains all sorts of activities to prompt the reader to write songs more effectively (or at all...) and almost all of them can be easily adapted as activities for a general music class.

Ok, that being said on to the reflection:

What I think went well

• The students of my lesson were, more or less, engaged for the entire 10 minutes. This was my number one goal going in to the lesson and I think (though I would love to hear from the other side of the glass if I'm wrong...) that I achieved it.
• I think that everyone left the lesson with the main objective. It might be all they left with...but I think everyone could repeat back at the end that you can write a song any way you want so long as it has structure.
• I think that, for the time period allotted, I balanced student autonomy and teacher choice relatively well. I thought a lot about which decisions should be pre-determined and which not and I had to compromise on many such as the song choice (giving only two options instead of more) and deciding to pick the topic for everyone rather than brainstorming a list of topics. Ideally with more time I would have even more student autonomy, but hopefully everyone still felt as though they were in some control of the lesson from the beginning.
• I think the lesson culminated in a "moment." I don't exactly know if I can pinpoint the value of that (or if it even has true value at all) but I think there is something special about seeing disparate parts come together to form something at least menially interesting- especially if the students feel as though they directly contributed. This is one of the things that I thought was so powerful about Wesley's lesson on Bach, and I hope I attained some form of the "climactic ending" with mine.

What I think could improve

• Clearer, more scripted directions. I think that both lyric groups started out with a lot of questions as to what I wanted them to do. They certainly picked it up really quickly, but I think I could have done a better job explaining what they were going to see on their papers and what I wanted them to do before they got them.
• I think that time (because it is at such a premium in the lesson) should be posted the whole time. A simple countdown timer on the smartboard could have let groups better manage their time and understand the expectations.
• I want to give the piano group better direction that allows them to have a more concrete influence on the final product. In the time that it took the lyric groups to do their task, the piano group had enough time to tinker and rewrite their chord progression several times, and all of that could have been time spent creating rhythms, groove, or melody if I had better outlined their ability to do so.
• The premise of my lesson was "Verse Chorus Song Form" and I think that I could be slightly more ambitious with the objective. I definitely boiled the lesson down to my one main objective on purpose, because I think that in ten minutes it's fine if that's all you learn- but there is probably some room to introduce what the form is and how the verse leads into the chorus. Along these same lines I could explicitly tell the piano group to write an A and a B section (something they did anyway but I did not plan on until they finished early).

What I'm not sure about

• I hope that everyone felt like they contributed in some tangible way to the final product. If not, at least hope that everyone felt as though they could repeat the process themselves if given the time. Part of my goal was to show everyone how easy it can be to start the creative process of songwriting/composition- and I think most people probably left the lesson feeling like they could easily do what we did as a class if given the chance. I would love to hear anybody's thoughts on this.

In closing, I honestly I more look forward to hearing what you guys have to say, I would love to hear your ideas on a lesson like this, especially since you were the ones who sat through it! Please don't hold back thoughts and comments!

Lastly, this feels like an appropriate place to share a YouTube channel that is a great resource for songwriting stuff- below is a video series called Door To Door from the channel where the host (Judy Stakee) interviews famous songwriters. Definitely worth checking out!

Should band programs have to fundraise?

This is a complicated question, but for the sake of argument I'm going to provide a simple answer: Yes.

Honestly I think that it is necessary to look at the larger scope of this issue. In any society, we have to decide how to allocate our resources. We get taxed and we spend our tax money on a LOT of different things. One of them is public education which, hopefully, we keep as well-funded as it possibly needs to be.

But how well-funded does it need to be?

To answer that question we need to ask about the purpose of public education in general. What is its responsibility to our children? What must they learn there? Why are we sending them there in the first place? Theoretically, if we could answer these questions definitively, we could arrive at a core group of things that should exist in public education- each of them funded to the maximum amount possible as to make schools as effective as they can be.

I don't think that this post is the proper venue to try and answer these questions in detail. But when I do think about these things, I am often conflicted as to how a BOCJ program fits into the model I create.

I feel strongly as though I could stand up and defend music education in general. I feel that intuitive, valid, research-based arguments can be made to defend music's place in public education. But these arguments are harder to make the farther you get from "music" in general. For example, it is much harder to defend the necessity of football than it is to defend the necessity of physical education. An analogy could be made to any specific iteration of a field.

So I end up saying that music should be funded. Schools should have music programs. But a BOCJ program that only affects 30% of the students? A program that due to its inherent structure has limitations on the amount and types of skills and content that can be taught to its members? A program like this should be funded like any other group that fits those descriptions- as an extra-curricular aided by fundraising. Parents and students should be able to petition and demand a band program just as they would anything else, and in an ideal world schools should have discretionary budgets that help to meet those programs halfway, but funding any extra-curricular/special area fully from the start is to say that the money can't be spent in a better way- and I simply have a hard time believing that.

Technology in Music vs. Music Technology

How has technology changed music education?

When first posed with this question I feared getting carried away with my answer. I have endless thoughts and feelings on technology, both from my personal tastes as a tech user and my professional career, which has dealt exclusively with music technology. Thus I figured that it would be important to make a clear distinction between two types of innovations:

• Technology that has changed music education
• Technology that has changed music

While I may share some thoughts about the latter category at the end of this post, I believe the above question has more to do with the former. Certain advances in technology- mostly during my lifetime- have created five major changes in music education that I can see. They are:

1. Vastly increased access to music
2. Vastly increased access to experts
3. The ability to easily perform student music
4. The ability to play back student performances
5. A confusion over where and how new technologies should be implemented in the music classroom

1. Access to music has never been greater or easier. I believe this to be the primary influence of technology on the music classroom. In less than an instant I can call upon almost any piece of recorded music. Published songs, live performances, lyrics, and even simple transcriptions are available with the click of a button. This has enormous implications in the classroom. The kids want to learn a song that they know? The teacher can pull it up. The students aren't understanding how a certain passage should be performed? The teacher can instantly show them how the New York Philharmonic did it. The teacher wants to play numerous examples of Dorian tonality? No rummaging through CDs, no asking around, and no wasting class time- just the simple creation of a Spotify playlist. Lastly, if the teacher wants to assign the students listening for homework? I don't honestly know how this would have been done 25 years ago- it was probably impossible- but now the teacher can simply post links to the class web page. This advent of music ubiquity is every music teacher's dream, not only because it aids their ability to teach, but because it gives their students an effortless way to interact with music in their daily lives. I know that some lament the age of digital music- but I am not one of them. It has allowed me and everyone I know to listen to literally hundreds of times the amount of music I would have heard otherwise.

Here is a link to wonderful keynote address given by prolific engineer and producer Steve Albini that deals with some of the positive implications of easy music access on the actual music industry:

http://gu.com/p/43bhd/stw

2. My example above of the New York Philharmonic is exactly what I mean by increased access to experts. As part of a teacher's job to best facilitate the learning and growth of their students, they can now call upon the world's greatest possible examples of the techniques, styles, skills, and content the are teaching. This is invaluable. Students require modeling. If a teacher can not appropriately model something, then they must call upon someone who can. Years ago this meant reaching out to the community or other regional experts and trying to coordinate visits to the classroom. While this is still a great idea and should be done- it is not the only way to give students a great model. YouTube alone is a music teacher's personal repository of musical performances and techniques. It can be used to instantly show students how a piece should sound, how certain instruments should sound, how vocal groups blend, or even how notable composers, writers, and producers do their jobs. As an example in my field, I'm certainly capable of explaining to students in a music tech class how to start a mix- but why wouldn't I let that information come from someone who has won eight Grammys and mixed over forty #1 albums?

3. When I was in music theory in high school- we arranged our favorite songs and themes for the marching band. Then they played them that season. Was this possible or realistic in high school before music notation software? I would venture to say that it wasn't. For each of us to perform that task we merely arranged the music in Sibelius, hit print, and handed the parts to the band. The same process without computers would have required a massive amount of editing, proofreading, and hand-copying of parts. With today's technology you can finish writing a piece of music and have it in the hands of a concert band the same day. This allows students to realistically hear their compositions and play a role that they may never have been able to play otherwise. Even in small ensembles, this increased efficiency makes it possible to cover more material than ever before.

4. Since this capability has existed for quite some time, I almost did not include it, but the vastly increased ease with which it can now be implemented makes it worthy of mention. In an instant a band director can record and play back a band's entire performance. He or she can post those performances online for critique and further listening/reflection, and create teachable moments that would be impossible without instant playback. Any musician who has come to master their craft knows the value of recording their playing. It is humbling, it strengthens your ability, and it allows you to perceive errors that could never be perceived while playing the music. These same effects apply to all music students. Further, it allows a teacher to track the progress of a student, and document the learning that happens in the classroom. I know that people have all sorts of varying opinions about this issue, but when taken by itself- apart from extrinsic forces- it is certainly a good thing.

5. Finally, I think there is one major negative impact of technology in the music classroom. We live in an age where we associate technology with progress. Therefore, I think that there is a tendency to shoehorn technology into situations that don't necessarily improve the quality of education. While technology can incite student interest to a certain point, I think that it's applications in this area are limited. In many classrooms, technology is used for tasks that could just as easily be accomplished without the technology. iPads, in particular, can be deceiving. It is crucially important that we ask ourselves how the use of technology promotes more meaningful learning in each instance. Technology should never be used for technology's sake, unless the use of that technology is the actual learning goal of the activity. In that case, the teacher is intentionally prioritizing a technological goal over a content area goal. This is ok, naturally, so long as it is not the norm. Below is a fantastic video that I can't recommend enough. It comes from Veritaseum about the role of technology in education and how learning works:

Now, after making that last point I think it's important to talk about music technology itself. As I said in the beginning, I think that this is an entirely different category. The fact is that technology, while perhaps only affecting music education in the above ways, has completely changed music itself. We now write music differently, record music differently, perform music differently, and even have entire, dominating branches of music that did not exist prior to the 1980's (i.e. music that is created from pre-exisiting recordings.) To ignore these technologies would be outright irresponsible in a comprehensive music curriculum.

In many ways, I think that music education has to catch up with how we actually make music in this century. I have been in classroom after classroom full of 3rd graders writing notes down on a staff and creating "compositions" to be played by the teacher. Students continue to do this through high school (some are even exposed to it for the first time in middle or high school...) even though NO ONE composes like this anymore. I compose, for a living, every single day of my life. I am representative of the largest group of working music composers- that is, individuals who write music for visual media and other non-print content. After a quick survey of everyone I know in this field, I can say definitively that none of us have ever put a pencil to a piece of paper and drawn a note while writing music for our job. When Hans Zimmer writes a score today- the process is COMPLETELY different than just 35 years ago when John Williams wrote the score to Star Wars. The two videos below illustrate this, but they're also just amazing to watch regardless!

This isn't to say that I don't think the essentials are necessary. We should teach students how to write notes- but shouldn't we also be teaching them how music is actually made today? Shouldn't we be prioritizing the skills that they would actually use if they pursued music? Let's show them how to take an empty multitrack session and turn it into a piece of music. Let's teach them how to think about the mix while they are writing. Zimmer, above, states "I write music in 5.1." That is a powerful statement! It could be made by anyone who writes music today. Technology in music is an integral part of the process and it must be taught as such.

Finally- here is a blog that seems truly useful about technology in the music classroom. The recommendations seem to be practical and focused on bettering the student's learning experiences!

https://techinmusiced.wordpress.com/

Rubrics

Reading Alfie Kohn's article on rubrics was extremely thought provoking. Before responding, I would address my one criticism, which is that he doesn't devote any time to suggesting a replacement or solution. While it can be frustrating not to have the information at hand, a brief search of his other articles finds several answers to this question, summarized by the following except from this article about grades:

Replacing letter and number grades with narrative assessments or conferences — qualitative summaries of student progress offered in writing or as part of a conversation — is not a utopian fantasy.  It has already been done successfully in many elementary and middle schools and even in some high schools, both public and private (Kohn, 1999c). 

With that settled, I agree with a lot of what Kohn says- but I think the title and framework of the article are misleading. Doing a bit more digging, Kohn is very clearly opposed to grading in general. Attacking the rubric can sometimes be confusing because he is not revealing his larger goal. For instance, during the first part of the article I found myself asking, "doesn't this only apply to standardized rubrics? Does any of this make sense with a teacher-designed rubric?" When he finally addresses the point, it becomes a little clearer that the problem is not rubrics, but rather the systematic grouping of students in general.Viewed through this lens, the article makes perfect sense:

• Grades are bad. 
• Rubrics serve to encourage and legitimate grades. 
• Rubrics are bad.

One of the major problems is whether or not a teacher can do anything about it. I agree in a broad, philosophical sense that the institutionalization of grading should not be a barrier to reform. But isn't it? While justification to parents and efficiency may be lousy reasons to use rubrics, can a teacher in today's high-stakes environment risk doing otherwise? On a more practical level, can a music teacher who sees hundreds of students truly provide a meaningful narrative assessment of each individual?

The answer may be yes. It would certainly be a better way of communicating a student's progress in the arts. In fact, music classes are a perfect place to see how grades make things more difficult. A high school BOCJ teacher must develop a grading system that judges all students on the same criteria. But should all students be judged using the same criteria? How do you simultaneously push the top performers in an ensemble, making the accountable for growth, but also encourage the beginners to improve and try as hard as possible? Will a rubric allow you to qualitatively assess a student's ability? What if there are three students, one with perfect chops who can't improvise a note, one who just started trombone last week but can follow the harmonic changes effortlessly, and one who can't seem to play a note in time during rehearsal but has successfully written and arranged pieces for the entire band? Do these three students receive a similar low grade, hitting parts of a rubric but not others? If these students are judged/ranked based on their strengths, will they ever understand the importance of developing their weaknesses? If you judge on effort, will they ever leave their comfort zones?

That was a ton of questions. And I don't have a single answer. I tend to agree with Kohn that conferences and narrative assessments would solve most of these problems. In teacher evaluation, we currently have teachers set goals and then judge their effectiveness by their ability to meet those goals. My feelings about the practicality and effectiveness of this with teachers are another story altogether, but if the profession has decided this is good enough for teachers, why wouldn't it be good enough for students? Why couldn't students conference with their music teachers to set goals and discover their strengths and weaknesses? Why couldn't music class become each individual student's arena to become the best, most well-rounded musician possible? Time may be a constraint, but it also may not be. After all, a great BOCJ teacher knows these things about their students anyway. How many class periods of the entire ensemble setting goals while the teacher conferenced would it take to hit every member of the band? And what a great opportunity this would be to learn about your student's goals! 

From there, assessment could be a simple, honest conversation with a student about what the teacher sees, what could be improved, what worked well in meeting the goals, what didn't, and what techniques they will focus on moving forward to continue progressing.

I'll admit that it puzzles me how one deals with a student who does not put forth any effort in this system. Assuming there are no grades, he or she will simply wind up with a portfolio of narrative assessments that say there has been little progress and little effort. This would function similarly to administration (or colleges) as a grade, but how does one make sure that student learns something? How do you make sure this doesn't happen? Is it any less preventable than a student who gets F's? Do F's provide more or less motivation to students? Does the motivation even matter if alternative assessment is deemed better for the majority, who aren't failing? What does everybody think?

Pictured: Failing.

American Songs & Jazz

Should music educators be experts on jazz and American folk music?

In an effort to start discussion and truly examine my thoughts on the issue- I think I'm going to say no.

I suppose the best way to answer this question in detail is to step back and ask myself, "what should a music educator be an expert in?" It is quite easy to start answering "yes, of course" when asked about specific things, like the aforementioned jazz or folk music. Before long, this generates an exhaustive list that could never be accomplished.

A music educator should be an expert in music. That is, how music works. Functional harmony and rhythm, voicing and voice leading, arranging, improvisation. These are the elements that create music. These are the things that must be taught to music students. In the same way that an english teacher must be an expert in grammar, a music teacher must know these things. His or her job is impossible otherwise.

Moving on from there, there are honestly few other things that I consider an absolute necessity in order to teach music. I believe that music educators should have a solid understanding of the history, culture, and evolution of music- but I don't think they MUST be experts in any one particular area.

It is impossible for me to answer this question without talking about the idea of music history in general. When I hear the words "expert in jazz" I take it to mean an expert in the history and culture of the music, in addition to its musical elements. It is almost always assumed that a music teacher will teach the history and culture of music to his or her students- and many music classes deal almost exclusively in this material. (Think 7th grade Music Appreciation) But is this a good use of time? Aren't we putting the cart before the horse?

How much time is dedicated in math, from Kindergarten to 12th grade, on studying famous mathematicians? On studying the political sphere that surrounded their important discoveries and contributions? Certainly some time, and you probably learned a thing or two about Pythagoras at some point...but compare it to the amount of time spent studying composers and history in music class. Lesson after lesson, all to children who are not yet musicians. For a more apropos analogy, think of english and language arts. When you first learned about classic literature, and were first introduced to author study- how long had you been speaking? How long after you spoke english fluently did you start to study famous examples of the language? Even using the most conservative estimates, I'm willing to guess years.

Pictured: Mathematician, Cult Leader

Why do we do this? Is it because we don't truly believe that we can achieve the goal of making everyone a musician? Is that why we stop early and throw music potpourri in to elementary curriculums?

I say all of this to respond to the original question. Should music educators be experts in jazz, or American folk, or classical, or blues, or rock, any of the myriad of cultural musics around the world, or anything else? Maybe. Maybe not. What matters isn't how much they can tell the kids about any one style of music- its whether or not they can teach the kids music as a whole. It's whether or not they can make those kids musicians. We can argue until the end of time about whether or not to include romantic literature in the high school english curriculum- but we can all agree that every high school graduate should know how to speak, read, and write. And until every kid graduates high school able to play, write, and read music- I think that these discussions are a moot point.

What American songs should every student know?

This is an extremely difficult question to answer, because I could make a long list- but it doesn't mean that I think teachers should be working outside of core music instructional time to teach them. Basically, as stated above, I think that music teachers need to teach musical skills and content first. A great music teacher will do this through a healthy repertoire of classic, current, and culturally significant music. If you can't effectively use a particular song to communicate or practice musical skills or content, then it probably shouldn't be used. If you can, then you should use it!

That said- I don't want to completely dodge the question. I believe that teaching folk songs and patriotic songs that have a place in our country's history is important. There are many, many songs in this category, and I don't know how important one particular song is over another. If we think about our larger goals and aims as music educators, we strive for a world where people are musically literate and can share, play, and create music with one another throughout their lives. If this is the end goal, and we work toward it, I don't think we have to worry about whether or not we taught "America The Beautiful" to our classes. It will be far more important that they have the facility to learn it later from someone who knows it, and pass it on to others.

Trumpet Lesson Reflection

There are many things I noticed during the first five minutes of this lesson. First, it was very difficult to approach a student about playing an instrument that I have no mastery of. I believe that teacher modeling, especially in music, is the single most important dynamic in a classroom- and it was very difficult for me to talk to a student and get them interesting in playing an instrument without being able to model it. I had planned to spend the first five minutes talking about the student's musical preferences as a gateway to learning about music in general, and I was surprised by the "student's" responses that they didn't really listen to music and didn't really care too much whether they learned the instrument or not. That said, I think these are relatively realistic responses rom a 6th grader who is self-conscious and not entirely committed to the process to begin with.

I think that I would have focused even more time and attention than I had planned in the lesson toward starting that conversation about music with the student and helping them to open up. Developing a personal connection to music is more important than anything I can teach the student about their instrument, because it is what will inspire and motivate them to practice and work outside of the lessons.

Looking back I also agree with Mr. Schneider that the beginning of lessons like this in a larger context (music class, band, etc.) would need to be dedicated toward establishing routines- especially once the instruments come out of their cases.

When I look back on my first guitar lessons as a kid- I know that one of the most important things my teacher did was get me playing something I recognized and liked right away- in the first lesson. Hearing myself play something that quickly was a huge motivator for me moving forward. I don't know how well this translates to other instruments, particularly because they require more physical technique to make sound- but I would certainly be looking as hard as I could for the equivalent material so that a student could be impressed with him or herself as soon as possible. It's very hard for a kid to feel truly proud that they held the instrument correctly or followed a procedure like a pro- so I think the first lesson needs to include something they can run home and tell their family and friends about- I just don't know what it is necessarily (with band instruments). What does everyone think?

What Makes a Good Musician?

After reading Brandt Schneider's article "Creating Musical Flexibility Through the Ensemble" I have a flurry of ideas and questions about whether or not it is truly possible to foster individual musicianship in a performing ensemble. Mr. Schneider claims boldly that the answer is yes, and after reading his proposal I am inclined to agree- but only after a great many conditions are met.

The premise of Mr. Schneider's argument is that we can use the performing ensemble to increase our student's individual musicianship. This is an idea that I find enormously appealing for two reasons. First, increasing musicianship is (or at least should be, in my opinion) the absolute primary goal of music education. I could go on and on about the secondary goals of music education, because the list is infinite. Music helps us lead better lives in a myriad of ways and we all know it. But the primary goal should, of course, be to develop our student's musicianship. This is how they receive the vast benefits of those unmentioned secondary goals. Second, the large performing ensemble is lying at the core of almost every music program in America. Therefore, without complete institutional overall, these two concepts (developing musicianship and the performing ensemble) must be married or we can hardly claim that our field is valid.

Mr. Schneider outlines many of the qualities he believes his students should possess as musicians. I think that he tends to work backwards in his reasoning- listing a few things that a great musician can do (change keys, change genres, play the melody, etc.) without providing a full examination of why great musicians can do these things at the drop of a hat. I think that while Mr. Schneider's method will undoubtably increase his students musicianship, I wonder if the answer doesn't lie deeper than practicing those skills. Sure, student's must be able to play in all of the keys and to "play by ear" but I think that these skills come easily after laying the proper foundation. Great musicians- that is, truly great musicians, understand music. They hear functional harmony in everything- and comprehend the relationships that they hear. A true musician hears music like an average person hears another person speak- as distinct parts (words, sentences) arranged in a structure so as to make a complete thought. The larger that one's english vocabulary is, and the more they hold conversations and read and think, the more they understand others when they hear or read what they have said. Likewise, a comprehensive harmonic vocabulary and constant practice using it are pre-requisites for students to begin to understand music. With the right skills in this area (what Dr. Gordon would call audiation), there's no reason why every student in a music program shouldn't be able to do this:

With detailed knowledge of harmonic function and the ability to hear it- students could not only arrange medleys like this- but they could perform them on the spot! With or without instruments.

To be more concise- I would be less interested in students playing songs in all 12 keys, and more interested in how or why they can play the songs in all 12 keys. Do they know the harmonic language of the tune? Can they definitively recognize tonic and dominant and other functions? Can they reproduce those sounds? Mr. Schneider touches on this in the article, and I completely agree with his notion that band class should be theory class. How ridiculous that theory is separated like it's something different!

That said, you can't have a theory class with 80 kids in it. Truly dedicating the time and effort required to teach these essential music skills takes smaller classes that are not performance based (though there would certainly be a performance component.) Mr. Schenider mentions the National Standards and my first thought is how odd it is that we have band directors all across the country trying to invent ways to incorporate these standards into the existing system. Why aren't we changing the system? Couldn't we come up with a music class that promised to teach every one of the standards to its full capacity? One that doesn't look like this:

Standards

PERFORMING

Composing

Improvising

Singing

I think that Mr. Schneider's method is a truly admirable effort to teach these skills in an existing band setting. Like I said earlier, we have to start integrating these skills however we can in the current system. But I can't help but wonder what we could do if we were able to teach music like any other subject.

Who Am I?

"you don't know 'bout me, but I'll bet you want to" 

-Taylor Swift, 22

Glamour Shot!

My name is Kyle Ryan, and I am a musician. I have not been a musician since I was young, although I'm told that I loved to listen to Yanni when I was little. I started playing music in 8th grade when I realized that I wanted to be Tom Delonge from Blink 182. After begging my parents they bought me a guitar and I went promptly on my way to learning the Blink 182 catalogue. High School became a blur of ska bands and shows in rented local halls, with a two year stint in the Jazz Band. I suppose my first realization that music could be a deeper experience was in Music Theory in High School- I had a truly inspirational teacher that really set me on my course as a musician. Theory class fueled my desire to constantly create my own material- and I have been doing so ever since, probably to the point of neglecting to learn things I should have by other people. After playing guitar for 5 years, I was continually a disappointment at parties since my repertoire contained mostly my own material- and none of it was very good.

My theory teacher in High School was one of the first people to suggest that pursuing music would be a valid option in my life. Boonshaft talks about many of my teacher's qualities in his chapter "The Flames of Growth." In it, Boonshaft quotes Roger Lewin, saying "too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." My High School music teacher gave me nothing but problems to solve. He pushed me to learn the inner workings of music, to apply them practically, and to elevate my playing. When he came to me to ask if I would play in the Jazz Band and I explained that I knew nothing about jazz- he handed me recordings and music and told me that I could do it, and made himself available anytime I needed help. This was a major struggle for me but it wound up a formative learning experience.

On his recommendation, I applied to Berklee College of Music where I went and majored in Production and Engineering. At Berklee I was met with more "problems to solve" than I ever could have imagined- and while the instruction was wonderful, it was truly a culture of figuring it out on your own. Professors seemed more like facilitators- and this is a quality that I hope to bring with me to the classroom. Boonshaft mentions this in the book while talking about "Motidisparation." Teachers must gradually wean students from extrinsic motivation so that they become intrinsically motivated to learn. My whole life I have been intrinsically motivated to learn, and my main goal as a teacher will be to teach kids how to learn themselves. Boonshaft reminds us of Yeats who said "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

There are three things that I am truly passionate about in music. (Let's be real, there's probably way more than three, but for your sake reading...)

(1) 

All music matters. Every style, every genre, every artist. My years spent as a recording engineer after school taught me a skill that I cherish- which is to find and latch on to the qualities of any particular song or piece that you love. I don't care if you are listening to Norwegian Death Metal and you grew up listening to nothing but folk- find the thing that is awesome about that song, and focus in on it. Learn to appreciate it within its context. All music is great- and I honestly feel that one of our jobs as musicians is to figure out why.

Side note: I LOVE pop music. I'm passionate about it. I will defend it to my death. I think that all musicians (myself included) go through a lengthy snob phase while mastering their instruments in which they tend to devalue some music as compared to other music, and I think that true musicianship comes at the other side of that phase- upon the realization that there is merit and craft to everything.

(2) 

I believe that there are countless ways to interact with music. I believe that it is one of our primary jobs as music educators to expose students to the various ways that they can personally interact with music- and match kids to paths that interest them. I think that there tends to be a focus in music education on an incredible narrow range of musical options, and I would love to do my part to change this. I work now writing background instrumental music for a music publisher that licensees to TV. As a result my music has been all over the place, on anything from So You Think You Can Dance, to Pawn Stars, to the Steve Harvey Show. Here's a clip of some of my more "sensual" music setting the mood for Honey Boo Boo:

(The clip should start at 8:40 automatically, but if it doesn't that's where the cue is until about 9:06)

Every day writing and recording this music I use an incredibly wide range of musical skills that I learned in school, and I want students to know that options like this are available to them. Students need to see that you can be an engineer, a composer, a producer, a player, an arranger, a DJ, a manager, an educator, or a combination of all of them!

I think that the actual music industry is notably absent from much of music education. Just as the tech and science industries should inform our STEM instruction, the music industry should play an integral role in what we teach our kids in music class. I'm certainly not saying that they end goal of music education should be job placement, simply that we need to give kids a fighting chance to continue interacting with music on a tangible level after they leave our classrooms. We're missing a lot of the student population. Something is wrong when a high school kid who is not involved in school music can go home and produce platinum selling records on his laptop:

I'm not saying I have all of the answers, but there is a disconnect here, right?

(3) 

This brings me to my final belief- absolutely every student can be a musician. I know this sounds simple, and it may even be obvious to those of us already in this field, but not everyone out there believes that musicianship is attainable by everyone. The myths that surround talent and creativity are roadblocks for many people. I think that the ultimate goal of music education, macroscopically, should be to make every single kid a musician. Every kid should play music in high school, because every kid should be a musician by then. And if kids can't play music by high school? There's four whole years to learn. If you find the part of music that a student can relate to and make personal connections with- you can inspire them to pursue music forever. It doesn't matter whether that thing is Shostakovitch's 5th or a YouTube clip of Drake. Our student's diversity is vast, but luckily so is music.