Private LA Phil Concert

Out driving today, I was tuned to 91.5 KUSC and the people on it were talking about the first set of concerts for the LA Phil this year. This is Gustavo Dudamel's 4th season with the orchestra and the 9th season in the Disney Music Hall. As the announcers continued, it became clear to me that they were about to broadcast the concert live on the station, so I hurried home so I could listen to it on my home stereo.

On the program today, Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess, the world premiere of Stucky's Symphony, and Stravinksy's Rite of Spring.

I know it would have been much better to have been IN Disney Hall, but I was pleased to be able to enjoy the concert from the comfort of my living room. Steven Stucky discusses his work at the LA Phil website here. It generally takes a listener time to get to know a piece, and sometimes the first hearing is not too favorable to the listener's ear. Stucky's piece is definitely accessible and I hope to find a way to be able to hear it again soon.

Attention Spans

I have been trying to figure out why my students seem to have much shorter attention spans this year from last. At first I thought it might just be the beginning of the school year. But then it dawned on me that I now teach just before and just after lunch, which are not great times to learn anything.

So, I am going to have to figure out ways to combat this....

Teaching Improvisation

Having attended a goodly number of Orff workshops in the past 8 years or so, I can definitely say that Saturday's workshop with Julie Scott was one of the very best. She presented a chronological and immensely practical approach to teaching improvisation from the youngest children on up. I particularly enjoyed this way of playing drums, and I think I may just have to incorporate that into my upper grade lesson plans very soon.

Name Games

Vista is a small enough school (around 300) where I can hope to learn the majority of students' names. Back when I ran the library there, I did know everyone's names (and who had late books, etc.), but I have not run the library in five years.

This summer I pulled out Doug Goodkin's Name Games: Activities for Rhythmic Development. I am going to make a concerted effort to use at least a handful of these games throughout the year. I would love for the kids to create ostinatos with their names as building blocks and transfer these patterns to pitched and unpitched instruments.

I am inspired by this youtube video where these 4th grade students, over a long period of time, created their own piece of music - over 8 minutes long - (ala Philip Glass, sort of) with ostinatos. I would love to work towards a student-composed piece (or pieces), and I think that using the rhythms of their own names would be a great elemental building block.

Sheet Music Organization

Here are the before and after photos of the sheet music shelf in my studio. The old shelf was not adjustable, and I had lots of unused space. The new shelf is smaller but makes better use of space with adjustable shelves and therefore looks much neater and tidier. Ready now for the new year!

Start of Private Lessons

Good heavens! I just finished teaching 4 private students for 2 hours (and, of course, it went a little longer). I haven't given private lessons in a month now, and I am exhausted! Next week I add classroom teaching to the mix, and then two weeks after that, I add the string program. Little by little! I always seem to forget that it takes a little getting used to to get back into the swing of things.

Pinterest

I have just started to delve into the world of Pinterest. I'd seen my friends who pinned various recipes and craft projects on Facebook, but I didn't think that I needed another time sink. Then I read an article about how teachers could use this tool in their classrooms, and so I thought I'd try it out.

Right now I have a board called Music Teaching Ideas with 22 pins (links to websites) of ideas I think I'd like to try in my music classroom. It's like Evernote in that it's a way to keep the various places I see on the internet organized and in one place, but it is much more visual.