As we learned, Audrey Sillick had a profound influence on Lorna’s understanding of the young child. Lorna had begun teaching in Audrey’s Montessori school in Toronto in 1981, but had brought her initial theories and curriculum practices from Germany to that environment. Rich with traditional European music methods and practices, there was little attention to the broader child development principles found in Audrey’s Montessori schools. Audrey soon invited Lorna to attend her training sessions, an invitation that had a profound effect on Lorna’s teaching.

Thus, Audrey’s great contribution had been to sensitize Lorna to a long list of child development principles that have become a normal and logical part of good early childhood music and movement teaching. Through the remaining years of her life, Audrey became not only a mentor, but also a partner with Lorna in all areas of curriculum development and teacher preparation.

ECMMA’s Humble Beginnings

You may also recall that Audrey and Lorna had unveiled a completely new type of Kindermusik curriculum at the 1988 KMTA Princeton convention. But what was this convention, and who would have attended?

In 1984, seeking to provide extended support for her rapidly growing group of Kindermusik teachers, Lorna developed a support group and invited teachers to a “first” Convention in Toronto – Audrey was the featured speaker, participants stayed in nearby university dorm rooms and Hermann grilled homemade Bratwurst at the Heyges.  The idea took hold; the group became the Kindermusik Teacher’s Association (KMTA), teachers were invited to an organizing convention in Winston-Salem, NC in 1986, and Linda Robinson became the first president.

By the time of the 1988 convention at which the new Kindermusik curriculum was introduced, the idea of a biennial convention was well established – a practice that still continues today. The 2016 ECMMA Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, will celebrate the 30^th anniversary of that original KMTA convention in Winston-Salem, NC.

A few years later, after Musikgarten was born, KMTA was renamed the Early Childhood Music Assocation (ECMA), and it became ECMMA at the 1998 Baltimore convention with the addition of the word “movement.”

Foundation for Music-Based Learning: Outreach to the wider community

1994 was a watershed year. New beginnings (Musikgarten) brought new opportunities, and Lorna wished to reach out to a wider company.  So she and Hermann founded the Foundation for Music-Based Learning (now called the Musikgarten Foundation) with two primary goals in mind: a) to establish a non-commercial gathering place for the rapidly expanding early childhood music community and b) to search for effective ways to bring her work to children outside the ‘twice-blessed’ community whom we usually teach. Twice blessed referes to children having the blessing of parents who a) are aware of the importance of music for their children, and b) are able to pay for the instruction.

Lorna won the support of many leaders in the field for the idea of a non-commercial quarterly, and began to publish Early Childhood Connections with Martha Hallquist as editor.  Leaders from all areas of the field, researchers, practicioners, business owners wrote for and advised the Journal, and it provided a much needed venue for ongoing research and camaraderie among early childhood music and movement teachers.

In the early 1990s Lorna had started teaching in low income centers, and this led to the establishment of a research project together with the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC in which a Musikgarten curriculum designed for Head Start classes was implemented in schools in North Carolina, Kentucky, and New York. 

By 2007-08 the Music for Learning Program was officially established and now, in its seventh year under the direction of Linda Robinson, the program which includes curriculum, a teacher and center director mentoring system, application process, funding assistance and extensive evaluation procedures, has been active in 13 states, from North Carolina to Oregon.  The program’s track record shows significant success not only in mentoring early childhood classroom teachers to use music effectively on a daily basis, but also in helping them learn to recognize all of the extra-musical advantages of music, from language development to establishing impulse control. 

Music for Learning is now on the cusp of seeking to expand its services in a limited fashion - providing the program for a larger audience. If you wish to become involved, you are invited to contact Lorna or Linda directly – or contact me at rick.townsend@mbu.edu. I can help you connect.

Dee Coulter: Neuroscience and Early Childhood Education

In 1990, Lorna met Dee Coulter at the KMTA Convention in Estes Park, Colorado.  Everyone who heard her speak on that day remembers it vividly!  As we read the current 2015 research articles about the importance of music for the development of the frontal lobes, about musical games helping children develop the self-control needed to be successful in school – we know that we were introduced to these topics by Dee Coulter.

In Lorna’s own words, “We had had this wonderful influence from Audrey, which allowed us to include so many important things about childhood development into our curriculum. Then along came Dee with her research that explained how all these principles had developed.” She admired what Lorna and Audrey had written, and “started explaining to us what the neurological basis of all this was.” Dee was well versed in all that had been taking place in neuroscience during the 1980s – especially as it related to early childhood learning and development.

Soon, Dee was joining Lorna for her annual teacher training workshops. On many occasions Lorna would teach a class of children, then Dee would explain, as only she could, just what had been taking place in the session. This was a model that she had developed through the years, and that culminated with collaborations with Grace Nash at ORFF conferences. Always current in the field, Dee could synthesize all of the new developments in neuroscience, and could help the teachers understand what they were observing and what to do with it.

And Then There Was Gordon...

Constantly traveling, Lorna was presenting workshops in Miami when she decided to visit classes taught by Joyce Jordan DeCarbo, a noted early childhood music researcher and teacher. Joyce was developing her own strategies for teaching early childhood music and movement based on the teachings of Edwin Gordon.

Primary among Gordon’s teachings was his audiation skill sequence, including first, neutral syllable tonal and rhythmic pattern activities (Aural/Oral), then a functional syllable system combined with a rich functional labeling system (Verbal Association), and eventually, literacy. All of these activities are built upon a rich experience with songs and chants in a wide variety of meters and tonalities.

Lorna was immediately impressed with not only the logic of Gordon’s theories, but also, with the ease with which Joyce was able to incorporate these concepts into her presentation.

So with the addition of Dee Coulter and Edwin Gordon’s insights, Lorna and Audrey began the work that would eventually become the landmark Musikgarten curriculum in 1994. This is the year they released the first installment entitled Cycle of Seasons, soon to be followed by curriculum for older children, then for younger children, then for the Christian community, then for keyboard, and finally, for adults. And at the center of all this development was her careful nurturing of “a rich, collegial interchange of committed teacher trainers that has a lot to do with the whole body of what Musikgarten has become.”

Epilogue

So now we can see the circle of inspiration that represents the whole body of Lorna Heyge’s work. From those earliest years in Germany, her curricular activity has continued a pattern of growth and maturing. Early on, she added a heightened awareness of the importance of movement, followed by Audrey Sillick’s influence in her understanding of children’s social needs and developmental stages, then applying Dee Coulter’s scientific and neurological foundations for early childhood learning, and finally applying Gordon’s sequencing of music learning and expanded repertoire of tonalities and meters.

And today, she speaks passionately of the importance of supporting parental understandings – ECMM’s most critical element. Her message to you:        

Consider the special position you have with the families you are influencing. You are the person who is playing with their child in this delightful, active, intentional music environment – and the parent is there. You are establishing a position of trust.

Today’s rich body of research for anything you want to do is so available, it has a downside.  It is so much information that no parent or any of us can digest it all. The greatest opportunity we have is our soapbox – one that provides a personal connection to the family. Use it conscientiously, and often. 

Continue to learn.

Influence the lives of the children in the unique manner that only you can.

Many thanks to Lorna for her generosity and openness throughout the course of these interviews and writings. I know you join me in wishing Lorna and Hermann all the best as she continues her work and influence, but now from their home base in Germany – where she enjoys a rich music culture and peaceful surroundings while she continues to contribute to the growth and richness that represents 21^st century early childhood music and movement. We have not yet read the final chapter from this matron of our beloved profession.

She views her career as reflecting three separate stages of growth in curriculum development. Today we focus on those stages; a) her American adaptation of the German curriculum, resulting in the initial 1974 Kindermusik curriculum, b) her 1988 Kindermusik curriculum, representing a fresh new direction, and c) the 1994 Musikgarten curriculum.  

The German Curriculum – 1971-1988

As we discussed in Part 1: Portrait of a Pioneer, soon after moving from Greensboro, NC to Troisdorf in 1971, she had begun working with a group of German music education professionals, Verband deutscher Musikschulen (The Association of German Music Schools). At the time, they were collaborating to develop a curriculum called Curriculum musikalische Früherziehung (Music for the Very Young Child). They were determined that their curriculum would not be merely a watered-down version of Orff’s practices – those being designed primarily for ages 6 on up. This was an alliance of Orff, Kodaly, and Dalcroze specialists plus experts in many other related fields, and they wrote the best curriculum they could and used it for many years.

Lorna’s work with the German educators blossomed, and by 1973 she was applying the principles in English speaking classrooms in the diplomatic community in Bonn. Soon, she found herself on the way back to Greensboro. This time, though, she brought with her a newfound passion and mission – to adapt her newly learned practices in early childhood music education to an American population.

This adaptation was to become the first of her three distinct early childhood music curricula.

Stage 1: Kindermusik’s Humble Beginnings

Moving back to Greensboro to work on her American adaptation, she took a full-time church position as organist and choir director; including adult choir, children’s choir, recorder groups, church orchestra and youth choir for school aged children. At Greensboro College, she also developed the first American-based collegiate early childhood music program. Building an early childhood music studio was different in those days from what it is today. She simply sent a note to newspapers that it was going to start, and “the phone rang off the hook.”

Thus were born the methods and systems that were to become her first version of Kindermusik in 1978 – her Stage 1 so to speak, which was primarily influenced by the German association and published by the Bosse Company in Germany. There was great interest because it was the first program of its kind in the US, and parents understood the unique opportunity afforded them.

Within 4 years, Lorna’s Greensboro studio offered 26 classes per week for children 4 - 8 years old. After the first year, the Greensboro College student MENC group invited her to present at the NC state conference.  Linda Robinson (a music educator from Asheville who was to become the first president of the early childhood teachers’ association) was fascinated by Lorna’s teaching and decided to attend Lorna’s first ‘formal’ teacher training in 1976.  Linda, and many others, now started their own Kindermusik programs, supplied with lesson plans and materials produced - until publication in 1978, on the press on a friend’s front porch in Greensboro.

But now we must backtrack a bit, to pick up two important new relationships.

First – A Husband.

At the end of WWII, Germany had been divided into four regions by the participants in the 1945 Potsdam Conference – the three West German regions being controlled by the democratic allied nations (United States, France, and the United Kingdom), and the East German region being controlled by communist Soviet Russia. Within a few years, as many as 10,000 East German citizens per month were fleeing to West Germany through East Berlin. This issue was to become one of the first great cold war issues of disagreement between Soviet Russia and the western nations, as the emigrants represented a great talent pool leaving the communist regime.

In 1958, just three years before the Berlin wall halted the emigration for 30 years, a young engineer named Hermann Heyge travelled to East Berlin to secure his passage to western freedom. He soon completed his graduate studies in engineering in Stuttgart, then London, and then moved to Canada (Montreal at first, later Toronto) ‘for one year.’ Little did he know that he was to stay in America for the next 49 years.

Lorna and Hermann met in Greensboro in May 1978 when Hermann was returning to Canada after a 6 month work assignment in South Africa. Lorna’s German roommate’s father had been a student of Dr. Heyge (Hermann’s father) in Thüringen.  The two aging men, both now living in West Germany, decided that these two single music lovers should meet each other.   Correspondence between South Africa and Greensboro ensued, and thus the ‘stopover’ on the way back to Toronto

…and they eventually married in December of 1978, when Lorna was still managing her growing studio in Greensboro. However, Hermann lived in Toronto, so Lorna immediately moved from Greensboro to Toronto. Initially she tended their home and garden, and from 1979 - 1981 conducted the Toronto Chamber Society, a Renaissance and Baroque chamber music group.

Second – Developing Kindermusik

Norm Goldberg, president of Magnamusic Baton, Co., in St. Louis, became the distributor of the new 1978 Kindermusik publication in North America.  Norm, a key business supporter and benefactor to the Orff movement in North America, saw potential in the early childhood program.  Immediately he instituted a series of teacher training workshops throughout the US, and Lorna found herself ‘on the road.’

The number of workshops was expanding quickly, and Lorna initiated  a circle of Teacher Trainers to help her, and to work with Magnamusic-Baton.   One of Lorna’s workshops took place each summer at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ where Dan Pratt (whom Lorna had met in the 1960s when he was a voice major at the Hochschule in Cologne) had become a professor in the voice department and head of summer studies. 

Dan’s interest in Lorna’s curriculum grew, so in 1984 – at a point where Kindermusik’s growth demanded the full attention of a company – Lorna asked Dan to join her in forming a new company which would be able to continue to spread the new curriculum. Together, they founded Music Resources International (MRI) in Princeton which began to grow very rapidly.

1986: KMTA (Predecessor to ECMMA) Is Born

Sensing the need to provide continuing support for their growing group of Kindermusik teachers, Lorna established the Kindermusik Teacher’s Association (KMTA) in 1986. A pre-organization first conference had been successful in Toronto in 1984, so the new organization was called into being at a convention in Winston-Salem, NC.  Barbara Fisher’s Kindermusik program at Salem College in Winston-Salem had been established in 1976, and was a fitting home for the new teacher’s organization’s first official convention. (ECMMA will consequently be celebrating its 30^th anniversary at their 2016 international convention in Salt Lake City, Utah.)

1987: Winds of Change

The partnership flourished for the first few years, but one day in 1987, after observing one of Lorna’s workshops, Hermann pointed out to Lorna that he could no longer recognize the relationship between her written curriculum and her workshop presentation. There was a good reason.

Please bear with me as we backtrack once more.

Stage 2: Lorna Gains a Mentor

Soon after moving toToronto in 1979, Lorna had met “a broad-minded Montessorian” named Audrey Sillick.  Aware of Lorna’s early Kindermusik curriculum, the Toronto Montessori School and Teacher Training Institute, of which Audrey was Director, asked Lorna to bring music into their curricula.  This was a watershed moment in Lorna’s professional life, as Audrey taught Lorna important new extra-musical concepts about early childhood development, concepts that were to become enormously influential in Lorna’s curricular development as she continued to adapt her German practices for American use. Thus began an important partnership that lasted well into the 21^st century.

Hermann could no longer recognize Lorna’s curriculum in 1987 because of Audrey’s long term influence on Lorna’s thinking. Audrey’s influence had so changed Lorna’s practices that soon Lorna decided to collaborate with Audrey to rewrite the entire curriculum to better reflect Lorna’s new understandings. Introduced at the 1988 KMTA convention, it was called Kindermusik for the Young Child.

It was a new version of the old German curriculum, but highly saturated with Audrey’s principles and practices. Lorna considered this to be the hallmark Kindermusik curriculum – a true balance between music development and child development. While it still reflected the initial 1974 German influence, it was also clearly a product of Audrey Sillick’s influence.

Stage 3: A Changing of the Guard

The years from 1988 to 1994 saw rapid growth and change for Kindermusik, but business partnerships, even among good people, do not always remain intact. By 1994 Lorna and Audrey had developed a fresh new curriculum, and Dan wished to take Kindermusik in a completely different direction.

Having met Edwin Gordon and Dee Coulter in the intervening years, Lorna wanted this new curriculum to clearly reflect the best applications of early childhood Music Learning Theory (Edwin Gordon) and information about neuroscience and how the brain works (Dee Coulter). And now, Lorna and Audrey were free to publish their brand new curriculum. Representing a balance of influences, including the German association, Audrey Sillick, Edwin Gordon, and Dee Coulter, it had a new name…  

Musikgarten

To be continued…

We will always be indebted to our pioneers – our visionaries. They affect every part of our lives, but usually in complete anonymity. So this is why, now and then, we do well to take a moment to consider those individuals who have walked before and among us – providing a service, showing a path.

This is one of those moments. Practically everyone who hangs a shingle with the words Early Childhood Music Teacher owes some debt of gratitude to the lifelong work and passion of Lorna Lutz Heyge. Whether you were a teacher in the early days of Kindermusik, or a current Musikgarten teacher, or a reader of this article on the ECMMA site – or an independent practitioner or a teacher under a different banner, the rationale, principles, methods, and systems that Lorna has developed affect every corner of our profession.

Following is the first installment of a 3-part series addressing The Early Years; Growth of a Vision; and The Principles and Ideals of this matriarch in our midst. It is my privilege to tell her story.

Part 1: The Early Years

On a quiet 1940s New York day, a mother took her 6-year-old daughter to her first piano lesson. The teacher, a friend of the mother, sat the girl down at the large upright piano with her new book and proceeded to teach her to read the notation as her mother sat by. The little girl’s name was Lorna Lutz, and nobody in the room that day could know that this humble beginning would lead to not only many years of personal musical enjoyment for the little girl, but also to a life of world-wide leadership in the music education community.

Neither of Lorna’s parents was an accomplished musician so there was nothing to indicate that this first lesson might be a unique moment in time. Mother could play a few hymns on the piano, but that was the extent of music in the home. Still, Lorna’s piano lessons were just a beginning.

As was common in many public schools in those days Lorna was given a tonette, a small recorder-like instrument, to play in third grade and a clarinet in fourth grade, both of which she mastered quickly. Lorna’s natural musical abilities quickly became apparent, and she was promoted to the high school band within a few months – resulting in a rare eight-year high school band career.

Rote or Note?

Her band director was an inspirational man, but her first piano teacher was unfortunately less inspiring for the young pianist. Very conservative and traditional in her approach, she would probably have aligned with the note side of the rote or note debate that had characterized music education in America for most of the preceding century. Her repertoire was “mainly sheet music (semi-semi-classical, which was popular at the time) - totally right hand dominated.” But there was another piano teacher in town, a highly independent lady, and in eighth grade Lorna convinced her father to allow her to change teachers.

Her new teacher was indeed a fine teacher. “The first thing I remember was her choosing repertoire to develop the left hand. Then she started teaching me harmony right away.” Holding a masters degree in piano from Syracuse university – a very nice accomplishment for a village piano teacher at the time, she interpreted classical repertoire well, teaching Lorna how to analyze the pieces she was playing.

Piano had now become much more rewarding for Lorna, and she progressed rapidly through her new curriculum.

College Years

Years passed, and the time finally arrived for Lorna to select a college. As a young lady planning to major in music in the 1950s, and with the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music just down the road, college choice became an easy decision. She soon discovered, though, that the typical Eastman piano pedigree required much more than she had had an opportunity to experience while growing up in Clyde, New York, so she gladly chose to be an organ major - studying with David Craighead throughout her days at Eastman.

Lorna spent nine full years in college. She earned her undergraduate degree at Eastman, while playing organ on weekends at two different churches – one having a pump organ and the other having a pipe organ.

After completing her undergraduate degree, Lorna auditioned for scholarships at Michigan and Northwestern – eventually choosing to travel to Chicago for her masters degree. This trip was delayed because, at the time, the University of Rochester offered an exchange program with the University of Cologne in Germany.  Lorna received this Scholarship for the German language at the university, and travelled to Germany to continue her organ studies in the studio of renowned German organist Helmut Walcha. After that year, she returned to the states to earn her Masters in organ performance with a generous Scholarship from Northwestern University.

Lorna’s dream was to teach organ at the college level, so she applied for, and gained, a Fulbright Commission scholarship, allowing her to return once again to Germany to complete the coveted artist diploma in organ and a PhD in musicology at the University of Cologne. The degree required two minors. Lorna chose German Literature and Anglo-American History. 

Finally, after nine full years of higher learning culminating in a German artist diploma in organ performance and a PhD in musicology, Lorna returned stateside to teach organ performance and music history at Greensboro College in Greensboro, North Carolina. She remained in this position for three years.

1971: And So It Begins…

Lorna loved her opportunity to teach collegiately in Greensboro, but her love for living in Germany was even greater, so in 1971 she moved back to Cologne and took a position in Troisdorf near Bonn where she had been offered a position as the assistant director of a youth music school. Much to Lorna’s surprise, the school director informed her that one of her responsibilities would be to teach music to the four year olds each week, so she “moved from the organ bench to the floor, and has not gotten up since.”

It was here that she discovered, already in place, many very fine German approaches to music learning for young children. These approaches, developed among others by the German composer-educator Carl Orff and his protégé, Gunild Keetman, were at that time in their earliest years of introduction to American music educators. During these years Lorna worked closely with a newly developed early childhood music education group within the German Association of Youth Music Schools, which had spent many years developing a very sound preschool music curriculum. The breadth of the group’s work was impressive – with specialists in wide-ranging areas such as vocal development, movement, playing instruments, music listening, and many more. Concurrently, they spent years in testing materials in rural and urban situations that involved a broad cross section of teachers, and in training teachers and developing teacher training strategies. Lorna found herself in the midst of a serious, quickly developing new field, and took every opportunity for further study, including some time at the Orff Institute in Salzburg.

During her time in Germany, Lorna gradually became aware of one nagging irony. At this time, the early 1970s, the two most enthusiastic countries in the development of early childhood music and movement happened to be the two biggest losers of WWII: Germany (Orff-Schulwerk) and Japan (Suzuki). It should also be noted that these are also the two countries that, in the late 19^th century, had been most enthusiastic in developing rote-based music learning theories – actually having invited Lowell Mason and his early music learning contemporaries to help them update their own music learning practices.

So the roots of rote-based, whole-part-whole music learning concepts were already deeply rooted in Germany when Carl Orff was born (1905), and in Japan when Shin’ichi Suzuki was born (1898). (Throughout this time, American music learning theories were still leaning toward note-based systems, despite the strong post-Civil War efforts of men like William Woodbridge, Elan Ives, and Lowell and Luthor Mason, who had so effectively promoted Hans Negeli’s musical applications of Johann Pestalozzi’s learning theories at the end of 19^th-century America.)

But back to our story…

Coming To America

While in Germany, “I became very excited about my work with children and parents – and immediately thought that the work I was doing with young children would have taken care of so many of the challenges I had had with my college students! Soon the plan evolved to test the materials in English – at first with children in the diplomatic community of Bonn (capital of Germany), and then in the US.” In 1974, she moved back to the US and “started refining the process of adaptation" of her German curriculum to the English language and the American culture.

This adaptation would become the first of three distinct early childhood curricula that she would eventually develop. Honoring its German roots, she aptly called it Kindermusik.

End of Part 1

Next: Growth of a Vision

So I hope this reposting will be of some help in today's new crisis - and tomorrow's.

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Why do we teach music? Why do you teach music? What keeps us in it when the storms rage? I remember reading, several years ago, that the average duration of a school music teacher’s career was six years (about the same as the average NFL career). The number startled me because, as a young teacher, I personally lasted exactly six years before leaving the profession. So what brought me back? And what keeps us all in it – especially today? In short, how do we advocate to ourselves?

Advocacy: Extra-Musical Approaches

Our minds immediately begin to recall our long list of advocacy positions.

·      Academic: Improvements in language and reasoning, spatial intelligence, creative thinking, problem solving...

·      Personal: Developing understanding and empathy for other social groups and cultures, a love for excellence, project development and goal achievement skills, and understanding of standards-based learning…

·      Social: Teamwork, an outlet for self-expression, appropriate risk taking, and dealing with success and failure…

Add to these all the physical development outcomes, community benefits, special-needs strategies, and you have a century-old advocacy tradition that seems to have stood the test of time. Or has it?

Advocacy: Aesthetic Education Takes Its Best Shot

At the end of the day, our administrators instinctively knew that all these outcomes could be achieved quite nicely, thank you, without music classes. It is aesthetic education, we learned, that transforms lives in ways that cannot be achieved elsewhere in the curriculum. Ultimately, we decided, we must sensitize our people to the richness of artistic pursuits, to the depth of subtly articulated meaning, to the imperatives of rich truths that are not merely articulated nor, especially, counted. This is what sets us apart.

But defining aesthetic outcomes can be tricky business. Discussions about aesthetics are historically filled with digressions into so many broadly related topics that even music professionals throw up their hands in frustration when asked to define aesthetic in any meaningful way. Try to raise the point in curriculum meetings, and our administrators are often reduced to head scratching by the time they consider their budgets behind closed doors. And why wouldn’t they? We are the experts, and even we rarely address the topic before we reach graduate school.

Purpose: The Gift of a Crisis

But now we find that our century-long identity deliberations are being interrupted. Pulling a Wisconsin has entered the lexicon. Why does it so often require a crisis to sharpen our senses? While some long-time music teachers are choosing to leave the profession in frustration, and others have been scheduled out of their positions, you have prevailed. I refuse to believe that your durability is primarily a function of personal finances. Every good teacher I know is capable of making a good living outside of education. I believe that you are still here because you are drawn to a purpose that you know is more important than you or I. And it is this great purpose that defines the true torch that we will eventually pass on to others.

Somehow we learned, falsely, that the sheer power of our logic could compel others to support our cause, winning the daily battles for a stronger place at the table. But no matter. Even though we may not be able to expect our multiple points of advocacy to win every day, we fight a winning battle because of something very special that we bring to the table – something that may never be packaged nor promoted as effectively as we wish, because it defies packaging, and efforts to promote are intrinsically reductive.

Despite the turmoil that surrounds us – no, because of the turmoil that surrounds us, we can now more effectively than ever reflect on our reasons for continuing to do what we do – music for our lifetime. Hopelessness and frustration is not our song – and most importantly, will never be the song that we teach our children.

So when the fickle news cycles tire of the story, when the vain residue has been trimmed from the conversations, and when all the heated rhetoric and talking points have been exhausted. When the simple poetry of rudimental truth shows in bold relief against a clear backdrop of reason and understanding – like golden apples on a picture of silver, as the proverb says. Then we will once again be able to look forward to tomorrow’s school day with the anticipation of great purpose.

And what is that purpose?

Perfect Advocacy - Our Enduring Purpose

We hold the golden certificate, the key to a special door. We hold the ticket into a child’s life – a family’s life – just as with every other teacher in our schools. Isn’t this the way it was for you when you were the child?

So this is not primarily about music, or art, or aesthetics, or our ability to measure and count – never was. We are the teachers. Our profession allows us to reach and help each child in the most important ways and at the most important times of life. We hold the ticket to a life’s most important events. Our profession is that ticket. Our talents and interests define our room as being the music room, and our students as the musicians. Who could give that up?

So, important as music may be (and it is important for all the reasons we discuss), the product of greatest value that you and I offer is ourselves. All it costs us is our lives.

Small price to pay...

And that will be our strength in tomorrow’s storm.

Pumpkin patch. Pumpkin patch.
I’m looking for a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch.
Here is one, nice and fat.
Turn into a jack-o-lantern just like that.

Children respond by making happy/sad/scared/funny “jack-o-lantern” faces. Most one-year-old children are a bit young to be expected to improvise such facial expressions on cue, so it surprised me when Lauren, at 15 months, began to improvise very impressive faces in my direction, and to hold each one until I would acknowledge it. Precocious – and mighty proud of it.

I bring my slide whistle to all my early childhood music classes. By 2 years old, I urge the children to "sing" each pattern that I play on the slide whistle. However, we usually discover that several can also improvise their own very impressive slide whistle tunes that they, in turn, expect me to imitate with my whistle. Improvisation 001. Prerequisite: A safe environment.

Where Is Melanie?

In contrast with Lauren, Melanie always hid under a table. At three years old, the daycare culture just didn’t seem to fit her and music classes were more than she could process.

Let’s sing hello together. Hello. Hello. Hello.

She only watched. Each week I would ask if she wanted to sing her name when her turn came around. She would always shake her head “no,” and look away.

Whisky, frisky hippity hop. Up he goes to the tree top.
Whirly twirly round and around. Down he scampers to the ground.

She only watched. I would ask her if she wanted to join us as we moved like climbing squirrels. Not a chance.

I hear the mill wheel, ti-ki-ti-ki-ta-ka. I hear the mill wheel turning. …

She always only watched. I would ask her if she wanted to join hands to play the circle game with us. Same response…

Even the Hoberman’s sphere, most disarmingly engaging of all my toys, did not tempt her. See the bubble it grows and grows…. POP went the bubble all over my nose. “Do you want a turn?” She would always shake her head “no,” and withdraw.

Months passed. Her responses changed little. I always included her as I passed out the toys. I sang and chanted the individual patterns to her from a safe distance, although the other children clamored to sit near me for their patterns. She always watched in silence, withdrawn deeply into the safety of her table cave. But she always watched – and listened.

Melanie Emerges

Eventually, late in the spring, she began to accept the toys into her cave; and later, to carefully return them to the collection baskets. By fall she began to lean toward me from her cave when it was her turn for individual tonal or rhythm patterns, and I can still remember the day that she finally emerged to gracefully glide around the room with her scarves during a listening/movement game.

She looked the part of a trained ballerina almost from the first day she emerged, creating wonderfully contextual movements – some that you might even call precocious for a 4-year-old. And when she finally began to sing, it was with clear precision and with eyes that were focused only on the sounds. Gradually, cautiously, she modulated into our world.

Somehow, by three years old she had learned that there is great risk in our world, and she had withdrawn into her caves. Thankfully, she eventually emerged from her music class cave and we met a lovely child.

Caves, Caves Everywhere

As music teachers it is easiest to teach the Laurens of our world - high aptitude and intelligent children who just get it from the start. But many of our children maintain their own special types of personal caves. I see them in 2^nd and 5^th grade music classes, Jr. high choirs and high school orchestras. I also see them in my college aural skills classes and instrumental groups. Somewhere between those heady days of infant counterpoint, 1-year old pumpkin faces, 2-year-old slide whistle improvisations – and today, many learn that it is best to withdraw when the music becomes personal.

Musical expressiveness can hide in a hundred caves, and creativity hides with it. Whether caves of fear, suspicion, ignorance, anger, immaturity, confusion – or whatever; we all try to help the children emerge. We attend symposia and workshops. We fly the experts across the world to teach us their methods and show us their curricula.

Fields of Joy

Doesn’t this seem just a bit peculiar to you? … peculiar that we require symposia and workshops and methodologies and curricular materials … that careers are grown and reputations built on the ability to bring expressiveness and creativity back to life? Somehow, that which should be most natural in our classes has become the holy grail. But we do all that we can to help make it normal again.

I can think of no truer measure of community well being, for it is essentially a child’s sense of freedom and security that is on display during those musically creative moments.

1. Infant Musicality, http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754665069

Freedom to Freely Exchange Ideas

ECMMA’s 2014 convention featured a wide range of systems of practice within the ECMM community. Ken Guilmartin with Music Together, Carol Penney with Kindermusik, Jill Hannagan with Musikgarten, John Feierabend with First Steps, Mary Ellen Pinzino with ComeChildrenSing Institute, Eric Rasmussen with Music Learning Theory, Suzi Tortoro’s movement strategies… all presenting contrasting ideas.

There was no war. There were no visceral exchanges. There was harmony.

Whether your preferences go toward Brain Gym, Aardvarks, or Making Music, Praying Twice; early childhood music and movement practitioners choose their content based on their own personalities, comprehensions, and preferences. And I have yet to see a child who has been harmed by a music class.

Most impressive to me was the fact that most of our presenters chose to attend one another’s sessions – even to cooperate. I recall seeing Jill Hannagan playing at the piano in the background as Carol Penney prepared for her general session presentation this past summer in Atlanta.

The best pedagogical events are ecumenical, and ECMMA does this best.

Freedom to Worship – Or Not…

One of the great surprises that I encountered when I first became involved with ECMMA was the large number of teachers who are teaching in faith-based settings.

The first amendment to the United States constitution states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The great genius of that statement is in the vital tension between shall make no law, and prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This free exercise would include early childhood music classes – nicely unencumbered by governmental preferences.

You can see by my personal sidebar information that I teach at a Baptist institution. Even a cursory study of our doctrines will show that, to the Baptist, religious liberty can only mean total freedom to live and believe within the dictates of one’s own conscience. Belief is, and must be, personal – a concept that John Williams championed in Rhode Island in the 17^th century, and Isaac Backus in the 18^th century continental congress.¹ Consequently, in the United States (and in Canada), belief’s limits and bounds are defined by society’s greater good and safety, and not by a specific laity.

So what does this have to do with ECMM? Read Eve Kodiak’s posts, Becky Wellman’s posts, my posts, any Perspectives article, and see if you can find any evidence of governmental influence at the foundation of the ideas presented in the articles. Look at the wide range of content available to us as teachers. How many songs does our government prescribe in an effort to promote a particular belief system (establishment of religion)? One need not travel far to see how blessed we are in this.

So this Thursday when our family gathers around the table, we will sing and talk in freedom. This week we can all hope and pray for not merely tolerance – a particularly negative approach to differences, but for true freedom and respect to expand in influence throughout our world and for the future of the children we teach every day.

Happy Thanksgiving…

¹ John Adams and Robert Paine argued to retain religious taxes to maintain state supported churches such as the Congregational tax that everyone of every persuasion had to pay in Massachusetts in the 18^th century. The issue was finally settled when Backus and his delegation convinced Jefferson, Madison, and Mason of its importance.

So today I am thankful to live in the country that championed “the free exercise therof.” And I am glad to be counted with those who fought hardest for the strictest interpretation of that clause in our Bill of Rights – thereby providing the model for other countries who desire that all their people dwell together in peace, whether or not they choose to even practice a religious faith, and irrespective of any particular faith that they might choose to practice.

http://books.google.com/books?id=9es9WWz8Ac8C&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=baptists+in+the+continental+congress&source=bl&ots=dVPgNa7vZ3&sig=trCS1EUz96TPUMqlo0cqZU61AXo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8R1yVPnHNYfWoAT-joHACA&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=baptists%20in%20the%20continental%20congress&f=false

I had attended a Gordon certification workshop the previous summer, and at one point Dr. Gordon had described a 10-step sequence designed to help children develop necessary coordination skills for such activities. Dr. Gordon reported that he had learned the procedure from a friend, a movement specialist from the University of Michigan named Phyllis Weikart, after which it had become a regular part of his presentation. So I walked Jason slowly through the ten-step procedure.  After only 10 minutes, Jason was rocking and patsching nicely. With tears in his eyes, he told me that he had never before been able to perform such activities with his classmates. This had been a source of frustration and embarrassment his entire life.

I made a point to teach the 10-step procedure to the entire class, and I have used it ever since with my aural skills classes. There are always students in my college classes who, like Jason, lack the coordination skills to move to the beat. Unbeknownst to her, Phyllis has been helping my students now for over 18 years – and I am certain that she helps countless other students through teachers who she has never yet met.  (who or whom?)

Hall of Honor Inductee

This is why I was so delighted when the ECMMA board of directors decided to induct Phyllis Weikart into the ECMMA Hall of Honor this past June at their biennial convention in Atlanta. She was kind enough to attend the convention to accept her award, allowing all in attendance a chance to get to know her personally. I was especially delighted when she agreed to participate with me for this interview at her Brecon Village home in Saline, Michigan. 

The Interview

We met in a quiet alcove, and talked for over an hour. Her conversation was filled with pedagogy and movement philosophy, although she retired from The University of Michigan in the mid-1990s, and I found myself taking more notes for use in my methods classes than for this article. I could see why Dr. Gordon always spoke so highly of her. I could have stayed for hours.

Of her time spent with Gordon, she states that “He just didn’t realize how much simpler he needed to go. One thing at a time - then put it together.” Sounds like Music Learning Theory, doesn’t it. And Dr. Gordon admits that before meeting Phyllis, he had just not thought to apply the same concepts to movement during rhythm activities.

Movement and Music

Phyllis teaches us that movement is the base for musical comprehension and understanding – for using music, because anytime we do anything except sit and sing, we are moving. She states that if we do not understand the sequential basis for our movement, then we will be jumping around too much pedagogically.

But not only music, she explains. Movement is the base for many things – physical education, sport and game, math, language, helping the understanding of all academic subjects – movement can be brought into play in teaching each of these endeavors. Asking five children, for example, to group themselves into as many pairs of combinations (1+4, 2+3, 5+0) can be much more beneficial for learning than merely showing the concepts with objects or on a board.

When asked if she had worked similarly with other disciplines besides music, she stated that she has worked with math and language concepts with movement in elementary classrooms and in elementary teacher workshops. Music teachers, though, have kept her busier.

Her early work with music came when she asked Sue Lawson, an elementary Kodaly music teacher in the Ann Arbor, Michigan public school district, if she could come to one of her music classes and work with students. (It was second or third grade.) Phyllis was aware rhythm instruction often involved, as she states, “going to the rhythm of the words for young children. OH, I just cringe when I see this. It destroys the beat!” she says adamently. Her early work with the schools and with gifted and talented teen-agers at Phyllis and husband Dave’s summer camp expanded to Phyllis’ eventual development of a folk dance curriculum, and to her widely acclaimed teaching strategies for folk dance.

Her folk dance teaching methods are now available to all of us from HighScope Educational Researth Foundation on a user-friendly set of CDs and complimentary instructional DVDs. I use this series every year with my early and middle childhood methods classes, and it is always a highlight of their year.  HighScope Foundation is a highly respected early childhood learning center in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which, through the years, has developed its own branded early childhood curriculum and instructional materials – including a movement and music curriculum (Education Through Movement: Building the Foundation founded by Phyllis).

David Weikart, Phyllis’s husband, with Phyllis’ assistance, first started the HighScope Camp and Conference Center in the 1960s and David founded the HighScope Educational Research Association in 1970 and remained as the President into the 1990s. Phyllis became involved with early childhood music and movement through her involvement with the HighScope Foundation, where she served as movement director during that time frame. She also presented a series of workshops and conference sessions during those years, and taught as many as three, 2-week workshops every summer for hundreds of music and movement teachers. Her influence is still felt worldwide, as most of the current generation’s early childhood movement specialists reference Phyllis’s influence in their own contemporary publications and practices.

Expanding The Mission

I asked Phyllis to explain what, deep down, motivates her to develop and maintain such extensive work in movement. “It is all in the interest of helping children become successful,” she said. And it is not only about children, but people of all ages. She also discussed aesthetically sensitive infant and prebirth movement practices that involve a mother or caregiver patting or moving in aesthetically sensitive, expressive ways.

And at the other end of the spectrum, she developed adult programs, citing that she could not help everybody unless she also tried to help the adults – just as I was able to do with Jason in my college class. She reports that she has developed ways to help people who are uncomfortable with their bodies to get more comfortable with their bodies.

Phyllis and her oldest daughter, Cindy, teach movement and exercise classes at Brecon Village.  Cindy’s class is entitled Exercise to Music. Cindy teaches the class three times per week.   Phyllis participates and substitutes for Cindy  when necessary.  Some residents exercise both seated and standing behind their chairs, while others stay seated throughout the class. They are taught warm-up and stretching activities, and they perform simple movement patterns sitting and standing. In addition, Phyllis solos with a Sunday evening session titled Moving to Music. Anybody who wants to come is welcome.  

Coda

I always come away from these interviews with a heightened sense of the richness that is available to us in our retired teaching population. Speaking with Phyllis was one part friend making, and one part personal seminar. Many of the great leaders who have brought us to where we are today are available and willing to continue to share with us in this same manner. We must never hesitate to ask for their wisdom. There is usually a wonderful story to be told.

I hope to see Phyllis again, and I especially hope others will make their way to her door to gain from the riches that she has to offer – both personally and professionally. It is we who are enriched by our efforts to engage our retired teachers.

She told me that she was deeply gratified by her induction into the ECMMA Hall of Honor. But it is also ECMMA who is honored by her induction. This is the way it is supposed to work, isn’t it?

Following, you can see the interview that Jan Vidruk held with Phyllis at the end of the ECMMA Convention in Atlanta. Enjoy getting to know both ladies.

Most difficult to nail down, Dispositions (attitudes, habits, opinions) will take a bit longer. First, we have to agree on a definition for this most subjective of the competencies. Secondly, and most difficultly, we have to decide how we will objectively assess these dispositions. Students cannot be aware that they are being assessed, or what looks like a good disposition will often amount to no more than an act. We are making strides, but it will be a long time before there is unanimity on the matter.

So I’ll wade into the topic, offering my opinion of the most important disposition required of a master teacher – Humility.

Humility: The Greatest Disposition

If one would be a great teacher, then I believe that having the heart of a servant must balance all the knowledge and skills brought to the classroom every day. And why do I say this? Try to teach without a servant’s heart, and you will soon discover that you have irritated your coworkers, frustrated your administrators, alienated your school parents, and perplexed your students. But a servant’s heart does not develop in isolation. It is sustained by humility.

I hope you will read Eve Kodiak’s post Parenting Without Judgment as a partner to this post. (My idea to "partner" - not hers.) Perhaps you could go there first, then return to this article, because she says much of what I want to say as a preface to my thesis – the importance of humility in the classroom.

Eve’s article addresses the antithesis of humility – judgment (actually, judgmentalism), and does so with great sensitivity. (Did you expect me to propose pride as humility’s antithesis? …Sometimes it can be, but not necessarily so.) Believing that most concepts are best understood in contrasting pairs, I was very pleased to discover Eve’s article just as I was beginning to consider and formulate ideas for this article. At the end of her article, when she discusses “our basket of misery” that often feeds a harshness in our interactions with children (and others), she is perfectly describing the judgmentalism that I am proposing as being the opposite of humility – because true humility is never about us. I am not merely saying that we self-subjugate or self-repress self-centeredness and self-awareness. Indeed, they are not in the room at all.

How Does Humility Look?

How does it look?

Really, it does not look like anything. It is one of those heart- and spirit-based characteristics that feeds our actions in the best, most natural, ways. Having said this, it is also true that very self-centered people can learn to simulate humility by reading books and online lists, and by attending conventions that address “how to succeed” or “EQ” strategies. The smarmy demeanor that so often accompanies faux-humility unfortunately becomes what many of us envision humility to be. But our students and colleagues know better.

One Good Human Example – Robin Williams: Humble Teacher

Yes, Robin was a great teacher. One may argue that Robin was just acting in Dead Poet’s Society and Good Will Hunting. Keep in mind, though, that an actor of Robin’s stature could pick his roles. And an actor of his talent brought much of himself to those roles. Fortunately, his classroom was larger than yours and mine are. And we all knew that he was a genius performer. What we did not realize, but what we ended up hearing from those closest to him, was that he was also the humblest of persons.

Imperfections? .…  Was he human?

Sadly, his imperfections were of a more public nature. And they were terminal. Little did we know…

But every testimonial this past week spoke of his good heart, his selflessness, his willingness to share of himself, his unwillingness to use his genius to hurt others.

His humility.

So I will let Robin share his own heart. In the following ABC interview with Diane Sawyer, he described his return from addiction.

The things that matter are others – way beyond yourself. Self goes away. Ego goes bye-bye…

Humility… Isn’t this why you are doing what you are doing these next few weeks? …this year?  …For your lifetime?

I think so.

Coda

One of his friends charged that, if we are to honor his memory, then whenever we feel that we might be going to that dark place where he ended his life, we must remember that the sun always rises in a couple days, and not follow in his dreadful steps. That would be a good legacy.

But most of us are not there. Without becoming too melodramatic, I would recommend that we can also honor his life by leaving Self by the wayside, and keeping our focus entirely on the needs others – teaching, helping, challenging, and often forgiving our students, parents, coworkers, administrators, communities. And then we should be able to reflect back to see that we have spent a good year, humbly serving those who we are called to serve.

And I promise that there will be a special joy in the reflection.

[The comments area is not working as usual, so please feel free to respond directly to me at rick.townsend@mbu.edu. Thank you, and have a wonderful year.]

But conventions are not only about new news. They are also about the old, the tried and true – about reaffirmation, re-acquaintance, and sometimes even reconciliation.

Jan Vidruk

I wish everyone could know Jan. Twice an ECMMA past president, and a significant influence within the ECMMA board for over 20 years, Jan Vidruk is one of the names that new arrivals at conventions become familiar with right away. The ever-gracious hostess, she makes wonderful, meaningful gifts for the biennial raffle drawings, and provides a welcoming presence for all who arrive at the 3-day culture that is the biennial convention. Need an encouraging word? Jan has it. Need some sage advice? Look no further.

This year, Jan cycled off the board for the first time since I have been involved with ECMMA, and while I know that there are many new, exceptional people still serving on the national board, I still cannot help but feel that there is a piece missing that will never be replaced. Whenever a bit of wisdom or a piece of quality advice was needed, eyes turned to Jan, and I cannot recall ever being disappointed by her reply. Sometimes, it was a simple phrase…

Feed it to the goat.

Warm Hearts and Cool Heads

Early Childhood Music and Movement has had many good moments since the 1980s when it began to grow into a prominent educational movement. But, as with every growing child, there have also been some real growing pains along the way – some of which would boil to the surface during my six year stint as ECMMA’s managing director. None terminal, rest assured, but growth is change, and even good change such as we have witnessed in ECMM through the years always involves some bumps and bruises. Now and then, when challenges would arise or when individuals would disappoint or frustrate our efforts to provide quality opportunities for ECMMA membership, Jan would advise us all: Feed it to the goat. I doubt that the phrase needs explaining, but it is a known bit of folklore that goats will eat just about anything (hence, Bill Grogan’s goat coughing up those three red shirts from off the line).

Implied in Jan’s phrase is the idea that sometimes we just have to let offenses go – forgive and forget, a very difficult skill for most of us, and nearly impossible when the stakes are high, opinions are strongly held, and rancor is allowed to fester for a season. But Jan has always been around to remind us that the real stakes (our opportunity to influence children and families for the better good of all) are far more important than any personal or professional injuries that we may temporarily endure.

Any.

And it is amazing how healing it can be to unilaterally let go of offenses – with no expectation of reciprocation, even if (especially when?) the forgiven responds like a numbskull. Lights go on, cool winds blow, and peace settles on the forgiver.

So I can think of no more important advice than Jan’s. Holding onto some useless trash? Feed it to the goat. Has it festered for months?, years?, decades? What a relief it is to release one’s self from its grip.

Lots Of Full Goats These Days

The 2014 Atlanta convention was a seminal time for ECMMA and for the ECMM movement in general. For the first time ever, the stage was shared by the most prominent vested entities, some of whom have had little reason or opportunity to interact with one another in past years, until this ECMMA convention finally made it happen.

Understand that we are not exactly talking about Twelve Angry Men. These are wonderful folks. Joyce Jordan DeCarbo set a perfect tone in the Keynote Address, and Suzi Tortora set the stage with a wonderful opening presentation in dance therapy. Then came our methodology providers, building upon one another's ideas in perfect harmony. (Alphabetically) First Steps (John Feierabend), Kindermusik (Carol Penney), Music Rhapsody (Lynn Kleiner), Music Together (Ken Guilmartin), and Musikgarten (Jill Hannagan) were represented in general sessions, with Come Children Sing Institute, High Scopes, GIA’s MusicPlay, and The-Music-Class all sharing space in workshops and exhibits.

And the convention's theme Grow in Harmony had been fulfilled.

Common Ground and Shared Purposes

Nothing quite like this had ever happened before under one roof, and the fresh breezes that good people can collectively generate were strong in the house for three solid days. Everyone, and especially the rank and file in the room, loved what they saw happening throughout the three-day event. People of good will always welcome songs of peace and bonding. And everyone was singing the same songs. Together.

The various speakers listened to one another’s general sessions, attended breakouts, and skillfully built on one another’s messages. It was refreshing to see so many pulling in one direction, although still obviously competing fiscally and methodologically in the real world to which they invariably returned on Thursday. And they will continue to compete hard and well, enhancing their respective strengths. Everyone will benefit.

The Common Theme: A New Day

So now we move forward with a new board, entering what will now become a 2-year celebration of ECMMA’s past and future – culminating in a 30^th anniversary celebration at the 2016 convention in Salt Lake City. I am excited to think about this upcoming season of observance.

But I am most excited to think about what might happen in 2016 and beyond.

Pace e bene.

Interviewing Joyce was a special delight, as has been the case with each of my recent interviews with our upcoming convention speakers. Joyce’s rich range of real-world experiences should connect with practically everyone with whom she comes in contact.

Joyce grew up in humble setting. Her mother grew up on a farm, working in the fields and taking care of family needs. Her father, a very bright man who had completed only grade school, became a tool and die maker and an engineer through on-the-job training.

Neither of her parents were musicians, but her father loved music, and made sure that Joyce was able to have piano lessons as early as 8 years old.  Joyce reports, however, that her early music experiences were only modestly successful because of inadequate music teachers and training. Her mother also took her to dance lessons, which she greatly enjoyed and considered these experiences very successful and rewarding.

Her formal education included a B.A. in music performance from Brescia College (now university) in Owensboro, KY; a Masters of Music in Music Education from the University of Cincinnati, and a Ph.D. from Kent State University.

Brescia had a very small music program. She practiced several hours every day, while never feeling that she was progressing as well, technically, as she desired. Upon graduation, although she had earned a liberal arts degree in music, she did not have a music education background and felt unprepared to teach. So she enrolled in the masters program at the University of Cincinnati to earn a degree in music education. In 1969, while completing the master’s degree, she signed on for her first teaching position – a public, inner-city school in Cincinnati.

She candidly reports that this did not go very well, being neither technically nor socially prepared for the task at hand. Early in the year she developed polyps on her vocal chords, returning to the classroom after a 6-week recovery period. But upon her return, she immediately developed what she describes as a psychosomatic illness causing her to be unable to speak – and was out for nearly 9 additional weeks. She finished the year but, thankfully, a friend encouraged her to apply for an elementary general music position in a neighboring suburban school district in Blue Ash, Ohio. Blue Ash was a middle-class school district that provided greater classroom stability and a more natural place for Joyce to develop as a young teacher. She continued to teach in Blue Ash from 1970-1976.

Soon after her arrival in Blue Ash, she realized that they had no organized general music curriculum, meaning that she was free to propose her own program. Having a background in Orff at the time, she developed a five-year fiscal plan to purchase and develop a strong Orff program in the school. Fortunately, her administration approved a budget of $1000/year for five years to purchase equipment and curricular supplies.

Her teaching began in 1st grade, but she soon realized that children moving from kindergarten to the first grade had already developed some very bad vocal habits. She decided if they were to develop appropriate aural and singing readiness for her elementary curriculum, they needed to be part of the school music program. She reports that it was like moving Fort Knox. Finally, after meeting with the superintendent, she was allowed to teach both kindergarten classes.

This was her first experience with early childhood music. Joyce inherited no early childhood curriculum, so she was free to create her own curriculum. Once again, she is candid in reporting that it did not go very well at first – either technically or in terms of classroom management. She began attending as many music training sessions and conference workshops as possible in an effort to develop strategies for managing behavior and enhancing children’s musical and movement skills.

Taking It To Another Level

During the final three years at Blue Ash, the administration asked the teachers to write a curriculum that they felt they could live with. The Blue Ash music department took an entire summer to write a comprehensive curriculum.  This experience, she reports, was challenging but fun, and provided consistency across the three elementary schools.

Joyce now felt that she was ready to move ahead with her professional development, so she left Blue Ash, packed up everything, and applied for an assistantship at Kent State University to earn a doctorate in music education. Although she had developed some savings during her years at Blue Ash, Joyce reports that after the mover left off her belongings, she realized she had little money. In spite of what she calls "her naivete," things just seemed to work out. The sacrifices were worth the tremendous education she received at Kent State.  It seemed that achieving personal professional goals outweighed the finances, and those piano lessons really did help out in the long run. She was able to attract around 20 private piano students and maintained them for the four years she was in graduate school.  That income, along with the graduate stipend, and house sitting, kept her afloat.

Because of her past classroom experience, Joyce was assigned to the Kent State University lab school and continued teaching for three years while taking classes. She also supervised all elementary general music student teachers. It was during these years that her research interests were able to grow and mature. She had always enjoyed reading the Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME), and finally was learning about research design, and how to interpret journal articles.

Eventually, it was time to write the dissertation. In the last year, students had fewer responsibilities, allowing them more quality time to work on the dissertation. At Kent State, she had been introduced to the ideas of Edwin Gordon and was fascinated with the information she was finding on auditory discrimination. She utilized some of his pattern ideas in a study with five year old children. She has, incidentally, continued developing ways of adapting Gordon’s ideas to early childhood music and general music throughout her career as a teacher and professor.

Kent State's Other Contribution

Soon after arriving at Kent State, she met Nick, a young band director from Youngstown, OH, and who was also pursuing a music education doctorate. They married two years after they met, and continued their degree work while married – often taking classes together. Though she reports that they struggled financially, they were both able to complete their degrees, and soon found themselves seeking higher education positions that were very scarce. This was a different recession from the one we are now experiencing, although the end result was the same—a severely reduced job market. The 1980 recession was characterized by gas shortages resulting in long lines at increasingly expensive gas pumps, and interest rates that reached 20% in 1979. These rates virtually shut down the housing market, along with everything related to it. Nearly everyone was significantly affected by the poor economy of the early 1980. The DeCarbos were no exception.

Holding two PhD degrees, they were forced to seek temporary jobs that might pay some bills until they could find openings in higher education. Joyce’s contribution was as a receptionist at a telephone company, where she eventually became a trainer for new employees. Nick was eventually accepted as a sabbatical replacement in music education at LSU, providing some financial stability and direction.

Life turns on a dime, though, and their turn came in the form of a phone call from Dr. Terry Kuhn, a former professor at Kent State, reporting that Professor David Boyle was looking for someone to fill a tenure position at the University of Miami. Nick was offered, and accepted the position, and Joyce immediately began looking for a teaching position in the Miami area. But the DeCarbos were to receive one more surprise. Just weeks after arriving in Miami, the department also invited Joyce to fill an open position in music education, a position that she held for two years as an interim professor before it was eventually solidified as a full-time position.

And the rest is history. Both Joyce and Nick are retired after 30 years at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, both having contributed uniquely to the growth and development of music education. Nick retired as associate dean and Joyce as chair of the department of music education and music therapy. Joyce’s particular research interests have included movement for young children, rhythmic and tonal development, developing aural discrimination skills in preschool age children, and developing listening skills through classical music. The focus and result of all her research culminates in one rich affirmation – finding that quality music teaching really does make a significant difference in the lives of young children.

Joyce is pleased to report that she was able to ride the wave of changes occurring from the 60s into the 21^st century. While other’s writings have provided good information throughout the journey, most of what she learned was achieved from experience. "We are so much like children in this respect," she states.  "As teachers, we only create an environment for learning. We do things with children and allow them to experiment with singing, listening, making music, playing instruments, dancing, and creating. They will learn in spite of themselves. When children can’t do these things, it’s not that they don’t have the ability, it’s because there is a gap in all that experience building that starts in the home and continues in the preschool years. Be patient with all learners and move each one along as best you can. You might see them grow and you might not.  But if you did your job, believe, that given that experience base, they will all eventually be music participants at some level. That is the goal and that will keep music alive in a world where many give little value to our precious arts."

Epilogue

Audrey Sillick once told Joyce that the only way music (and art) will survive is if children experience it positively in the preschool years.  It becomes a part of them to such a degree that they cannot live without it as they grow into adults. Joyce is more convinced today than ever that Audrey was right.

Joyce’s special joy, today, is in reflecting on the six years (3 years with ages 3-5 year olds, and 3 years with birth-3 year olds, between 2005 – 2011) during which she and Joy Galliford developed and tested a curriculum designed for early childhood classroom teachers to use and deliver in their regular classrooms. She reports that it is very difficult, but satisfying, to give teachers the capability to teach their own early childhood music classes.

It is said that we are a part of all with whom we meet. Those who have an opportunity to meet Dr. Jordan this month in Atlanta will, no doubt, receive a lifetime’s worth of benefit.