The Importance of Music

The high school where I teach has placed a new emphasis on college and career readiness.  This article speaks to the importance of instrumental education on student's likelihood to peruse an education post-high school.  According to Jacobs (2013), not only does instrumental music improve student's cognitive abilities, but also makes them 15 percent more likely to go to college then non-musicians.  This is data that we can all share with our administration to increase support for our programs!

Advice to a College Music Student

This article is full of great Advice to a College Music Student.  While this resource is full of things we have all heard as music educators, such as be responsible, be reliable, practice, listen, etc., the most intriguing advice was about the relationships that you make as a student.  The author suggests that the connections made during this time impact the rest of your career as a music educator.  It has been my experience that this is true, as my college friends are now my colleagues and my teachers provided me with excellent references landing me the wonderful position I have now.

NextPage PDF Sheet Music App for iPad

After spending the last year in a one to one technology system, I am always aware of new apps that can help my students.  This article outlines the features of the NextPage PDF Sheet Music App.  While this inexpensive app does not have all the bells and whistles of some of the other Sheet Music apps, it deletes some features intentionally.  This app does allow users to read pdf files, allows for e-mailing the score to someone else, integrates Dropbox, allows for annotation and musical symbols, has a metronome, integrates the AirTurn foot pedal, as well as many other features.  This appears to be an excellent application for both students and teachers and I look forward to trying it out.

Marching Band Kids

This article is a great reminder of why students that choose to participate in marching band are the best and brightest kids in the school.  The responsibility that we, as band directors, ask these students to take on is incredible and we are so lucky that the students work so hard to keep up.  Next time we get frustrated in a rehearsal, it would be beneficial to think back to this article and remember the thousands of things we are asking our students to do all at one time.

PLN

After spending the last five weeks engaged in the use of my PLN I can not imagine not reading my Feedly every day.  In this article, the author gives many tips on creating a successful PLN and suggests that the most important aspect is Twitter.  While I have not integrated Twitter into my PLN, I look forward to adding this element sometime in the future.

John F. Kennedy

On the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination it feels appropriate to view this video of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's performance on the afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963. The announcement of the president's assassination is made by the BSO music director, Erich Leindorf, and the crowd reacts with a huge gasp.  The following performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony is quite beautiful.

Common Core

I am sure that many of us have experienced administrators who expect us to incorporate the Common Core standards into our fine arts classrooms.  While it is often irritating to have to justify our content through the use of a "core" subject, this article outlines practical ways in which fine arts teachers can help to improve reading and writing skills.  Perhaps this article will provide you with ideas to appease your administration.

Anti-Bullying Message

In the middle school where I teach there has been a strong anti-bullying campaign launched to ensure that all students are treated with kindness.  Our students have heard wonderful messages from guest speakers and are treated to rewards for having good character.  This article gives educators three ways to help students not be bullied.  These include remaining confidential and professional, teaching trust and self-knowledge, and teach respect and inclusion.

Taylor Swift Education Center

For many of my students, Taylor Swift is one of their favorite artists.  This week, she became the youngest person to ever receive country music's Pinnacle Award, and now she is giving back to the music community.  In this article, Taylor speaks about the opportunity she was given as a child to take private music lessons and now she wants to make sure other children have the same opportunities.  The space opened by Taylor will feature three classrooms and a learning lab.

Gary Burton

As a percussionist, Gary Burton has always been one of my favorite artists.  His development of the Burton four mallet technique has greatly improved vibraphone playing around the world.  This Tiny Desk concert shows off Burton's four mallet skills and would be a great video to share with your young percussionists!

Bicycle Built for Two

Noteflight is a free music notation program that allows individuals to create and share music online.  Not only does this browser-based program allow users to hear and print their own music, the free version also allows them to save up to ten documents on the cloud.  While this program proves to be a bit more cumbersome than some of the expensive notation software, such as Finale and Sibelius, it is definitely a viable alternative for use in music education.

As a band director, having access to music notation software is essential.  This technology is used for a multitude of reasons and in an unstable economy, Noteflight affords students, and teachers alike, the necessary tools to compose, recreate, and transpose parts as necessary.  This arrangement of “Bicycle Built for Two,” for voice and piano, is a perfect example of one of the many ways music educators may utilize this program.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, my school is in the process of implementing a one to one technology program and the possibility of being able to use Noteflight with my students is exciting!  Now that all of my high school Jazz Band students have personal computers, we will be able to practice improvisation skills by writing passages in Noteflight.  After students write ideas, they will be able to share with one another, as well as opening documents up for others to change.  This has the potential to exponentially increase improvisation ability in this group.

While this is one way to integrate Noteflight into the curriculum, there are still many possibilities to be explored and I look forward to introducing my students to the program.

The Arts and Innovation

This new study out of Michigan State University shows that people who participated in arts activities as a child are more likely to generate patents and launch businesses as adults.  Another interesting fact highlighted in the article shows that if people started studying the arts as a young child and continued into adulthood, they were more likely to become some kind of inventor.  This related list gives examples of famous people who were once in marching band.  Perhaps the aforementioned research explains the key to their success!

The Value of the Arts

This TED talk by Ken Robinson, entitled "How to Escape Education's Death Valley," speaks to the importance of the arts in education.  Sir Ken argues that creativity is essential because it gives value to students who are not passionate about "core" subject areas.  He states that "many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not because the thing they were at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized."  As music educators, it is therefore our responsibility to encourage our students to make the arts a lifelong activity so that people are not "educated out of their creativity."  This is a must watch video!

Go Cards!

In light of the World Series starting tonight, I thought that this video of the "Orchestra World Series" would be appropriate.  In this clip the brass sections of the Boston Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony show their support for their home teams.  While both groups sound awesome, I have to admit that I am definitely partial to my hometown Orchestra, the SLSO. 

Hope you enjoy! GO CARDS!!!

SmartMusic Updates

This article outlines the most current updates to SmartMusic according to MakeMusic, the company that created the program.  Some of the most exciting new changes include the ability for teachers to view assessment grades quickly and finale-created transposition, as well as many others.  As a teacher just starting to use SmartMusic, I am excited to see that MakeMusic is constantly trying to better its technology.

http://www.smartmusic.com/blog/smartmusic-committed-to-daily-growth/

Halloween Fun With Finale

This article from the Finale blog provides teachers with a link to a fun Halloween activity.  Mark Adler has input a Halloween song into Finale and created the shape of a pumpkin with the staff.  While this would be very easy to use in a general music classroom, it would also be great for band students.  The song is in the key of G minor, a key that the Essential Elements 2000 band book covers in Book 2.  I plan to use this with my seventh graders!

http://www.finalemusic.com/blog/halloween-fun-with-finale/