Week 7: Laughter and Music Lower Blood Pressure?

I have heard and been witness to the amazing healing power of music, but anecdotal evidence only carries so much weight. Click here to read about a study that suggests that laughter and music can lower blood pressure.

Week 7: Some usable research on music education

A new article to this blog references a study that shows that music lessons earlier in life aid in memory later in life. The link to the actual study appears to be dead, but I did a little searching and found more information here. I would rather we as music educators made the argument that music is important for musical reasons, but this kind of stuff always helps!

Week 6: Review of new music technology

If you are anything like me, you like to stick with what you know as much as you can. Why take on something new when what you are doing is working just fine? On the other hand, sometimes there are simply better ways. The new software reviewed in the blog below may be just one of those "better ways."

Amazing New Music Education and Technology Software Now in Beta

Week 6: Thougths on Arts Advocacy

Here are a series of short videos from a panel discussion on the importance of advocacy from the arts that came across my reader this week. I hear a lot of teachers who comment about wanting to "stay out of the politics," but I strongly believe that if politics can impact us, I want to do everything I can to impact politics, and these videos discuss some things that can be done to advocate for the arts in the political arena.

Week 5: Introducing students to instruments

If you introduce young students to the instruments of the orchestra, you might find these printable resources handy. They include information about how each instrument is made, how it produces sound and so on.

Meet the Orchestra Printable Pages

Week 5: Education Reform

This is an interesting take on education reform efforts that has a special emphasis on their impact on the arts. It comes with a fascinating animation. Enjoy!

Everyone's Reforming Education...or NOT!

Week 4: MuseScore and Open-Source Goldberg Variations

I ran across this post about a project using MuseScore to create an open source version of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Interesting and timely!

Week 4: Help with budget and program cuts

This is a good to-the-point description of steps to take when a program or budget cut to a music program is announced. It was posted to the new MENC Advocacy Groundswell website.

Crisis Intervention 101

Week 3: Practice

Here are two nice blog entries about practice that are worth sharing with students in my opinion.

Teaching Students How To Practice

Three Things to Stop Doing During Your Practice
This second one is specific to guitar, but is applicable and easily adaptable to any instrument.

Week 3: Concert etiquette and one other thing

If you've ever had a concert where the adults in the audience were the worst thing happening, watch the video below to hear a short epistle on our responsibility to address concert etiquette as music educators by Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser. I don't think there's anything here that is earth shattering, but some of the things he says gave me a few "conversation-starter" ideas. I even thought of showing a clip of this at the beginning of my next concert.



When I went to look at the Dr. Tim video, the video below caught my eye in the sidebar. It's not related to concert etiquette, but the title, "Remind me again why music shouldn't be in public schools," says it all. Enjoy!

Week 3: Bicycle Built for Two

I found Noteflight to be user friendly and familiar for someone who is used to using other notation programs. Educationally, being able to save, edit, and comment on scores online opens a number of collaborative possibilities that may not be as easy with other notation programs. The "Pieces of Eight" assignment is a collaborative composition that is contributed to by the members of the class, and similar projects could be done in many class settings. Additionally, the commenting feature allows for feedback from teachers, peers, or other outside contributors depending on the settings. Noteflight seems like another excellent tool that could be utilized in a music classroom.

Week 2: A must-read for every music educator

If you have not seen this before, check out Karl Paulnack's welcome address to the parents of incoming students of the Boston Conservatory from a few years back. It is just wonderful. I have the privilege of meeting Mr. Paulnack this summer, and I can't wait!

Karl Paulnack - Welcome Address

Week 2: Cool website for online music games

This is a pretty neat website of ear training games.

http://trainer.thetamusic.com/en

Week 2: We're talking about...practice?!?!

If you've ever struggled with coming up with a method that really encourages students to practice, or if you've ever encountered an Allen Iverson-like reaction when imploring a student to practice, this blog post and the embedded links are for you.


http://musicmattersblog.com/2011/03/14/monday-mailbag-practice-incentives-2/

Week 1: A Letter to Santa from a Music Educator

Loved this letter when I first read it back in December. Enjoy!

Dear Santa

Week 1: Defining "Great Teachers"

There's so much in the news today about quantifying effective teaching by how students do on a standardized test. For those of us who actually teach, we know that little of that makes sense. If you're a teacher, and you just want to read something that talks about the real things that make great teachers great, check out the link below.

Being Inspired By Great Teachers

Week 1: Music to my ears

I think every music educator has probably struggled with how to convince kids to stick with music. As a middle school band director, I am still trying to figure out how to get my 14-year-old students to agree that they should want to give up three weeks of their summer, every Friday and Saturday of the Fall, and two nights a week just so they can keep playing an instrument in high school. Help me out if you have any brilliant ideas on that one! I also teach orchestra, and 80-90% of those students continue in high school, but enough about me. The blog entry below is a beautiful expression of the importance of music in student's lives, and something I hope every music educator can communicate as eloquently!

Whatever Happened to Liberal Arts, or Why Do We Pressure Kids to Specialize So Early?

My Intro

Greetings all! My first-ever blog post...

I live in Evansville, Indiana with my wife and three children: Drew (5), Sophia (2), and Bradley (1). I teach 6-8 grade band and orchestra and have been at my current position for 8 years. I also direct the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation's Middle School honors band. We just finished our season a couple of weeks ago with a successful tour and concert. I'm looking forward to this course. I have done my best to keep up with the technological advances (we have a few podcasts and a Facebook page for our instrumental music program), but it's mostly self-taught, so I'm excited to get some actual instruction on how to make all of this stuff really work.