Music, Teaching, Learning, and Life

Entries from March 2009

Using Movement Rounds to Teach Audiation Skills

March 24, 2009 · 1 Comment

Rounds were one of my favorite singing activities as a child.  My family often sang in the car during day trips to see relatives.  We sang solos, duets, performed four-part harmony, and sang rounds.  I’m certain having those early, frequent experiences as a child contributed to my overall musical development.  I don’t know how common that kind of experience is today.  With the ability to pop in a DVD on a road trip, I doubt most families sing quite as often.  I certainly haven’t with my own daughters!

During my Orff Level I class last summer, rounds were often a part of the lessons presented.  Often, movement was incorporated into the teaching process.  I’ve seen movement rounds in teaching materials before, but I always thought their only purpose was to teach how rounds work.  I didn’t realize they could be used to help students develop audiation skills until the Orff class.  Honestly, I’m not sure I was aware of the whole idea of audiation as a necessary skill to teach elementary students either! I forgot about the concept of movement rounds to teach audiation until just last week when I taught the 3rd graders at my school a round from the Silver Burdett series.

One of the lessons includes a movement round.  In the past, I’ve used that particular activity only briefly (and alone) to demonstrate the form of rounds.  However, after experiencing movement rounds in my Orff class last summer, I made up my own movements to another song in the book.  As I taught the movement round to the students, I tried to emphasize to the students how important it was to hear the music in their minds while performing the movements.  We also used movement in a final performance of the round while singing was gradually phased out.  The first few times we performed the movements without any singing, it was obvious the students weren’t audiating.  However, the last few times, they were able to keep the beat going and performed the movements with the correct phrasing as I continued to audiate in my mind.  I admit, I helped by nodding my head to the beat.  In spite of that, I was excited to see they were able to succeed with the activity after only a few minutes.  They also sang the round more accurately afterwards!

I’m looking forward to going back to school tomorrow.  I’ll have another opportunity to improve teaching in this “new” way!

Categories: Audiation/Listening · Singing · Teaching Methods

31 Day Challenge

March 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I just signed up for Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to a Better Blog challenge.  I start on April 1.  I wasn’t certain I wanted to make the committment, but I decided it would be worth it to have the daily reminders and tips through e-mail.   I’m looking forward to learning more about blogging.

Categories: Uncategorized

What is the Future of the Arts and Education?

March 22, 2009 · 4 Comments

In past weeks and months, news of the economy, job losses, and cuts in the arts and education funding have caused me to think often about the future of young people and our society.  What is the future of arts education?  My hope is that it will continue to grow, but recent news has me wondering.

I often think about the number of talented people I’ve been fortunate to meet during my life, and then I consider the factors that contributed to the development of their talents.   How much of their success lies in pure talent and innate ability, and how much lies in their own hard work, making the most of opportunities presented, etc?  How much of their success happened because the opportunities existed in the first place:  at school, home, or through extra-curricular activities?

Last weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a concert with excellent musicians again.  The Elmhurst College and Community Wind Ensemble played several pieces including the premier of a new composition by a senior student composer, John Robert Matz.  John Robert is a fine trumpet player as well as one of the best vocalists I know.  He wrote Shiloh as a part of his composition class at Elmhurst College.  The piece is a musical representation of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.  When I heard the piece for the first time during rehearsal, I was immediately able to hear the events he verbally described in the music.  After the performance last Sunday, the audience rose immediately as one, without any hesitation, to give John Robert a standing ovation lasting perhaps a minute or more.  I don’t know this young man’s personal experiences in high school, but I hear much more frequently about composition classes in high schools as well as in colleges now compared to 25 years ago when I was in school.

Yesterday afternoon I saw a portfolio of artwork by one of my daughter’s friends.  Looking at the drawings of this 18 year old girl nearly moved me to tears.  This young lady was able to develop her talents by taking classes at her high school.  Would she have the same opportunities or realizations about her own abilities had she not had those experiences at school?  Not long after she showed me her portfolio, her younger brother came into the room with his acoustic guitar and blew me away with his playing.  He’s only in the 8th grade.

A couple of years ago, I came in contact with another family having three children with various artistic talents:  an operatic singer, an actor/artist, and a dancer.  Their parents were also artists, but would their abilities have flourished had they not had opportunities to participate in the arts?

One of my favorite activities is attending rehearsals with community groups.  Many of the musicians with whom I play have careers other than in music, but our love of playing our instruments enriches our own lives as well as the people who hear our concerts.  How many of these groups would exist if music hadn’t been offered to us in our schools?

How many children will fall deeper into the vacuum of television, video games, and the internet if the arts don’t remain a vital part of education?  How many will never discover their God-given abilities in the arts if they aren’t given the opportunities to experience them?  How many will miss out on the joy of learning to think creatively because the arts aren’t offered to them?  I fear far too many!

I hesitate to post this as I’m certain I’ve missed many nuances, possibilites, etc.  I haven’t even mentioned other types of programs that help students discover what they might enjoy and in which areas they might truly excel.  These are only my thoughts from a very limited perspective.  Please add your own perspectives if you wish.

Categories: Arts Education · Funding for the Arts

Professional vs. Amateur Pursuits

March 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I was just a small part of a conversation on Twitter which sparked my enthusiasm and energy once again.  Tim J raised the question, “Is it better to be a professional amateur, or an amateurish professional?”  One of the responses stated, “Better for whom?  A professional amateur is better for the world.  However, an amateurish professional may have a better bank balance.”

I wonder if questions like those come to mind often for other musicians?  They certainly do for me!  In my opinion, part of the problem lies in the way we think about the words “amateur” and “professional.”  For instance, we often label people who play instruments in addition to a full-time job “amateurs,” or at best “semi-professionals.”  If what we mean by those terms is the level of compensation they receive for playing, then of course those terms are accurate.  I think too often those labels, in the minds of many, become a description of ability or musicianship.  If that is the case, we do many people a disservice.  Several friends I’ve met in recent years are what most would call amateur or semi-professional musicians, but in fact, they are some of the finest musicians I’ve ever met.  If I had heard those terms used to describe them without hearing them, I would have had a mental picture of a mediocre or only above average musician.

I read a book several years ago by Wayne Booth, a former English professor at the University of Chicago, who decided to begin cello lessons in his early 30′s.  He had no experience playing or learning the cello previously.  In his book, For the Love of It:  Amateuring and Its Rivals, he wrote of his many hours of practicing, taking years to accomplish what younger arms and fingers would have been able to learn in a much shorter time period.  In spite of the challenges of mastering a string instrument as an adult, Booth continued his journey of practicing, playing chamber music, and performing with orchestras as an amateur throughout the rest of his life.  His writing showed his obvious joy in the process, not just the achievement.

As I’ve thought about these two seemingly opposite ideas (amateuring as a clarinet player vs. working to be the most professional clarinet player I can possibly become) I’ve come to a conclusion time and time again.  The joy and personal benefits I receive from practicing my clarinet as well as performing far outweigh any loss of “leisure time.”  I’ve found these “amateur pursuits” of playing my clarinet (and even writing) are more enjoyable to me than many other ways I could spend my time.

In closing, I’ll go back to the original question posed by Tim.  “Is it better to be a professional amateur or an amateurish professional?”  In my opinion, it’s much better to be a professional amateur.  I think Wayne Booth might agree.

Categories: Performing · Practicing

Performing?

March 7, 2009 · 4 Comments

I’ve considered taking the word “performing” out of the title of this blog.  I think it’s misleading.  I do perform, but definitely not at the level of many other musicians I know.  My performance preference is definitely in a group when playing my clarinet.  I also prefer to sit as far away from the edge of the stage as possible.  I don’t crave the spotlight by any stretch of the imagination!  (Although, why am I writing here?  Hmmm…)

I just reread my Bio as well to see if I wanted to change anything.  I made it sound like I perform a lot!  I have performed with all of those groups regularly at times, but at the moment I only play with the Elmhurst College & Community Wind Ensemble.  I made the decision to cut back this fall.  There are other areas of my life that needed more attention!

I actually tried to figure out how to change the title a few weeks ago, but couldn’t find a place to edit it.  So for now, this site remains “Music Teaching, Learning, and Performing.”

Categories: Performing

Ongoing Assessment: More Thoughts

March 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A few more experiences have come to mind as I’ve thought more about ongoing assessment and the possible influence of seeing it put into practice by excellent teachers.  I’ll try to be brief.

The very first teacher that I remember demonstrating ongoing assessment was my high school band director, Archie Sharretts.  He often gave individual lessons (at no additional charge).  During those lessons he observed carefully, then used any tools he had at his disposal to help us see what needed to be done for improvement.  He kept mirrors on hand, books with photographs of correct embouchure and hand position (The Art of Clarinet Playing for us budding clarinetists) and any other tool he could imagine.  Throughout his career in that little town in northeast Georgia, he produced many fine musicians!

I’ve either taken lessons in recent years or been in classes with several other  great teachers.  Three in particular come to mind at the moment.  During one summer at VanderCook, I took percussion lessons from Kevin Lepper.  It was obvious that he was very attentive to the details of my hand position, technique (or lack thereof!), etc. during lessons.  He used that information throughout each lesson to give me tips on how to improve and then use that information with any future students.  I was able to do that with several children afterward in my old job at Jackson Middle School.  Fred Lewis, my present clarinet instructor is also always listening and watching carefully, asking me questions, and leading me to discover ways to improve my playing.  Jean Hersey from my Orff Level I class also seemed to always actively watch us, assessing how we were performing.  She seemed to always look for details.

I saw another excellent teacher in a video, Circling Around.  Mimi Zweig of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music teaches a String Academy for young string players from the very youngest students through high school.  A memory that sticks with me from that documentary is seeing her ask a very young violinist, “Are you comfy?” as she carefully watched his playing position, then gently helped him adjust accordingly.  Once again, it was the way she watched (assessed) then used that information to help him improve that struck me as unique at that moment.  Mimi Zweig also happens to be one of Joshua Bell’s former teachers!

I can think of quite a few teachers with whom I’ve worked (including in my present job) who have also been very skilled in this area.  I think the lesson for me as a teacher is to ask myself every day if I’m truly assessing students all of the time, then use that information to plan accordingly.

Categories: Assessment · Teaching Methods

Out of the Mouths of Babes

March 4, 2009 · 4 Comments

Several times in recent months, individual students have given me ideas for ways to do things that I hadn’t considered before.  It happened again today in a first grade class.

We’re learning about tempo and learned an old favorite of mine from the Silver Burdett series, “Obwisana” with the stone passing game.  In the past I’ve used rhythm sticks, and haven’t been completely happy with how that worked.  The sticks are too noisy, roll away, and sometimes students fingers are accidentally whacked even when we are careful.  I tried capped pens the other day, but those were too small and harder for the students to grasp.  As I was explaining to a different class today how we would add some kind of object to our movements next time, one boy spoke up and said, “Like paper balls?”  Ah-ha!  I had the students crumple up a piece of paper each.  It worked!  The noise level made by the paper was practically non-existent, and the students were able to easily pick the paper up and pass it on to the next person in the circle.  And even better, the paper balls didn’t roll away quite as easily!  If the students got confused and someone was left without a paper ball, it was quite easy to safely throw them the extra paper ball.  Of course, they LOVED that!

One of the hardest lessons for me to learn as a teacher has been to relinquish some of my need for control:  not classroom management, but control.  I find that when I succeed in that area, classes go amazingly well.  When I’m bull-headed and must have things “my way or the highway,” I lose some of the students.  Even if I have their outward behavior with me at those times, they sometimes aren’t really “with” me.  Just the simple switch of trying the little boys idea helped that class succeed.

I’m going to work on remembering this lesson!

Categories: Teaching Methods

A Question Related to the Last Post

March 1, 2009 · 4 Comments

As I was working out about an hour ago, the question came to my mind:  Have colleges and universities begun using Web 2.0 tools as a part of their teacher education programs?  I imagine they probably are, but if not, would it be possible to set up social networking groups between accomplished classroom teachers and current education students?  I haven’t gotten involved (other than to set up an account), but could a site like Classroom 2.0 be set up separately or in conjunction with it to help college students observe and communicate with more teachers at work?

As far behind the technological times as I am, it’s quite possible that groups mirroring these ideas are already in use.

Categories: Music Education Programs · Teacher Education Programs

Do We Become the Teachers We’ve Seen?

March 1, 2009 · 4 Comments

Far too often, I believe we become the teachers we’ve seen and experienced ourselves.  That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if our observations and experiences are too limited, it can be!

I’ve had a number of college students come to observe my classes during the last few years.  Many of them give me great feedback; they seem to like what they see.  I can’t help but hope, though, that they get lots of observation hours watching a number of different teachers and styles.  The longer I teach, the more I realize I have to learn.  I wish I had the opportunity now to observe lots of different teachers.  If I had that freedom, I have a feeling my eyes would be opened even more!

After my most recent class at VanderCook, I started wondering why I started 20 years ago teaching straight from the text book with very little variance.  It dawned on me that even though I’d had an excellent Elementary Music Methods class at Olivet Nazarene University, the only kind of observation and clinical experience I ever saw was that of teaching out of a textbook!  I never actually saw the methods I learned in my classes put into practice in the classroom.  Don’t get me wrong, the teachers I observed and worked with were very good, but they taught the same way.  I never saw anything different!  Assessment has always been a weakness of mine as well, and I think it’s because I didn’t get to the point of actually observing that aspect and discussing it with any real general music teachers.  Of course, I’m talking from memories of 20+ years ago, so I could be wrong.  However, if I did experience and observe it, I didn’t enough to put the ideas into practice until the last ten years or so of my teaching.

Maybe my experience isn’t the norm?  I can’t help but wonder, though, if college students are getting enough varied observation experiences today.  For the sake of their students, I hope they are!

Categories: Music Education Programs