In this job it is amazing how often I am in awe of my students! Yesterday and today I placed my first grade choir members into groups and gave them a set of Note Knacks. We had been singing “La” while dragging our finger across each block as a large group so that they could compare length of sound, as written in the Note Knacks Lesson Plans. With the boys on Monday, I modeled how to sing 2 consecutive sounds with a short breath in between.  After a few times of modeling this, a student said, “Can we put the blocks together without any spaces in between.”. I said, “Of course!”. I was very interested in seeing what he and the group would do. They sang it as one very long sound. When I put the spaces back in, they easily took a short breath in between.

Today, I had the first grade girls. I did the same lesson, but I didn’t model how to sing 2 consecutive sounds with a short breath in between. Instead, I divided them in half and told them that they would need to put 2 or more sounds together and sing them. I wanted to see what they would do. One group started with the gray block, then put both blue blocks next, then the 4 reds and so on. They sang it as one very long sound. When I asked what would it sound like if I separated the blocks a bit, they easily put a short breath in between without coaching. The other group didn’t necessarily place the blocks in a specific order, but they did exactly what the other students did: they sang one long sound when the blocks were touching end to end, but took a short breath when they were separated. They understood immediately the concept of ties without me showing them a single symbol in conventional notation.

This is knowledge construction at its best. When we allow children to be a part of the conversation, it is amazing what we all learn! It never occurred to me to cover the concept of ties. Typically we introduce it in the later grades, but why? One simple act of placing blocks next to each other with and without a space teaches the concept quickly and easily. It is one of those situations in teaching when the students look at you like “Duh!”. I love it! It is a reminder that we do indeed underestimate our kids. Instead of going into class with our iron clad agenda, it is always a better idea to see where the students take us. It is so much more fun that way!!

When educators think about a well balanced language arts program, writing is always included. Why don’t we think about this in the music classroom? Are we so intimidated by the greats? There is evidence to suggest this. (I wonder what Bach and Mozart would think about teaching composition to all, even if students did not show themselves to be musical geniuses.) I hear from workshop facilitators all the time how participants are reluctant to improvise on various instruments. These are music teacher participants we are speaking about!! How can we encourage our students to take risks if we cannot ourselves? I do not, however, blame them. I get it!!!

Music in our society has been elevated to an elite art. All are encouraged to enjoy it, but only the “talented” should be encouraged to create it. This limiting fundamental belief needs to be obliterated before we can move forward on bringing quality music instruction into every school in the US and beyond. After all, how can we justify it, if we ourselves believe that one needs “talent” to proceed? This change in perception MUST start with us. We MUST believe that music making is for everyone, not just the elite few.

Let’s define music making. Simply put, it means to make music. Period. This in no way implies that everyone must teach it or perform it, rather everyone should feel the freedom to sing or play or compose regardless of their perceived level. It is a form of expression that can be shared by one or many in various settings.

Isn’t this the point? Isn’t this why we do what we do? I would imagine that very few, if any, became music educators to only teach the “Mozarts and Beethovens” of the group. If that were the case, we would have left years ago. From speaking to thousands of music educators across the country, I know that most of us got into this field because we want to share our love of music with others. So share. Believe in what we do. Music is meant to be created by all. By destroying our own limiting beliefs about the kind of music we make, we will be able to make a greater difference in the world around us!

Now that introductions have been made and the schedules set….for the most part :-), it is time to think about the meat of the curriculum. What kinds of activities will ensure an enriching music literacy experience for our students? The beginning of the year is a great time for exploration. In “Letting Go!” I spoke about experiencing true authentic music making with little or no planning whatsoever! As I mentioned, it built trust for the group and within myself. We mostly did it through a drum circle, but you can do it anyway you want: instrument conversations, making silly noises or moving bodies into different shapes that students call out. It can be as crazy as you want!!

During this process, students will discover sounds and movements that they love and will want to remember. This is a perfect opportunity to record it. Of course throughout last weekend’s workshop, you know all I could think about was how Note Knacks could help us record our awesome improvisations! How fun would it be to get together as a group and discuss what we liked about our rhythms and then decide what we wanted to finally notate. I also wanted Note Knacks to add layers and depth to our pieces: “interlocking rhythms”, as Mary Knysh calls them. The “published” composition would be amazing and could be shared by everyone.

The other great place to find ideas for great motifs is from those composers that came before us. We should be reading what we are singing and playing all of the time so that students can hear what sounds others have created and learn how to recreate them. They may even compose a variation on a theme and make it their own. Cooks do this all of the time by recreating a classic recipe and adding an updated twist. (Ina Garten’s Lobster Mac and Cheese comes to mind!) The more examples kids have, the more ideas that will pop into their heads and the greater the compositions.

I can’t wait to get started! Happy searching!

Tuesday I spoke about “thoughtful “demonstrations” taking place in our classrooms. It is a term I read in Regie Routman’s book Invitations in reference to teaching reading and writing in language arts. She talks about how important it is to model excellent reading and writing skills. This thought fascinates me because I don’t think we do it as much as we can or should as a music education community. Music textbook series will come with big books that we use in front of the class. I have been known to point to the notes as we sing them. A child will then come up and do the same. I have had students follow along in their textbooks as I play a song. We have identified quarter notes and barred eighth notes etc… Perhaps we have gone a bit farther, but not to where I think we could go. The questions that haunt me are”Can we do it better?” and “How do we teach so that students will be able to sight sing new material independently?” What if learners coming out of elementary school could pick up a piece of music and read it fluently in their heads?

In thinking about this question, I look to methods used in the language arts classroom. For the most part, they have been quite successful teaching children how to read. As I continue to blog throughout the year, I will explore many of their techniques, but today I am pondering the use of demonstrations. Routman speaks about modeling how to read and write what students are working on. If we teach these skills, we should be doing them ourselves. I read music when I play and write short singing games for my students, but I have never composed a piece of music per se. I am now inspired to do so AND to do it in front of my students. Let’s discuss the issues that come up together as a class and give kids an inside look into how I would handle them. I am also inspired to show my students violin music I am working on and how I practice a particularly difficult passage. We think this is only for older students, but how can we utilize it for the younger grades?

We all know to pull from the music we are working on, so let’s start there. Kenneth Goodman, who is best known for his work with “whole language” (a methodology for teaching language arts) found in his research that students could read words in context that they could NOT read out of context. They expect text to make sense. This will work a bit differently in music, but knowing this, when we pull measures or passages from a song, it needs to start as a part of the whole piece. It no longer makes sense to isolate it and just work on that alone. When a difficult measure or passage arises, we can look at what we already read and figure it out. We, as teachers, can model how to take what we know and apply it to what we don’t know. We will demonstrate a strategy to working out the difficult passage together, so that eventually, students will be able to it independently. If we continue this throughout the year, imagine how many strategies students will have available to them and how many of them will be well practiced!

In the weeks ahead, I will be playing around with how I demonstrate concepts and let you know how it is going. Please comment below and let us know how you model excellent reading and composing skills.

This morning I came across a funny video from Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show. It was of Chad Smith from The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Will Ferrell having a “Drum Off”. Of course it was funny, as Will Ferrell always is, but more importantly is was showcasing music as something special. Clearly Ferrell couldn’t compete….music is not something that one just “picks up”. The skit didn’t get into practicing or the hard work that goes into learning to play, but that is where we come in. We are the ones that get to show kids the work behind it. Their “heroes” didn’t just wake up one day and land a job as the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer, even Mr. Smith had to work hard to get to where he is today.

I don’t think the education community emphasizes this enough with our students. We live in an “instant gratification” world and the idea of working for something long term seems superfluous. Why bother when one can get what he/ she wants from an app immediately? …and there is always the fall back plan ~ act like a complete crazy person and get your own reality series for a handsome sum. Really America???

Pipe dreams aside, this is a hurdle that we struggle with on a day to day basis. How do we convey to our students the importance of choice and hard work? Part of it is reminding kids how hard their favorite movie and rock stars work; such as Will Smith (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxC3tWoyArw). The other part is that we can show them. We have the unique position to give a child an instrument and have them experience, from beginning to end, the process of learning a composition. Kids love showing you what they have learned. What a great opportunity to illustrate this point! We are always showing them process, as teachers do, but in the music room, we create something very special and fun.

Jimmy Fallon incorporates a lot of music on his show. Music teachers are smiling everywhere knowing that we make a difference!