Reflection: Nat'l Anthems General Music Lesson #1

This afternoon I conducted part of my 8th grade general music unit on national anthems in front of my Secondary Methods classmates.  My objective for this lesson was as follows:

Students will be able to compare national anthems and hypothesize about nation’s history and core values and based on the lyrical content and musical characteristics of their national anthem.

This lesson and the previous lesson (I started in the middle of my unit) would prepare students for a project where they would compose and present their own anthems whose lyrics and musical characteristics (melody of a pre-existing national anthem) reflect the key values of a fictional setting of their choice.  

I recently attended a professional development seminar where Professor Joseph Abramo discussed his philosophies on teaching pop music in middle school.  One of his ideas that stuck with me is to allow students to explore and share their broad ideas, thoughts, hypotheses first and guide the class discussion towards the narrower key points you are trying to get them to understand.  

I started out by asking students open-ended questions about national anthems (What national anthems do you know? Where have you heard them?) and share what they know.  This reassures the students that they already know a little bit about national anthems.  I could have totally plucked out "God Save the Queen" on my guitar and shown students that they know already know the melody as "My Country Tis of Thee"  

I already know that students realize they hear many different national anthems at sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Cup, thus I guided them into my youtube video of the world cup.  To save time, I should have had the students writing down at least 3 takeaways from the clip rather than having them discuss in groups.  

When discussing what the student's took away from the clip, a couple students (Abe and Natalie) hit on some of the key points I wanted the class to know.  I didn't have to drill this points into their brain, they figured them out on their own.  I could have really kept the class engaged by saying,  "That's a good thought Abe!  You're on to something.  Hold on to that idea just a bit longer."   

If I had gotten to the last slide (10 seconds away), students would have discovered that the Chilean and Brazilian national anthems are both classified as Latin American Epic Anthems (genre), many of  which were written by Europeans (colonization) and contain many verses; all of which are part of their official anthem (why the fans/players kept singing).  So let the kids explore and share their ideas without discriminating between right or wrong and guide them towards what they need to know.  Let learning feel like discovery with the teacher, not a lecture to the student.

Technology in Music Education

Technology has opened the doors to endless possibility for music educators.  Though music technology, students can access new musical traditions, learn an instrument, and create and share their own work with the world.  In a education environment that demands concrete assessment, music technology help music educators assess their students and present their administrators with concrete evidence of their students' growth over time.  I'll briefly go over some of my favorite music technologies.  Their rank is in no particular order.

YouTube: YouTube is the biggest everything for music education (yes I said biggest everything).  YouTube is the largest catalogue for studio-recorded and live music (and integrated arts) in every genre from Jazz to Classical to K-Pop and Bollywood.  YouTube offers access to lessons and performances by independent artists in ways never though possible before.  Just imagine teaching musical form to high school theory students using this!

The possibilities for using YouTube in the classroom are possibly endless, BUT I believe that it should be used as a supplementary resource.  YouTube is a tool, it is not the teacher and it should not replace the teacher.

Ultimate Guitar: ultimate-guitar.com is a library of user-created guitar and bass (and occasional ukulele) tablature and chord charts.  Users also create and share reviews of guitar and bass products as well as reviews of new albums.  All of the chord charts are transposable in all 12 keys which makes this a wonderful tool for finding accompaniments that fit a student's vocal range.  I used this website to teach myself guitar and bass in high school.  Do I have impeccable technique from this website? No.  What I did gain from from this website over time was the ability to quickly recognize chord progressions, transpose them on the fly, and learn several songs in a short period of time to accompany a large number of performers.  Overall a very solid tool for teachers and students that is also available as an app for mobile devices.

Finale, SmartMusic, and Auralia: In my opinion, Finale, SmartMusic, and Auralia are the three most important software programs for the modern day music educator.  Briefly, Finale is the industry standard music notation software, Auralia is the industry standard for ear training and assessing aural skills, and SmartMusic is the industry standard for practicing and assessing sight-reading.  I've personally have barely scratched the surface of what is possible with these softwares, but I know that the concrete assessments that SmartMusic and Auralia provides to teachers is vital data that administrators will demand from us.

I could go on and on and on about all of the countless other music apps, softwares, and hardwares of that music educators have access to.  With technology, music education has become an exciting new frontier and the possibilities for what students can do in the music classroom is truly endless.  I believe that these technologies should be embraced.  I do not think that technology diminishes the need for music education in the classroom, but rather enhances the opportunities that we offer to our students.

Other music technologies and websites teachers should be aware of:

• https://get.yousician.com
• www.musictechteacher.com
• www.dsokids.com
• www.musictheory.net

• www.sfskids.org
• www.soundation.com
• www.classicsforkids.com
• www.incredibox.com
• www.melodystreet.com
• www.isleoftune.com
• Garage Band
• Amp Modeling Technology
• Live sound and Recording Hardware (mixers, speakers, interfaces, microphones etc..)

On Assessment and Rubrics

As a young aspiring music educator, I've spent a great deal of time assessing my own core values and tying them to my philosophies on teaching; but I really haven't flushed out my thoughts on assessing my own students. I've recently read Alfie Kohn's article The Trouble with Rubrics.  As of right now I am not the biggest fan of rubrics.  I believe that a major goal of education is to create engaged citizens who are capable of thinking intelligently on their own.  In my opinion, rubrics, in some cases, stifle a students' ability to think for themselves.  In this post I aim to do three things: 1) Modify the rubric to inspire creativity, 2) Present an extreme alternative for assessment in the music classroom, and 3) How I would assess my music students as of right now in my limited thoughts towards assessment.

Kohn argues that because of rubrics, "They [students] tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the learning itself."  So how can we create a rubric that encourages students to think critically and take risks?  I suggest creating rubrics that clearly states what constitutes "B", "C", and even "D" work, but not A work.  Rather, in the "A" column I might write, "An A exceeds the expectations laid out in this rubric."  Now if students want to get an "A", they need to go beyond the comforts of the rubric.  They are encouraged to take risks, be creative,  and think more critically than before.  Is this a perfect solution?  I don't know.  It's merely a thought to be shared with all of my readers.

Now for the extreme alternative.  Below is a talk from Benjamin Zander titled How to Give an A.  It's rather lengthy but rather fitting for this conversation and definitely worth a watch.  

Overall I love this talk and there are plenty of ideas that I really really like.  The challenge is pulling it off in our current education system.  I would absolutely love it if my students shouted "HOW FASCINATING!" every time they made what I call a "good" mistake.  As for his grading policy.  I can certainly see how this would work with intrinsically motivated collegiate music students; and how a tenured college professor can get away with it.   I can't really see his grading policy work with compliant or disengaged students at the elementary or secondary level.  Although I'd like to try it out at some point in my teaching career, I don't know any school administration that would let his grading policy fly in their school.  I'd love to hear your thoughts so please post comments!

I agree with Natalie that grading, especially in the music setting, should be individualized based on the student's ability to improve their performance in the class over time.  In the music classroom, students can really vary in experience, talent, motivation, and interest; and a one size fits all model doesn't really work.  Student's should be assessed in relationship the their own abilities and their potential.  Even if a student shows great improvement, they still might fall short of the national music standards.  Does this mean they're a failure?  Absolutely not!

As I stated in the beginning of this post, my thoughts on assessment are still quite primitive.  Over time and through experience I hope to flush out a true philosophy on how to assess my students.  I hope to grade my students in way that encourages students to take risks and strive do perform at their absolute best.  I look forward to reading my peers' thoughts on rubrics and assessment in hopes of learning new ideas on the matter. 

Jazz and American Music

For this week's post I am tasked with answering the following questions:

1. Should music teachers be experts on jazz or American folk music?
2. What American songs should all students know?

Let me start off by saying I am by no means an expert on either jazz or folk music.  I do not believe that music educators need to be experts in these genres.  However, I do believe that all students who get the opportunity to experience jazz and folk in the general music classroom should be able to make the following connections.

For the past two years I've worked at the Newport Festivals Foundation' International Jazz Day Concert held every April.  Last year's act was Danilo Perez along with students from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute.  The students were from across the globe, from South American and the Caribbean, to Germany, Israel, and even Japan.  Here they shared the same stage performing jazz together.  Their solos and improvisations reflected not only their individuality, but their unique cultural and musical traditions while still following the form of the song.  From this experience, I hope to teach my students that jazz is a style of music that is truly universal and multicultural.

Jazz is an embodiment of African and European music traditions.  More specifically, it combines Western melodies and harmonies with the polyrhythmic characteristics of West African music traditions.   It is performed with a "swung" rhythmic pattern and members of the ensemble take turns performing improvised solos over a particular set of chord changes.  American folk songs collectively tell the story of American History.  Our own national anthem is a folk song.  Through folks songs we learn about life on the frontier, life in the city, and life on the battlefront.  Folk songs even provide first hand accounts of political movements.  Both jazz and folk offer opportunities to integrate American history into the music curriculum.  Most importantly, students should recognize that without jazz and folk music, there is no rock n' roll, blues, pop, Motown, disco, grunge, punk, metal, or hip hop.

What American songs should all students know?  Most my fellow classmates have talked specifically talked about certain folk songs and patriotic songs.  I agree that students should know all of those songs.  Taking the topic a bit further, what songs truly capture an American childhood and an American upbringing?  The first thing that popped into my head wasn't My Country tis of Thee or Home on the Range, but songs from broadway musicals, Disney movies, and other American films; from Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, When you Wish Upon a Star, and Doe, a Deer... all the way to Let it Go! Although the themes and settings of many of these musicals are not American, the movies themselves are example of American theater and cinema, thus they are imbedded into one's American upbringing just as much as the patriotic songs.