Final lesson reflection

My final exam lesson was much better than my initial lesson, but still has room for improvement. I think overall I was kind of stumped by the topic of copyright as it was never taught to me in general music class. I do think that it is an important topic to teach and I will use these lessons in my future classes, but I would like to observe somebody else teach with this subject first.

Another area of weakness is my concept of assessment. I am used to teaching private piano and drum lessons and constantly informally assessing them. The goal that they are working towards is performing in a recital at the end of the year, not taking a test or quiz. I feel that this will be one of my biggest challenges as a music teacher.

I liked the fact that my lesson was centered around creating original music and the students were playing for the majority of the lesson. One detail to refine would be having headphones available for all of the keyboards. It was too noisy in the piano lab for my students to concentrate on what they were doing. Another thing that would likely backfire on me would be taking the students aside to record them while the rest of the class is by themselves in a room. I would probably not do that in a real lesson with 8th graders, but i trusted my fellow grad students to behave.

Teaching and observing these mock audition lessons has been very instructive and fun. I feel that I have a much better grip on how to plan a lesson after taking this class and also how to imagine how a lesson will go.

Creating an audience

Nothing feels more rewarding for a musician than to play in front of a packed house of eager listeners. Creating an audience is an important aspect of leading a music program that can sometimes be overlooked. Most school ensembles have the support of their families built into the audience. When I was in high school band and chorus, my parents and grandparents were always in attendance. The harder group of people to market to are the peers of the student performers.

Some ways to draw in this group of people is to have a reception after the event. When I host my piano recitals in the winter and spring my students love to get the chance to meet and greet with the other performers and eat cupcakes. This reward after their hard work helps motivate them for the recital and it also gives the other audience members something to look forward to.

Another strategy for boosting audience turn out is to have concerts on Friday evenings instead of weekday nights. People are usually busy with other obligations during the week, so having the concert on a Friday or Saturday would make the performance more accessible to a greater amount of people.

One of the best ways to build an audience is to play popular repertoire and advertise it. The high school band from Thunder Soul built a huge audience by playing funk instead of standard jazz. Most people today aren’t interested in classical music or the great repertoire that we musicians value. Making a program of popular songs with some classical repertoire slipped in is a good way to draw an audience and expose them to great music.

Building a strong supportive audience for your music program is vital for the performers’ self esteem and motivation. If students know that they will be playing in front of a crowd, they will practice more. This non-musical aspect of running an ensemble is one of the keys to creating a successful music program.

BOJC Funds

• Should we have to rely on parents and fundraising to run a modern BOJC program? 

I believe that in a perfect world BOJC programs would not have to rely on parents and fundraising. Music and the arts are an important aspect of modern education because they give students an outlet for expression. This is a vital part of human growth and development that is rarely taught in academic classes. Denying music instruction to kids is denying them the safe environment to actively work on their creativity. In poor communities where parents cannot afford to pay for music it should be the district’s responsibility to cover the expenses in their budget.

Learning a musical instrument teaches children how to listen intently to others, practice new skills that are difficult, and apply knowledge from their math and science classes. For these valid reasons, music programs should primarily be funded by school budgets and supplemented by parent fundraising organizations. In some lucky school districts this is the case. Sadly however it is not the norm and music programs are frequently cut from curriculums.

Because BOJC programs are constantly at risk of being cut, we do need to rely on parents to fund their children's music education. Until our society begins to value music instruction as a vital piece to the education puzzle, parents will have to foot the bill. In a perfect world, this would not be the case.

Thunder Soul: Creating a love for music and performing

The role of a band teacher is to pass on the joy of playing music to students by giving them opportunities to play and express themselves. Music director of the Kashmere high school stage band, Conrad “Prof” Johnson gave his students just that. In the movie Thunder Soul we are given the backstory of this amazing high school band from Texas in the 70s that played funk music on a professional level.

Prof created love for music in his band program by tailoring the music selections to the group; playing funk tunes instead of old fashioned jazz. The Kashmere stage band started out playing the typical repertoire of high school bands at that time which consisted of jazz standards and ballads like “Summertime.” Prof noticed that his students were becoming bored with the tune selection of the group and would watch them start to jam on funk grooves after rehearsals ended. The popular music artists during this time period were James Brown, Earth Wind and Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, and Sly and the Family Stone. Prof intuitively changed the band's’ repertoire to all funk tunes that he either wrote or arranged himself. Once the high schoolers had music that they could connect to, they became self motivated and evolved into a professional level ensemble.

Not only was this band program a music learning vehicle, but Prof also taught his students how to become hard working men and women. The impression that this man had on his students was so strong that thirty years later they reassembled the band to put on a show in his honor.

Thunder Soul is an inspiring movie for all audiences, but especially music teachers. Prof created a successful band out of 16 year olds by making the music that they performed relevant to them and the audience. Instead of picking the usual jazz selections for stage bands, Prof gave his band something that they could latch onto and make their own. Playing funk was used to educate the students in playing as an ensemble, being good showmen, and working hard towards a goal. This film motivates me as a music teacher to one day build a strong band program by picking the music that the kids really want to play. I hope that i can create an inspirational learning environment in my classroom that resembles that of the Kashmere high school band room.

Audition Lesson Reflection

Recently I taught a ten minute general music lesson on copyright to my music methods class. The lesson went better than I expected, but overall it needs some work. Some of the main issues that I think my lesson had were that I didn’t have the class play or sing, I started the class with a slow pace, and I jumped from one important topic to a totally different one.

I started my class by passing out a questionare that would serve as a class conversation starter. I like the idea of having the class do a worksheet, but the contents of the questionare didn’t really have anything to do with the listening examples that I played later in the lesson. The questions that were on the worksheet dealt with artists losing income because of free online access to music. If I use this questionare in the future, I will gear the remainder of the lesson towards piracy and getting music for free.

After the class discussion, I played the song “My Lord” by George Harrison and compared it to “He’s so fine” by the Chiffons. I like the listening comparison, but I needed to do more research about the court case. I also need to plan the use of technolgy in my lesson and some playing. Overall, I liked the way that I led the class. I want to make a better lesson unit that is more focused on specific topics and has more playing built into it.

Some questions that I need to investigate are: Can chord progressions be copyrighted? How do you protect yourself against copyright infringement? I would like to incorporate those topics into my unit better. I have to remember that my job is to teach the class about copyright laws - how am i going to do that? I want to teach the class how to copyright their own ideas - how do I teach that? I will try to fix these issues in my next shot at teaching this lesson.

Technology in education

Technology has always had an impact on teaching. In our modern world, electronics are ubiquitous and part of our everyday lives. Today most students have their own personal tablets, phones, and computers. Since students are well acquainted with using these devices, they are more engaged when teachers incorporate them into their lessons. Smart boards and computer labs also contribute to this change in the way that lessons are taught. Teachers can now show video clips from YouTube in their classrooms, or have students work independently on chrome book laptops.

One of the major changes that I have observed in the modern classroom is that teachers can manage their students using technology. When kids are working on laptops independently, they are quiet and focused. The teacher can get a lot of work done in their room instead of having to engage the whole class in an activity.

Another change that has occurred in schools is the use of smart boards. Classrooms can instantly become theaters by switching on the smart board and playing a video clip. This is a huge advantage for teachers because they can now show videos or demonstrations to the class whenever they want. There is no need to roll a television cart into the room and then return it later.

Some music apps are very useful for teaching. One website/app is musictheory.net. On the website, students can choose from a variety of music theory lessons and then test their new knowledge with the companion app. This resource helps teachers by reinforcing what they have already taught their students and also by giving them a chance to practice their skills with the app.

Music technology will continue to change the way that music is taught in schools. As long as our society continues to value electronics as much as we do, we will be using it in our classrooms for generations to come. In most music colleges notation software such as Finale or Sibelius are being taught in music tech classes. Recording programs like Logic or Garage band are also taught in classes, just like Excel or Word.

Music technology will continue to make a huge impact on our teaching and will help us teach in new creative ways.

Assessing student work

Rubrics provide teachers with a systematic framework for grading student work. The role of the rubric is to take the guesswork out of grading and give the teacher a clear-cut view of the criteria for an “A” paper. Unfortunately this system for grading does not promote creativity and risk taking because students know what they will be graded on specifically. Alfie Kohn’s article “The trouble with rubrics” outlines the reasons that rubrics are ineffective.

            Kohn writes that when students are graded in this manner they “tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the learning itself.” He goes on saying “rubrics actually help to [legitimize] grades by offering a new way to derive them. They do nothing to address the terrible reality of students who have been led to focus on getting A’s rather than on making sense of ideas.” Sadly this style of assessment is very common in our education system.

            Perhaps an alternate approach to grading could be used that would promote student creativity and still make the teacher’s job easier. Robert Duke’s concept of assessment is a more holistic approach and still uses a “rubric.” I put the term rubric in quotations because Duke’s format is basically a checklist of things that the student either does or does not do. An example that he gives in his book Intelligent Music Teaching is a checklist rubric for students performing a guitar piece with an ensemble. The things on the list include:

Guitarist: Sat up straight, began immediately when called upon (no nervous mannerisms), Smiled, Gave correct starting pitch, and maintained steady pulse with right hand.

            This form of assessment grades students on a yes or no basis so there is no grey area when it comes to grading. There are also twenty bullet points on this rubric so missing a few of them doesn’t mean that the student will fail. This allows the students to be more relaxed, not so nervous about their grade, and more willing to take risks. Perhaps the most important aspect of Duke’s assessment concept is that he grades students on their actions. Everything on his list of criteria is an action verb; “Smiled, Sat up straight, maintained a steady beat, etc.” These are the qualities that we look for in good musicians. We should be grading our students on the most important aspects of musicianship in this yes or no format instead of using the typical rubric system.