Sight Singing Assesments… ideas?

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Someone recently asked me how do I effectively assess my students’ ability to sight sing?

Well I must confess I don’t do any formal assessments but I definitely try to do in class assessments of my students abilities regularly. We have a sight singing book and some single line exercises from past regional auditions. Everyday we try to do a few examples before we get to the “meat” of the rehearsal.

The problem with the tests in my opinion is it takes too much time. After we have done an example as a class I try to have different students do the examples either by themselves in front of the class or if they are really struggling then with another student. So all the while I am assessing my students but not in any official way.

So I am asking for suggestions on a better way to do this and yet still not spend a ton of time on it either. All ideas are welcome 

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#stuffstudentssay

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Support the new twitter tag#stuffstudentssay

We all know that there are many times everyday that your students say something that you just want to share. So next time that happens jump on twitter, add the#stuffstudentssay tag and share it with all of us. Don’t use names of course but anonymous is good. 

Here  are a few twitter users/supporters

@dougbutchy @Zweibz7 @kgard @KFreesen

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Are Your Wireless Microphones Illegal?

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According to the FCC there is a good chance you are going to be using illegalwireless microphones unless you have purchased them recently.

The  FCC has banned the use of certain wireless microphones as thegovernment clears the way for moremobile devices.

These mics use the 700 megahertz (MHz) frequency band and have until June 12 to change the radio frequencyor buy new equipment, according to a Jan. 15 ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Go to the following article for more details: Wireless mic frequency change could affect schools

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Great Band Resource

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When I use Twitter I love it. (@kgardFollow me 
Recently I asked for help on finding good beginning level music and a couple people came to my aid.

@musicwms Sent me some great concert program she had done with some great options and also this link http://pdfbandmusic.com/ Check it out its got some great music on here and the song on the front page is FREE  Got to love that.

kylew pointed out a series called flex-band by Hal Leonard that is great for my small band that doesn’t always have the best instrumentation available.

Thanks for the great suggestions.

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ipad in Music Ed

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So what does the new ipad mean for music educators. Right now nothing. But the possibilities are pretty cool and it is fun to speculate about. I can see the day where every student is assigned an ipad like device, whether it is an “ipad” who knows but for the sake of argument well say it is. We could basically do away with text booksand most of our paper products in general, including sheet music.

This could be good and bad I guess but since were just having fun lets stick to the good.

- Prices of music could come down cutting out material/delivery costs.

- You could have instant delivery of purchased music.

Image by Tom Raftery via Flickr

- Publishers could update their material wirelessly, preventing errors.

-You could have music attached to some sort of software that could play aurally the notes for students.

- Kids would have this resource with them at all time

- Could send sight-reading examples directly to each students ipad.

- Music theory worksheets with instant feed back and tutorials.

These are just a few of the ideas I had right off. What benefit could you see?

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High Speed Rail and Music Ed.

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It may not at first sight look to have anything to do with music ed. But in my opinion this could be a pretty big deal. In my district the biggest cuts I have seen for me have been travel cuts.

I lived in Europe for 2 years where I did not own a car or bike or any other form of transportation besides my feet and guess what? I was able to get all over the cities  and even country I lived in whenever I wanted for very cheap compared to owning a car.

I am not a huge “we all need to go green” fan but I do think we should take care of our environment and if we can save a buck or two along the way then sign me up.

I know embarking on the unknown is always a tricky thing but when it comes topublic transportation we only need to look across the ocean. They don’t have it perfect but they have already done the testing for us. No we can take what they have learned and build an even better system that will help us cut costs here.

So in 20 years when I take my music tour I hope we are loading into a high-speed train to carry us to our destination.

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Technology and Classroom Distractions

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I have heard from more than a few people that we have to be careful whattechnology we allow into the classroom so they do not get distracted by youtube or Facebook or other distractions that can be readily found on computers.

Wow what an absurd thought that we try to shelter kids from ever being susceptible to a distraction. Why don’t we change this way of thinking to teach are kids that some distractions are ok if used properly and at the right time. In fact some of these so-called distractions could actually be great learning tools if used correctly.

So I for one say lets start teaching students and not shelter them. If we don’t teach them how to harness the internet then who will?

Besides I can have a kid turn off his monitor but I can’t make his home life better with the flip of a switch, which is more distracting than Facebook will ever be.  The student needs to be engaged to do that.

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3 Musicals at once are you crazy!?

Cover of My Fair Lady

I think I must be crazy. I have decided to pull off a musical for all 3 of the choirs that I teach this year. We are doing “Pirates! The musical” in my Jr. High Choir, “S’cool” the musical in my HS Honor Choir and “My Fair Lady“  for my audition choir is the only full-blown production of the three.

The jury is still out on whether this is a good idea or not.  Early on I actually think I like it. If nothing else my frame of mind gets to stay along the same line of thinking for all three groups.

Also, since 2 of the musicals are basicallyone-act plays and very simple costumes and sets it is actually a lot of fun. The students all want to be in the big musical but this is not possible so this gives everyone a shot to be a part of a musical.

Wish me luck 

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HELP! Band Teachers

Cover of Help! (Deluxe Edition)

HELP! Band Directors I need your best Easy Jr. High/Advanced Elementary Band Piece.

It’s no secret that I am first a choir director by choice and a band teacher by necessity. Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy band it’s just not my strong suit so I am coming to you for help. I have a band of 7th and 8th graders who have played for between 2 and 3 years.

They are definitely beginners but eager to learn and will work hard for me but here comes the hard part.

There are only 10 of them. I have 4 trumpets, 1 Sax, 2 Clarinets, 1 Flute and 2 Drummers.

Help I need good literature that will keep them learning and yet still feeling successful.

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If you post it they will come.

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I know it is way over used but what a great movie. Anyway, its true I tried a little experiment where I decided to just post a lot of my thoughts. I generally start a lot of blog posts but never post them because I was nervous to put myself out there unless I was sure what I had written was good and relevant. I decided to just post anyway and not worry what other people think. guess what I have more blog hits than ever before but even more importantly I have gotten more comments than ever before as well. This is why I originally wanted to blog anyway, networking/sharing ideas.

This is why technology is important in education. Broadening our networks to allow us to learn more. So get out there and let yourself be vulnerable its kinda fun. 

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Online Garage Band

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If you love Garage Band but you work at a school where budget cuts are much more likely than buying your class a mac lab full of the latest greatest software.

Then Myna is for you and me both! 

http://aviary.com/tools/myna

I have just started using it with my students this last week so I do not know all the ins and ours yet but so far I like it. It is a lot like Garageband on a Mac but not as advanced in many ways.  Though it does have a lot better choice of loops and is even linked with sound.com to get loops from. Or you can go to ccmixter.org and find loops that you can import in.

Right now with my class we are just learning how to work with and manipulate loops but soon we want to start learning to create our own content/loops.

Image via CrunchBase

We go to the school computer lab and access it there. And the kids that really take off with it are even accessing the same site and all their work from home. Got to love cloud computing. The one issue we ran into at first was not all the school computers had Flash 10 installed on them. So once that was taken care of we were off.

Oh and remind the students to bring headphones if your lab does not offer them, you do not want all those sounds going off at once.

Have fun and let me know how it goes for you.

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Morten Lauridsen/Pandora

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I love that I can hear the music of Morten Lauridsen and other great choral masters on Pandora Radio.

When I was in college my professor Dr. Glenn Bennett always told me that to really get how to direct a greatchoir you have to listen to great choirs.

The problem with this wasCD’s are not cheap and to tack that on top of college books it just didn’t happen as much as it should have. But now with Pandora RadioI can type in a composer or choir and listen to great choir music all day if I want.

Then I can even share what it is I am listening to, if it really strikes me, with others like this .

https://twitter.com/kgard/status/8328690517

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Snow Days

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Why do we love snow days so much? In my district the school plans a day towards the end of the year that if we haven’t yet taken a bad weather day then we get the later date off.

I love it! We are guaranteed a day off whether we have bad weather or not. 

But today as its snowing I look out and wish for a snow day. I would think I would rather have the day when its warmer and being able to plan for it but today  I am longing for a snow day.

Maybe I just love surprises like waking up to find out there is no school I don’t know.

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Pandora Radio

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If you haven’t already discovered Pandora Radio then your world is about to change whether you use it or not. In my opinion 

I truly believe that this is the start of the death of Radio as we know it. You have probably heard the song “Video killed the Radio Star“… not true… better said Pandora is killing the Radio Star. But luckily its actually called Pandora RADIO so it can live a little longer I guess.:)

I use to subscribe to Siriusradio because it had no commercials but with Pandora there is no reason and it takes things to the next level. Now you have endless radio station possibility’s because you just enter in a group or song that you like and it builds a playlist of similar songs. You can create as many “stations” as you would like.

Image via Wikipedia

And best of all – ITS FREE – with the spread of smart phones aka “Always having a connection to the internet” This is the new “Radio”

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Discount Cards Fundraiser

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Discount Cards Fundraiser

It’s not a Bake Sale, and if your anything like me this is a good thing. No that there is anything wrong with a good ole fashion Bake Sale but there isn’t much money it. Unless you got “Little Debbie” as one of your parents.

Last year I was approached by a company (to remain nameless) who wanted us to sell discount cards. They said for every card we sell for $10 we only owe them $3. This sounded like a great fundraiser. Most fundraisers I have seen don’t give a %70 return so we did it.

I loved the idea I didn’t love the result.

The company was very slow about getting us our discount cards so we didn’t get them until the year was almost over and by this time the community had been over saturated in school fundraisers and didn’t want even one more thing even if in the end it could save them money. The kids were done and didn’t have the motivation to sell either. Also, the company after the fundraiser was over was not happy with the level of our sales and tried to charge us $3.50 per card and then wouldn’t quit bothering me to get them paid back right away even though they were 4 months late on getting me my cards. Schools take a little while to process payment and they didn’t understand that fact. In the end I was none too happy with this business but we still pulled in a couple thousand dollars.

That’s right even with the negatives we still made a couple thousand dollars.

This year I have new plans! Needless to say I am not going through the same company again. Better, I am doing it myself.

Image by Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake via Flickr

I made up my own contract for business and went around myself and even sent out a few of my “better” students out to get business on the card. Within about 2 weeks I have 18 business for our Discount card.

I found a website that I could print my own full colored two sided Discount cards which are the same quality as your average Credit Card for a little over $200 for 1000 cards.    http://4colorprint.com

Found A High School Student that knew how to work Photoshop and she designed a beautiful card with a great graphic for our music Department.

We Sell the cards for $10 a piece and now we have a fundraiser that turns in over %95 profit – That is my kind of fundraiser.

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Iphone/Ipod/Android App For Your Music Dept.

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There is a cool new sitehttp://isites.us where for only $25 you can take your feeds that you already have and convert that into a Iphone/Ipod/Android App

I am in the process of making an app for my Music Dept. now, it has been submited to itunes and when it is up I will let you know how it works and if students are responsive or not.

What do you think about an app for your schools music dept?

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4th through 12th grades

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I teach 4th through 12th grades. This has proved to be most difficult in one respect. They all learn very differently. Can I teach them all? Yes. But can I teach them all effectively in one day. Now it gets difficult.

I have found that I tend to blur the way they learn between classes. After I just taught high school band and I have to teach 4th grade general music 10 minutes later I treat the one like the other. High school kids do not appreciate being treated like 4th graders and 4th graders do not respond like high school students.

It’s not all bad though I have learned that there are some similarities between the two even if they would never believe that. Also, I can’t blame the elementary teacher for not teaching them bad stuff or not good enough.

What is the hardest part of your teaching day?

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Broadway/Pops Concert

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How did I not think of this idea earlier. In fact I was given the idea in college but didn’t try it myself until this year.

I am hooked this will become a yearly tradition. Our First Concert will be a Broadway/Pops Concert.

I found that the kids get more excited over this style of music. I can still have them work on solos or even small groups and contrary to some peoples beliefs their is some really quality literature in this genre.

If nothing else the kids seem to buy into the program a lot faster this way and are willing to work hard because they get to have input. Later through the year I have added in different styles of music but the kids are hooked now so they jump right into it as well.

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