A John Feierabend workshop in September 2009.
John Feierabend will be presenting his workshop on “First Steps in Music: Developing Tuneful, Beatful, and Artful Children” hosted by the Long Island American Orff Schulwerk Association, on September 12, 2009.
LIAOSA workshops are presented at Hofstra University’s Hempstead campus accessible via LIRR from Penn Station. Directions can be found here.
Rhymes, Chants, & Folk Songs from Mexico
El Patio de Mi Casa: 41 Rhymes, Chants & Folk Songs from Mexico is a new collection published by GIA Publications. Gabriela Montoya-Stier has collected, translated, analyzed each piece with game directions, teaching suggestions and cultural background information. An accompanying CD is available for an additional $15.
Choral Music
The Choral Information Site offers a lot of useful material for directors and teachers.
The Internet Center for Choral Resources serves all choirs (adult, children, church).
The Choristers Guild serves primarily church choirs. Their catalog offers literacy materials and videos, including some on the master teacher Helen Kemp. Kemp’s video, Body, Mind, Spirit, Voice is sometimes hard to find.
At Musicanet, browse through 143,000 choral works available for download, for free.
Singers.com is a wonderful site primarily for a capella singing, and it offers a ton of print resources in its sections on “Teaching Kids How to Sing.”
Young People’s Chorus of New York City
Two books:
Teaching Kids to Sing by Ken Phillips (Wadsworth 1996).
Teaching the Elementary School Chorus by Linda Swears (Parker, 1985).
Performing Arts in NYC
These are performing arts organizations in New York City that are major resources for NYC schools. Some of them also appear on the Professional Development page. Most of these offer extensive outreach (visiting artist) programs for NYC schools, or offer curriculum materials for teachers.
- Metropolitan Opera offers a variety of opera programs for schools, as well as partnerships and professional development through the Metropolitan Opera Guild.
- American Ballet Theatre is listed here because the music is such an integral part of the experience, and they offer free schooltime concerts, as well as free tickets for students to attend regular performances in the Spring.
- New York Philharmonic has a variety of programs listed.Their School Day Concerts get booked very quickly each year.
- Jazz at Lincoln Center has programs for schools and teachers, as well as a jazz curriculum website for children to explore on their own.
- Lincoln Center Institute is not a performing arts organization, but offers both professional development for teachers and performing arts partnerships with schools. (The LCI program is shaped by Maxine Greene’s philosophy of aesthetic education). Their website is not accessible unless you register and get a user-ID and password.
- Carnegie Hall has a program for 4th through 6th graders called LinkUp! and one called Music Explorers program for 2nd and 3rd graders. Each program combines learning soprano recorder and trips to attend (or even participate in!) concerts at Carnegie Hall.
- Brooklyn Academy of Music offers excellent school time concerts in the BAM Opera House.
- JazzReach usually schedules a few of its outstanding multimedia performances with the Metta Quintet in June at Manhattan’s John Jay College.
- Young People’s Chorus of New York City, the resident chorus of the 92nd Street Y and WNYC, successfully emphasizes choral work from multicultural sources. Every spring, YPC hosts a big choral directors workshop.
- Juilliard School of Music has several programs to support music learning in public schools. See their Morse Fellowship.
- Brooklyn Conservatory of Music has a Music Partners program which takes the place of a full-time music teacher in some public schools (P.S. 29 in Region 8 is one). In some cases the partnership can be arranged to work along-side of a regular DOE music teacher. The BCM’s Music Partners director is Dorothy Savitch.
The NYCDOE’s Office of Pupil Transportation enables schools to reserve buses on-line. Each school is assigned a UserID and Password, for access.
Research in Music Education
- Data-driven research in music education is carried out largely by people working at the university level. Much valuable work is published in scholarly journals that need to be read in the periodicals room of a library.
- MENC publishes various journals that are available to that organization’s members either online or in print, including: Music Educators Journal, Teaching Music, General Music Today, and the Journal of Music Teacher Education. Another, the Journal of Research in Music Education is available at an extra cost.
Many music education research articles found on arts education websites fall into the category of arts advocacy: studies showing how a music-rich education has a beneficial effect on other areas of children’s learning and development, such as literacy acquisition or logical-spatial reasoning. These are rewarding to read, and deserve wider circulation, but not directly relevant to the activity of teaching music.
NYC DOE Resources
Teaching of music in NYC schools is supported and directed citywide by the The Office of the Arts and Special Projects, in the Department of Education’s headquarters in Tweed Courthouse on Chambers Street. Dr. Barbara Murray is the Director of Music Education.
The Office of the Arts and Special Projects is set up to support and enhance instructional programs in art, music, dance and theater, in grades preK-12. Each school receives a budget line for arts education based on pupil enrollment. How these funds are spent is determined by the school’s principal, in accordance with established guidelines. During the reorganization of the Department of Education, budgeting is a far more transparent process than it was in the past, and a great deal of information about how schools spend money is available publicly, on-line.
The OASP site is an on-line source for several critically-important documents:
the curriculum guide Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts (it’s a PDF file, heavy in color and graphics: not practical for downloading and printing). Note: The Blueprint “strands” on Music Education are also available in a more practical poster format (available only by purchase; see below).
Getting the Blueprint:
the school’s principal can order it through FAMIS: E-Catalog:Internal Services. Use the following item numbers:
TLAR10032- Music Blueprint Book- $7
TLAR10033- Music Blueprint Poster- $3
Include specific contact information on the purchase order for the delivery of materials. The necessary funds should be scheduled in Object Code 0998.
The DOE’s brief Benchmarks for Music Learning can be examined online — a series of general statements that summarize expectations for children’s learning and abilities in grades 2, 5, 8 and 12.
In addition, the OASP page offers much valuable information on ArtsCount. This is the Department of Education’s program to ensure that arts education is not overlooked in the drive toward accountability in city schools (see post below). Components of this program include the Annual Arts in Schools Report, the Learning Environment Surveys, and Annual Compliance Review. Some of this information can be accessed on each school’s DOE-hosted website, if you click on the link to “Statistics” on the left column.
The OASP site offers links to many other valuable resources including grant sources and activities for students. The Keys to Achievement Grant offers 85% of the cost of an elaborate keyboard lab for elementary schools (click on the word “grant” to see the guidelines).
Learning Support Organizations
Each school is associated with one of the Learning Support Organizations (LSO). Music teachers should seek to contact the arts coordinator for their school’s LSO, and to be aware of any workshops or other LSO initiatives to promote arts education.
Instruments
Please note: This section will be expanded to include elementary band instruments, guitars and other instruments. At the moment, it includes soprano recorders and keyboards.
Soprano recorders and keyboard labs are often the instrument of choice for teaching music literacy and performance in schools that do not provide a regular strings, band, or orchestra program. Below are some links to on-line resources for these instruments.
Keyboards:
Soundtree is a division of the Korg keyboard manufacturer that designs and supports keyboard labs for purchase by schools. The Soundtree website includes a collection of lesson plans which can be downloaded and used even if your school doesn’t purchase a lab.
Suzuki offers inexpensive keyboard labs. Their whole catalog is available online.
Soprano Recorder:
- Recorder Karate from MusicK8 is a popular teaching program, but most people rely on a mix of resources and materials.
- Do It! Play Recorder is a well-produced student book, with CD available (and extensive teachers’ edition) from GIA Publications.
- Various fingering charts are available: one British site has an interactive diagram some 3rd to 5th graders would find fun.
- Rockin’ Recorders, by teacher Kay Greenhaw, has transparencies you can print out and use in class.
- Recorder Homepage, by Nicholas Lander, is an enormous collection of resources.
- Dolmetsch Recorder pages are also enormous.
- Carnegie Hall offers two outreach programs, Music Explorers and LinkUp!, both of which involve whole class instruction in soprano recorder, and include a valuable prepared curriculum, and a culminating visit to Carnegie Hall.
Resources for School Leaders
Principals and school leaders approach arts education from a wide variety of backgrounds and understandings. Some may have actual professional or amateur experience as musicians, painters, or dancers. They may take an active role in shaping and supervising arts learning in their classrooms, or they may prefer to leave it in the hands of their staff.
In elementary schools, generally speaking, the visual arts are taught by a full-time staff, while music, dance and drama may be taught either by in-school staff or else through a series of visits by a “teaching artist,” who comes through a contracted vendor or partner organization. Decisions about scheduling of classes, purchase of materials, field trips to concert halls, or in-school performances by visiting artists are all made by the school leader.
As part of its effort to support arts education in New York City public schools — including music — the Department of Education recently put together a set of resources to educate school leaders about what kinds of arts education should be happening in their schools. The Arts Tool Kit for School Leaders includes a several components that can be downloaded from the OASP site, and examined. While these resources are not specifically intended for teachers, they provide a lot of valuable information that can help teachers advocate effectively for the arts within their school communities.
The main documents included are copies of each of the Arts Blueprints and their various accompanying wall-charts.
The Learning Walk-Through for the Arts describes what a supervisor should look for as they evaluate the facilities and activities in place for arts learning at a particular site. For music, this might include the kinds of space available for lessons or activities, as well as equipment, instruments, etc.
The Arts Education Manual for School Leaders is the administrators’ complement to the arts Blueprints. It describes all the programs and resources in place to support effective arts instruction.
Finally, the kit includes DVD of a short film called “Quality Arts Education in New York City” that’s meant to assist school leaders in implementing and enriching arts programs in their schools. You can watch it on YouTube.
The ArtsCount Guide for Principals (not included) summarizes the various accountability measures included in the ArtsCount program. Included are the various categories of expenditures for the arts: arts staff, partnerships, professional performances, field trips, transportation, professional development, equipment and/or repairs, per-session activities, and supplies.
Music Websites for Students
Following are selected music sites that are great for children who just want to explore music, symphonies, jazz . . . and have fun.
- Kidzone courtesy of The New York Philharmonic
- Classics for Kids has games, courtesy of Cincinnati Public Radio
- Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra courtesy of Carnegie Hall
- Jazz for Young People courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center (Note: requires users to fill out a very elaborate on-line form, before they can access the site.)
- JazzKids courtesy of PBS
- Musicroom courtesy of The Dallas Symphony Orchestra
- Playmusic courtesy of American Symphony Orchestras
- Creating Music courtesy of Dr. Morton Subotnick
- World Music Playground courtesy of Putumayo Music
- Arts Alive Music courtesy of National Arts Centre of Canada
- Sphinxkids courtesy of Sphinx Organization (Building Diversity in Classical Music)
- Music Flashcards (not games) for drilling in concepts of theory, courtesy of Dr. Floyd Richmond, at West Chester Univ., PA.
- SFSKids courtesy of The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Music Technology
Music technology applications in elementary school can include notation software, software for learning, and the hardware and software used to record and reproduce children’s musical performances.
Notation Software
Various companies make software for music composition and notation, that allow users to print and share professional-looking charts or song sheets.
Finale
Recording
Recording children’s singing or musical performance can be a powerful teaching tool. There are basically three ways to do this:
- use an old-fashioned cassette player/recorder with a microphone.
- use a digital recorder such as a mini-disk or hard-drive audio recorder, with an external microphone or one that’s built in.
- use a classroom computer or laptop with appropriate software, such as an i-Mac with Garageband.
Garageband is Apple’s software that allows users to record and produce a song, using either live instruments and voices or by combining pre-recorded “loops” of various instrumental sounds in a layered composition. Quality is good, ease of use is not-so-good.
Garageband is part of the standard “i-Life” package of software on Mac computers found in many schools. Since these classroom desktops and laptops have built-in microphones, teachers willing to spend some time exploring and learning have the ability to record student performances and even burn a CD or post the performance on a school website. However, the basic functions require a little patient study. The Apple store in Manhattan offers free classes in using Garageband.
Learning Software
The choices for software that supports music learning are extensive. There is some question whether time spent interacting with a computer is as valuable as time spent singing or playing music or listening to recordings or live performances. One exception may be the Clearvue line of music appreciation DVDs, CDs and videos.
MusicAce by Harmonic Vision.
Juilliard Music Adventure (Rhythm & Melody) by Tom Snyder.
Essentials of Music Theory by Alfred Publishing.
GNU Solfege is a free software program written to help people do ear training: it includes exercises to train chords, intervals, scales, rhythms and harmonic progressions.
Using a SmartBoard
If you have a music classroom and your school can afford around $1,800 for the equipment, it can be a powerful tool. There are loads of solutions for teaching music on an interactive whiteboard (orSmartBoard) at the “MusTech” Wiki
File-sharing
Downloading audio files from the so-called “peer-to-peer” networks such as Limewire and similar sites is illegal and represents an infringement of the rights of the artist whose song is acquired. ASCAP, the professional body that protects the rights of composers and publishers, has a strong position on the issue. With the Music Educators National Conference, ASCAP has developed a curriculum program (Creativity in the Classroom) to teach children about their own place in a creative community that includes creators, consumers and legal copyright.
According to ASCAP’s definition of fair use, there is no allowance for a teacher to download a file of a copyrighted song or reproduce lyric sheets for use in a classroom setting.
Resources
Music Education Technology is a magazine that offers free resources and lesson plans.
Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME) has extensive web resources.
The NYC Department of Education has extensive resources to support instructional uses of technology. Contact your regional Office of Instructional Technology to learn about after-school technology professional development (some with per-session).
