“Teaching Music through Composition offers a practical, fully multimedia curriculum designed to teach basic musical concepts through the creative process of music composition. Author and award-winning music educator Barbara Freedman presents classroom-tested ways of teaching composition with technology as a tool with which students can create, edit, save, and reproduce music. As Freedman demonstrates, technology allows a musical experience for all skill levels in opportunities never before available to compose manipulate, instantly listen to music electronically and even print standard Western music notation for others to play without having to know much about traditional music theory or notation. All students can have meaningful hands-on applied learning experiences that will impact not only their music experience and learning but also their understanding and comfort with 21st century technology.

Whether the primary focus of your class is to use technology to create music or to explore using technology in a unit or two, this book will show you how it can be done with practical, tried-and-true lesson plans and student activities.”

Click on the link below to see the cover and reviews and to order through Amazon.com.

For more information and to take a tour of the MusicEdTech online classroom, please click HERE!

To register, please click HERE!

At their website, Music Creativity Through Technology, Dammers and Williams make the case for the kinds of programs that have been emerging over the last 15 or so years (mostly in high schools) that give students without formal musical training hands-on musical experiences facilitated by technology.

Nick Jawarski’s popular post, “What we get wrong: An illustrated guide to our music advocacy mistakes,” continues this discussion with a wry, yet serious narrative using a series of amusing stick figure drawings. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth the trip!

Most recently, I came across Michael Albertson’s post, “Reconsidering the Traditional Band Program,” (Aug. 9, 2012) at his blog, Urban Education: Music and Beyond.

These, and similar voices in music education, assert that school ensembles only reach 20% of the students population, and that the kind of formal, concert art music taught in the conventional school music ensembles aren’t relevant to the other 80% of the students, who otherwise love music.

I don’t argue with either of these premises, or the idea that music educators should be always looking critically at the best way to use music to make a positive difference in their schools/communities and the lives of students.  In fact, I should point out that rarely in these discussions is the idea of eliminating school ensemble music posited (most of those participating in the discussion are products of these same school programs!).  But I would like to add two important points to the dialogue on this topic.

First, when our students were born, nothing was musically relevant or irrelevant to them. I first learned this many years ago when I noticed my own kids’ uninhibited love of all music. My son was just as likely to be found listening to a Wee Sing sing-a-long cassette tap as he was enjoying classical musicals such as Oklahoma or The Sound of Music on video.  I remember a time when I asked my daughter what her favorite “song” was and she replied “the Tomasi Trumpet Concerto” – I had been playing the Wynton Marsalis recording a lot recently and she liked to dance when it was on!  It wasn’t until middle school that my kids added pop music in earnest to their routine listening, and yet both continued with their varied, eclectic tastes (which they still do to this day at ages 20 and 22).  While it may seem obvious, general music education ostensibly reaches 100% of students up to a certain age/grade in most U.S. schools.

Second, I’ve always felt the best way to learn something is to do it…applied learning.  If you want to learn about music, you need to DO music – whether that’s singing, playing, composing, arranging, moving to it, etc.  And that is a major theme of my book, Using Technology to Unlock Musical Creativity (2011, Oxford University Press), which emphasizes project-based creative music learning, facilitated – of course – by today’s music technology.

For kids who do concert art music in their school’s band or chorus program, composers like Robert W. Smith or Eric Whitacre are rock stars of the highest order! The most serious students even study, listen to, and perform along with great YouTube videos of ensemble and solo repertoire. This great music becomes part of their sonic experience and is incredibly relevant to them.   I teach in a school district in which about half of all 4^th and 5^th graders in our eight elementary buildings play a band or a string instrument.  We’re teaching and reaching a large population in a significant way, via applied music…doing music.

I’m convinced that classroom and elective music should, similarly, emphasize applied, active, hands-on, music learning.  I know many teachers who do this and their students love them, and MUSIC, for it.  At any age, and regardless of musical background, there are great and compelling ways to engage students in recreating (performing) and creating (composing, improvising, arranging) music of all kinds.  When students are engaged in synthesizing musical concepts into higher-level creative activities and projects, they are more intrinsically motivated and the learning that takes place “sticks.”  I’m very excited about technology’s role in music learning because of its ability to “unlock” authentic musical creativity and its increasing accessibility (free or inexpensive, and simple to use).  I use Apple’s entry-level DAW (digital audio workstation), GarageBand, a lot in the Music Production class I teach at Parkland High School (Allentown, PA).  I love this program because it is easy/intuitive to learn to use and therefore allows me to spend most of my time working with students to understand experientially musical concepts such as timbre, texture, form, and much more.  The “flipped classroom” –  another trend in education in which teachers free up valuable class time for “coaching” students by delivering content outside of school (home, library, etc.) via the Internet (wikis, blogs, YouTube, other Web 2.0 tools, etc.) – facilitates project-driven curriculum nicely as well.  For a listing of Web 2.0 tools, especially those that foster musical creativity, click here.

Rather than a wholesale change in music education from ensemble-based to classroom/elective-based, I see the need for all music offerings to be compelling, vital, relevant, and with a significant emphasis on applied (hands-on, doing) learning that includes creating as well as recreating (imagine a language arts teacher who never had his/her students write!).  Furthermore, each school must consider its teaching resources (especially faculty) and students in determining the best way to engage participants musically.  In over 25 years of teaching and observing, I’ve seen over and over again that more than any other factor, the teacher makes the biggest difference in the success or failure of any kind of music program.  A strong, charismatic teacher can lead a kid from almost any background or demographic to find almost any kind of music relevant and compelling.  Usually, these kinds of teachers are great at gauging what needs to be done – both tweaks and major shifts – to the programs and offerings at their schools.  I smiled when I read in Michael Albertson’s blog how he’s creatively used pop and rhythmic elements in band as part of his efforts to establish the program at his urban school.

If a high school involves 15-25% of its students in traditional ensembles (band, chorus, orchestra) then it has something truly special that should be cherished, but so does a high school in which 15-25% of its “non-traditional” students take elective music (i.e. Music Production, Music Technology, History of Popular Music, etc.) or participate in some alternative ensembles (i.e. drum circles, mariachi band).

That’s why I think this discussion, giving consideration to how music educators can best reach all students, is very important. When teachers and administrators reflect on both the groups we want to reach and the mode with which we should teach them, we confirm the vital role music can and does play in our schools.

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Dr. Scott Watson is a veteran teacher, composer, and music technology specialist. His book Using Technology to Unlock Musical Creativity is published by Oxford University Press. Learn more at www.scottwatsonmusic.com.

For more information of the course, please visit the information page.

To register for the course, please visit the registration page.

If you would like to pay by check, register on the registration page by clicking on the red shopping cart, add your information and there will be an option to pay by cash or check. We’ll send you an email confirmation with details on how to pay by check or download the Registration Form Summer 2012.

Three (3) Graduate Credits

through Salem State University

Here’s the course calendar for the course beginning June 16, 2012.

The Accelerated Format delivers 10 Units over a 5-week period. The Course Weeks overlap Saturday through Wednesday and Tuesday through Saturday. One Unit is made available on Saturday morning by 8 AM. Participant’s assignments for this Unit are due by Monday (midnight EST) with responses to classmates assignments due Wednesday (midnight EST). Another Unit is made available Tuesday morning by 8 AM. Participant’s assignments for this Unit are due by Thursday (midnight EST) with responses to classmates assignments due Saturday (midnight EST).

This course will give you all the information and materials you need to teach an introductory course for secondary or college students including lesson plans, student assignment sheets, MIDI & audio files.

You’ll learn how to use GarageBand and how to teach your students to create music with GarageBand.

Participants can retrieve the course materials and assignments anytime after they are posted then complete the course work offline as their schedule permits within the course 5-week timeline. In other words, there is no specific time to be online.

Teaching Music with GarageBand includes:

• 10 Unit Course delivered asynchronously. Learn on your own schedule within the course weeks.
• All course materials to complete the course.
• Materials to use in your secondary classroom (grades 6-12) including eight (8) units of Lesson Plans, Student Assignment Sheets, audio, MIDI and videos files.
• FREE subscription to macprovideo.com for the duration of the course.

Click for more information on the online class.

Click to register for Teaching Music with GarageBand 

The newest course from MusicEdTech, Teaching Music with GarageBand is now being offered online. Course begins June 16, 2012 and runs in the Accelerated Format for five (5) weeks. Three (3) Graduate credits are available. For more information, click here.  To register for this course, click here.

Music Advocacy

Ariel Herzog presents 5 Steps to Learning an Instrument posted at Everything About Classical Music, saying, “This is a crucial article for musicians at any level.”

Music Education

Elizabeth Heist presents Small and Mighty posted at Music Education Highlights.

Joseph Pisano presents Public Attitudes Toward Public Schools and Using Pinterest for Curating Music Ed. Ideas, posted atMusTech.Net, saying “A quick post spotlighting to of the “web 2.0” projects that my undergraduates have created.”

James Crocker presents Ever wish your kid had an off switch? posted at Playing With Sound, saying, “This is a game for introducing preschool and kindergarten children to music-making for the very first time.”

John Kelleher presents Teaching pitch notation posted at Teacher and Musician, saying, “A blog entry challenging the way that pitch notation is usually taught.”

Alisha Gabriel presents Hogs in the Cornfield? the first song request! posted at Alisha Gabriel, saying, “One of the goals of my blog and website is to provide free resources for teachers who wish to utilize technology in their classrooms and a few suggestions on how they might incorporate the posted folk songs.”

Steve Hayes presents A Circle of 5th for Every Band Student posted at A Teacher’s Coda.

Mike Finkel presents Re-program Your Life posted at Discover, Learn, and Play – Kore Series Blog.

Craig Coggle presents The Benefits of Education Through Music posted at Maverick Music Teachers.

Music Pedagogy

Chris Cooper presents 3 Ways to Make the Warm Up Relevant for Students posted atCooper’s Divertimento, saying, “I hope you find this interesting. The books of Ed Lisk really opened my eyes to the major flaw of using the exact same warm up routine every day. This article details a few of the tactics I’ve used to provide a warm up that is structure, but still changes each day depending on the literature we’re working on. Enjoy!”

colcifer presents Time Signatures Aren’t Real posted at colcifer.

Christopher Jones presents Clarinet Left Hand Position posted at Clarinet Now Blog, saying, “Proper Clarinet Left Hand Position is very important to improving technique and having a chance at crossing the break smoothly. Clarinet playing is from the knuckles down, if you move your wrist (or wrists), you are in trouble as far as attempting to play the clarinet smoothly. Get a mirror and check this out and hopefully improve…”

Jessica Mullen presents Q & A with Dr. Amanda Pepping, Assistant Professor of Music at Georgia State University posted at Mullen Music Studio Blog, saying, “Band students from our surrounding area submitted questions for guest artist, Dr. Amanda Pepping.”

Music Technology

Samuel Wright presents Musical Ear posted at Wright-Stuff Music, saying, “A new program that integrates with Sibelius notation software for aural training, worksheet creating, singing, theory and more.”

Sarah Mayer presents iPad Reflections posted at Composing Music Education.

Other

Jonny presents 8 Advantages you gain from Playing an Instrument posted at Smart blog, saying, “This may seem like an unusual post, but it is definitively related. I discuss the advantages/benefits that you gain from playing a musical instrument. I wish you all the best for the future.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of music education blog carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Final date to submit an article for this March Blog Carnival is Sunday, March 4 at Noon. 

Session Handouts for 2012 Conference and Workshops

FREE Technology for Musicians and Music Educators: FreeTech HO

iPads in Music Education: iPad HO

Screen Casting for Content Delivery & Assessment: Screencasting Handout

GarageBand:  GarageBand_HO

Best Practice in an Installed and Laptop Lab: Lab Best Practices HO

I am honored to have been selected as the 2012 Mike Kovins TI:ME Teacher of the Year.

Each year, the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME) recognizes an outstanding music technology teacher at the annual TI:ME conference. This annual award called “The TI:ME Teacher of the Year Award” began in 2005. I am grateful and honored to have been recognized by my peers and be amongst some of the most outstanding music technology educators as a TI:ME honoree. Thank you to TI:ME, Amy Burns, President, Jay Dorfman, President Elect and Mike Lawson, Executive Director.

Many thanks to my colleagues for their support. Special shout out to Jim Frankel of SoundTree for his faith in me and encouragement and Joe Pisano for even starting the Music Education Blogger and the Music Educators Professional Learning Network (MPLN). A special thank you to my Connecticut partners in music technology,music technology pioneers, Walter Mamlock & Gail Lumpkin and co-TI:ME honoree Wayne Splettstoeszer. Thanks to my personal support team including Edith “Ish” Bicknel, editor, and Andy Zweibel, website and tech guru extraodinaire.

I am grateful to the Greenwich Public Schools for recognizing the importance of music education in all it’s permutations and the importance of technology in all subjects. Special thanks to GHS retired teacher Ann Modugno for starting the very first high school Electronic Music class in the country in 1969, Jeff Spector, Coordinator of Art & Music, Chris Winters, Head Master, Rick Piotrzkowski, Assistant Head Master, Fran Kompar, Coordinator of Educational Media and the IT department of the Greenwich Public Schools especially Scott Parker, Jen Vitiello and Tony Tripodi for making all the technology work all the time!

Although listed last here, they are first in my hearts, my family and friends. Thank you for all your support and patience while I spent many hours away either out of the house or staring at a computer screen. I am blessed.