Notes To Words Game

Image via Wikipedia

In my jr high band class I still have a few students who are struggling with note names and so I have been looking for fun ways to have repetition in learning the note names with out loosing the attention of the students who have a strong grasp of them.

I have known since I was a kid if you play a game or even call something a game it makes it a lot more bareable. I found in my supplies left over from previous teachers note name bingo so I decided to give it a try. If nothing else it was repetition. To my somewhat surprise the kids actually seemed to really like it but there was one problem. The bingo boards that I have had the names of the notes right on them. This may be good for true begginers but these kids are at the point hat they should be able to see the note and be able to name it without help.

So after a couple rounds of note name bingo I decideed it was time to change it up a bit. So I had the kids break up into small groups of two or three. This way some of the studnets who do have a good grasp of the notes could help hose who do not. When they split up I gave them an empty grand staff and told them to come up with as many words as they could using only the letters in the musical alphabet. Then I had them come back together as a class and with each group going one at a time they would have to write their word on a grand staff on the board. If there was more than one letter in a word they had to use a different place on the staff to write it and between all the groups you could only use a word one time. When a group runs out of new words to use they are out.

After we were done I thought of an idea to give the teams a poin per letter used to encourage the students to use bigger words and if you don't want he game to go forever require that they can only use the root of a word and not multiple tenses of the first word.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be the originator of this game, I am sure there are multiple renditions of this and similiar games.

What do you play in you class to help keep learning music new and interesting?

The Pep Band Effect

This blog is moving to http://choirteachers.wordpress.com

Image by mhaithaca via Flickr

I just read a great post from Doug Butchy over at

Confessions of a Band Director

on the Marching Band effect. I agree with what he already wrote and I am just piggy backing off of it here.

I teach at a small school and I have to do a similar thing with my pep band. Because most of my High School band is on the Football and Volleyball teams I do not have many people to be in the pep band so I have had to recruit from the middle school. I admit pep band music is not that hard but it is harder than what they are used to and the students nearly always rise to the challenge. And most importantly I agree with Doug that the level of their musicianship over the long haul jumps greatly.

If I could add one more reason a 4th reason if you will, I think it is also because of the 10,000 hour rule. If you have read Outliers by Malcom Gladwell that will makes sense if not I recommend it, its a very good quick read. In short the 10,000 hour rule boils down to if you want to master something you have to spend 10,000 working on that thing or in this case practicing. By giving the students a challenge to perform above their level we are also asking them to spend the extra time working on this music and practicing it to get their. By practicing more than they normally would out of necessity. The more time they spend practicing their instrument the better they get, simple.

Hopefully I can remember this concept in all of my classes and continue to challenge my students to play above their skill level if nothing else to get them to have to practice more and in turn become better musicians.

Macy

Macy









http://www.cjcarrollphotographs.blogspot.com/

Glee

Image by watchwithkristin via Flickr

I have a couple of friends who are police officers, a couple who are doctors and nurses and I have often heard them talk about t.v. shows dealing with their proffesions and not usually with raving reviews. But never before has there been a T.V. show that relates to my proffesion, High School Music Teacher, until now.

I want to like Glee, I really do. I don't hate it even. But aside from it being overtly sexual for any age, let alone a High School Show, it is unrealistic.

I know it isnt supposed to be real. Neither is CSI or House but I don't really know that about those shows and I am a fan. But when I talk to people in those fields they say they are so unrealistic that its hard to watch. Well I am not to that point with Glee yet but it might not be too much longer till I get there.

What do you think?

Related articles by Zemanta

• 'Glee' on Fox is a Wednesday TV pick (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Broadway Star Morrison Leaps To TV With 'Glee' (npr.org)
• TV Review: "Glee" (popdose.com)
• 'Glee' Season Premiere Hits a High Note at Comic-Con (screenrant.com)

Where Does The Time Go... Help!

Image by ToniVC via Flickr

I do not know the last time I wrote a Blog. This is for a couple reasons.

First Reason

The first reason I haven't is that I haven't taken the time to do so. I think the worst excuse for not blogging is not having enough time. We all get 24 hours in hour day and what you do with that time is up to you.

Second Reason

The second reason I haven't blogged is because I haven't felt like I had anything of value to say. This also is a bad excuse because when I started this blog I had no intentions on trying to please other people. My intentions were to network with other music educators, share ideas and get help when needed. I am in the classroom Monday through Friday so if I am not coming up with anything to share with other music teachers I do not think I am doing my job well. But today I need Help.

But today I need Help.

I am now 5 weeks into the school year and less than a month from my first concert. I don't feel ready. In fact I lack so much confidence that I am working with administration on pushing back the concert a couple of weeks.

Image via Wikipedia

First Concert

If I leave the concert where it is we will have our first concerts of the year 9 weeks into school. This leads me to a ask a question of all you season veterans in music eduction.

"Question"

So in the words of Dwight Schrute, "Question".

How far into the year do you like to be before your first official concert? Also, how long in between concerts do you like to have?

PS22 Chorus - ABC NiteLine Interview

If you don't think Music Education is important then watch this and then reconsider. :)

This Is My Kind Of Cheesy!

What do you think? Will it take off? I like it but I am a music teacher :)

End Of The Year Reflections

Well I fell off the end of the earth well at least the blogging world. For most experienced music teachers I am sure they are well accustomed to the end of the year hecticness. This being only my second year I am still figuring out how much stuff I can and should plan. Is it easier to plan more because there are more opportunities or because you are more willing to show off a more experienced group.

In my first year I did a musical review with my choirs and a movie review with my bands. These were both fairly easy endeavors to tackle. Basically we prepared for them like we would any concert and then a couple days before we did a couple of dress rehearsals and the show was a success. Then we h

Image via Wikipedia

ad our final concert at the end of the year. So basically we had 3 performances in our spring semester.

This year feeling more brave after gaining you know "so much" experience I decided I should try a few more things in the spring semester. I think at first I felt like my kids needed to be challenged more and that they were getting bored with such a light load and thus I was loosing students and discipline was even slipping. Then it became a learning experience for me where I wanted to see what exactly I could do.

My plan for this years Spring Semester was to do a musical and a music tour. Too much? Go big or go home right?

Well lucky for me I believe I have some of the very best students to work with. The problem with deciding to do both of these things in one semester was that I decided late. In fact I don't think I officially committed myself until right before Christmas.

We decided on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and I found a script to do auditions with before

Image via Wikipedia

we even ordered it so that I could give the leads a jump on memorizing there lines over the Christmas break.

When we got back from break we started rehearsals. I had many great people from the community pull through and help me out in amazing ways. Being the only music teacher in my district there is no way I could have pulled this off without a ton of community support which we had.

While all of these preparations were going on we had to start fund raising for our MusicTtour that was happening 3 weeks after our production closed. Luckily AZ has tax Credits which helped us a lot and great principal who paid for all of our Musical including costumes so that everything we profited at the door we could turn around and use on our trip. This proved to be essential. We also hosted a Jon Schmidt concert to help raise money and sold Discount Cards. In the end about 2 days before we left we were able to scrounge up the final money we needed for our tour.

Jon Schmidt via last.fm

When I say tour I don't mean anything extravagant just a trip to Mesa, AZ where we watched Singing In The Rain at the Broadway Palms Dinner Theater, worked with Dr. Glenn Bennett at Mesa Community College, performed at an assisted living center and a mall, went to Golfland where we played minature golf, go carts, and laser tag, and swam in the pool at the resort we stayed in. Overall a great experience and one that I think will do wonders for recruitment.

By the time we were done with these two major events my kids were exhausted and uplifted. I had many great and encouraging talks witht the stud

Cover via Amazon

ents about how they realized how hard they worked to get ready for these things and how they also realised that this kind of hard work and preperation was neccessary for a successful event and most importantly how much fun it was when we could be proud of what we were doing.

Is this not one of the most important aspects of Music Education. If all kids and even adults could learn that one lesson do you think we would have such a sense of entitlement today. Personally I don't.

Well this last week we finally had our last concert of the year and I have to say in my to two years it was hands down our best concert performance wise. Every group showed remarkable and even noticable improvment from my fist year and the beginning of this year. The kids all had a great time and were proud of what they accomplished.

While I will admit that it is laughable to think that after two years we have made it, I know we still have a long way to go but I am glad to see that in my opinion we are headed in the right direction.

Now to make year three as memorable as years one and two. I have ideas on how I need to start now to assure that this happens but I will save this for a later post.

Congrats Graduating Class of 2009 you will be missed!

Playing For Change: Song Around the World "Stand By Me"

Most youtube videos are funny but occasionally you come across a great inspiring video. This is one of those must see videos! And what better promotion for music education.

LOVE STORY (Taylor Swift) meets VIVA LA VIDA (Coldplay) - Piano/Cello - by Jon Schmidt

We saw this live when he came to Joseph City it was one of my favorite songs of the night! We were even his first large audience that he played it for :) Pretty cool I thought. Check it out and even spread it along!

Tax Break For Teachers

Image via Wikipedia

Thomas L. Friedman wrote recently in the NY Times an interesting article about ways to stimulate the economy.

For those of you who are not familiar with Friedman he is most recently famous for his book "The World Is Flat" where he talks about outsourcing and how this leveling the playing field world wide. Very interesting book which I highly recommend.

In this article he say's "My wife teaches public school in Montgomery County, Md., where more and more teachers can’t afford to buy homes near the schools where they teach, and now have long, dirty commutes from distant suburbs. One of the smartest stimulus moves we could make would be to eliminate federal income taxes on all public schoolteachers so more talented people would choose these careers."

So might view this as a shot against teachers not being good enough as they are and so we need to recruit better teachers. I don't believe this is what he is really saying especially since he leads with his wife being a teacher but we have all seen quality teachers leave the profession becuase they were lured into more lucrative career options.

I believe most teachers are in this profession for the right reasons but sometimes finances make it hard to stay put. I think the tax break might be a good idea to help make life a little easier and Friedman may be right this is a better stimulus then giving free money to banks or the Auto Industry.

Here is his closing statement:
"Sure, we’ll waste some money doing that. That will happen with bridges, too. But a bridge is just a bridge. Once it’s up, it stops stimulating. A student who normally would not be interested in science but gets stimulated by a better teacher or more exposure to a lab, or a scientist who gets the funding for new research, is potentially the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They create good jobs for years. Perhaps more bridges can bail us out of a depression, but only more Bills and Steves can bail us into prosperity."

Songsmith

So I saw this video today promoting a new product, Songsmith, from Microsoft and while I have to admit at first I thought it was a joke. It looks a lot like something that is produced on the onion.

No it's not a bad musical either, even though it alludes to its aspirations to make the world a musical.

What do you think does this help us as music educators or does it make students lazy?

Personally if the songs are really as bad as these videos seem then I don't think we have a lot to worry about. But I am curious what everyone thinks.



http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/index.html

Related articles by Zemanta

• Microsoft Research announces Songsmith, make-your-own-song-from-vocals software
• Microsoft SongSmith: Paging Simon Cowell
• Mr. Microphone 2.0: Microsoft Songsmith Puts Even the Worst Lyrics to Music

Goals

Today in one of my choirs we had a goal setting day and this is what one of my students put on the board as we set our goals. We came up with the goals together as a class so that we were all on board from the start. Here is what we came up with. Most of you probably won't appreciate it as much as I do.

Notice the first goal... Have Fun :) haha


So I had to define FUN :)


Which led to one of my favorite quotes from my Dad.

The Next Goal... Respect
Who say's the pianist never gets any respect :) I'm so proud of my students.

That's right respect all around :)


I always tell my students that if they don't like a song then to keep it to themselves because they don't have the right to take away permission for someone else to like it.

Cause when we work together we got the right stuff.
Go Wonder Pets!


Ultimate Unity... They even want to go to the hospital with us when Alli has the baby.

Not sure they quite got the right message on this one.
I tried to explain how singers are actors too.

You like the rewards and consequences list?
My personal favorite... Public Humiliation.



I like the attachment to the reward of a brownie party.

We got a least one Dictator statement in :)

And by the end of the day this was our final product. I love my students. :)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Free Goal Setting Reminder Tool
• The real effectiveness of New Year's Resolutions
• Goals old and new
• Goal Setting Made Easy

Jon Schmidt

I just got the final word that we are officially bringing Jon Schmidt to perform in our little community. For those of you who don't know who he is, Jon Schmidt is a piano player but not your average piano player. He is a true entertainer. I have many young nieces and nephews who love to watch him perform and after leaving they are always inspired to practice their piano.

He is coming in for a very good rate which is going to allow us to sale tickets to help fund our music tour this year. If you haven't had the chance to see him in concert or even hear his music I highly recommend that you look into it.

Animoto

For those of you who have not yet discovered the greatness that is Animoto well now is your time, They are offering free memberships to educators. http://education.animoto.com/

Animoto is in their own words "the end of slideshows".

All you do is upload the pics you want for a slide show and pick a song to set it to and it does the rest.

Here is an example video I made earlier today:




http://education.animoto.com/

Related articles by Zemanta

• Animoto
• Animoto for the iPhone
• Animoto Brings Slide-Show Music Videos to iPhone
• Animoto - End of the Slideshows Era

Twitter

Image via CrunchBaseSo one of the things I am committed to doing this year is seeing what all the twitter fuss is about. So far so good - My username is kgard - Add me :)

I think this can be another great place to find other music educators and share ideas and resources with one another.

Here is a resource to help us find other Music Educators who are on twitter -
http://twittgroups.com/group/musiced

Official List of the 100 Music Education Bloggers

It is an Honor to be a part of this list. Please visit them today, congratulate them, and learn from what they have to offer as they do from each other and others like them.

THE OFFICIAL LIST OF THE 100 MUSIC EDUCATION BLOGGER CAMPAIGN 2008-2009:

1. http://www.mustech.net
   Dr. Joseph M. Pisano- MusTech.net
2. http://digitalmusiceducator.wordpress.com
   Owen Bradley -The Digital Music Educator
3. http://etobiasblog.musiced.net
   Evan Tobias- Catalysts & Connections
4. http://musiced.about.com/
   Espie Estrella -About Music Education
5. http://jamesfrankel.musiced.net/
   Dr. James Frankel- Music Technology in Education
6. http://weblog.siba.fi/msalavuo
   Dr. Miikka Salavuo- Music Education, Technology & Social Media
7. http://pwhitfield.edublogs.org
   Pete Whitfield- e-Learning for Music
8. http://www.musicedmagic.com
   Chad Criswell- Music Ed. Magic
9. http://jsavage.org.uk/
   Dr. Jonathan Savage- Jonathan Savage
10. http://musictechforme.com/
    V. Keith Mason- Music Tech. for Me.
11. http://tjweller.wordpress.com
    Travis J. Weller- Composing Like Mad
12. http://mystro2b.edublogs.org/
    Ken Pendergrass- Music is Not for Insects
13. http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/
    Joel- So You Want to Teach
14. http://stengel99.wordpress.com/
    Steve Engel- Music Ed. Lounge
15. http://fsharpbflat.wordpress.com/
    Linda Granite- Bb, F#
16. http://doublebassblog.org
    Jason Heath- Double Bass Blog
17. http://musicisfree.ning.com/
    Robert Brannan- The Music is Free
18. http://dvzmix.wordpress.com/
    Deborah Valdivia-Zwolinski- DVZ’s Mix
19. http://choirteachers.blogspot.com/
    Kyle Gardner- Choir Teachers
20. http://www.pauldraper.org
    Paul Draper- Draper’s Blogspot
21. http://johnwilborn.wordpress.com
    John Wilborn- John Wilborn’s Weblog
22. http://iknowithink.blogspot.com
    Leo Park- I Know…I Think
23. http://gluedtothestring.blogspot.com
    Stan Haskins- Glued to the String
24. http://musicedtech.wordpress.com
    Barbara Freedman- Music Ed. Tech.
25. http://tomrudolph.berkleemusicblogs.com
    Dr. Tom Rudolph- Make the Most of Notation Software
26. http://teachingthewirechoir.com/
    Dale Lewis- Teaching the “Wire Choir”
27. http://docandry.edublogs.org
    Dr. Kevin Andry-Dr. Andry’s Band Blog
28. http://sperham.wordpress.com
    Steffany Perham- Perham’s Prattlings
29. http://alexruthmann.com
    Alex Ruthmann- Alex Ruthmann’s Blog
30. http://www.beatechie.com/
    Carol Broos- Be A Techie:)
31. http://musicanthology.org
    Geejay Arrioloa and Jeffrey Langlois -Music Anthology
32. http://southiowamusiced.blogspot.com/
    Michael Compton -Southern Iowa Music Education Network
33. http://qachsband.edublogs.org/
    Eric Wright- QACHS’s Band Blog
34. http://alleyjazz13.wordpress.com/
    Alison Hulihan- Marching Music
35. http://rogerwhaley.blogspot.com
    Roger Whaley -The BandEd ToolShed
36. http://mgrondin.edublogs.org
    Martha Grondin-Artful, Tuneful, Beatful
37. http://percussioneducationonline.com
    Kevin Tuck -Percussion Education Online
38. http://www.musicteachersblog.com
    Janice Tuck -The Music Teacher’s Blog
39. http://bnceducation.blogspot.com
    Steve Raybould, Kriston Feldpausch -Band and Chorus PMS/PJHS
40. http://musicedshare.wordpress.com
    Kyle Krstolic -Music Education Share
41. http://musicedforall.blogspot.com
    Dan Leeman -Music Education for All
42. http://amymburns.musiced.net
    Amy Burns -Elementary Music/Music Technology
43. http://www.music.erinnwrobel.com
    Erinn Wrobel - Notes From The Mitten
44. http://dougbutchy.wordpress.com
    Doug Butchy - Confessions of a Band Director
45. http://studiobeemusic.com/mutech
    Rich Blenkinsopp - Studiobee Music
46. http://musicmiddleschoolandweb20.blogspot.com/
    Susan Hurst - Music, Middle School and Web 2.0
47. http://www.kirki.co.uk
    Dr. Phil Kirkman -Music Education and Technology Blog
48. http://tufsdblogs.org/winze
    Ann Winze- WI Orchestra
49. http://thirddivision.org
    David DeVoto - Third Division
50. http://collaborativepiano.blogspot.com
    Dr. Chris Foley - The Collaborative Piano Blog
51. http://bandguys.wordpress.com
    Matthew Pelandina and Mike Lewis - The BandGuys’ blog
52. http://tanbur.wordpress.com
    David French -The Music Education Blogspot
53. http://musicteachers911.blogspot.com
    Larry Marra -Music Teachers 911
54. http://www.pianoteacherblog.com
    Rebecca Brown -Piano Teacher’s Retreat
55. http://wordtogo.wordpress.com
    Steve Mugglin -Creativity and Songwriting in Music Education
56. http://totalmusiceducation.blogspot.com
    Greg Albing -Total Music Education
57. http://teachingmusicbs.com
    Ben Baker -Teaching Music
58. http://susanadavis.blogspot.com/
    Susan Davis -Music Technology Musings
59. http://www.howtopractise.com (yes it’s a “s”, it’s an English spelling)
    Mike Saville - How To Practise
60. http://www.free2create.com/blog
    Valerie Kampmeier - Free 2 Create
61. http://musicmattersblog.com
    Natalie Wickham - Music Matters Blog
62. http://theresawhite.edublogs.org
    Theresa White - Education In Music
63. http://africlassical.blogspot.com
    William Zick - Africlassical
64. http://discoverlearnplay.blogspot.com
    Eugene Cantera - Discover, Learn, Play (MusickED.com’s Blog)
65. http://mstrismusic.com
    Ms. Tris - MsTrisMusic.com
66. http://www.learn-theory-music.com/learn-theory-music-blog.html
    Julian Partridge - Learn Theory Music Blog
67. http://www.guitarticles.net
    Tennyson Williams - Guitar Articles.Net
68. http://creativekidmusic.wordpress.com
    Dan Thompson -Creative Kid Music
69. http://educacionmusical.blogspot.com
    Oscar - Educacion Musical - Music Education (Our first, in Spanish, ME Blog!)
70. http://rizzrazz.vox.com/
    Dr. Eric Rasmussen - Rizz’s Blog
71. http://reband.wordpress.com
    Mr. ReBand
72. http://www.techtempo.com
    Brenda Muench - Tech. Tempo
73. http://www.thomasjwestmusic.com/blog.htm
    Thomas J. West
74. http://musictech4ed.edublogs.org
    Andrew Spang -MusicTech4Ed
75. Click this link. (A very log blog URL…)
    Jon Ensminger -Pedaplus
76. http://techtoysandtunes.blogspot.com
    Richard McCready - Tech Toys and Tunes
77. http://downpressup.wordpress.com
    Derek -Downpressup
78. http://listenlearnmusic.com
    Rachel Rambach - Listen and Learn
79. http://jazzworks.wordpress.com
    Allan Perkins - Jazz Works
80. http://msgallant.edublogs.org
    Alexandra Gallant - The Misadventures of a First Year Music Teacher
81. http://www.acousticpath.com/blog
    Cameron Grant - Acoustic Path
82. http://musicteachercafe.viviti.com/
    Scott Ashby - Music Teacher’s Cafe
83. http://www.frogstoryrecords.com/player_journal.html
    Stever Carter - Frog Story Records/Player’s Journal
84. http://thirdstream.musiced.net
    Cary Stewart - Third-Stream Music Education
85. http://michiganstatepianopedagogy.blogspot.com
    Derek Polischuk - Michigan State Piano Pedagogy
86. http://fromthevoiceof.blogspot.com
    Elizabeth McDonald -From the Voice of…
87. http://urbanmusiceducation.org
    Sarah Johnston -Urban Music Education
88. http://musiced.jasoncrews.net/
    Jason Crews - Music Education Resource Blog
89. http://www.classicalguitarblog.net
    Christopher - Classical Guitar Blog
90. http://willie42.globalteacher.org.au/
    Andrew- Split Three Ways
91. http://mjsheetmusictips.blogspot.com/
    Marilyn Johnson - MJ’s Music Teaching Tips
92. http://www.musicteachershelper.com/blog/
    Brandon Pearce - Music Teacher’s Helper Blog
93. http://jeane-metroyo.blogspot.com
    Jeane Goforth - Scrollworks and Metropolitian Youth Orchestras
94. http://www.oparp.blogspot.com
    Dr. Robert Phillips - The Opinionated Arpgeggist
95. http://www.wikyblog.com/CynthiaWunsch
    Cynthia Wunsch - The Unlikely Entrepreneur (Click the Blog Tab)
96. http://mineoladrama.blogspot.com
    Joe Owens - MHS Theater
97. http://andyzweibel.com
    Andy Zweibel - Music Musings and Other Randoms…
98. http://musicschoolsbc.blogspot.com/
    Stephen Robb - Music Schools BC
99. http://paulbailey.us
    Paul Bailey - Paul Bailey’s Blog
100. http://edubuzz.org/blogs/alancoady/
     Alan Coady - Alan Coady’s Musical Blog

http://mustech.net/2009/01/01/a-bold-new-year-the-official-list

What The Future Holds

I ran across this the other day and while I am sure many of you may have already seen it I still think it is worth posting. I have discussed manytimes with my mother who is now in her 70's about how the world has changed so much from when she was in school but for the most part schools are the same. Its something to think about.