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.