I Learn More from my Students than they do from Me

Every year I play a passing game with my second graders.  We try to pass first one, then many beanbags around the circle, keeping a steady beat.  Every year about 5-6 kids per class just don't get it and mess up our rhythm.  Someone won't watch when a beanbag is deposited in front of them, or some can't wait to move it along like a hot potato rather than waiting for the correct beat.

So it was last week.  So, I thought to myself, we need more practice at this game.  Today I did not need to lesson plan since we repeated the passing game.  Presto!  The kids were so much better at it today than last week, and they were so (rightfully) pleased with themselves.  I am writing this down for next year:  Passing game for two class sessions in a row.

Orff Workshops

I have been going to Orff Workshops for a number of years now, and I always enjoy getting new ideas for teaching.  I can never keep doing the exact same thing year after year without getting bored, so I either tweak a lesson plan I like or replace it with something that I learn in one of these workshops.  (Of course, there are a few lessons I love so much that I never tire of them.)

When I went to Paul Cribari's workshop on Saturday, it dawned on me that I don't necessarily pay as much attention to the songs/movement being taught as I do to the tidbits and tricks and small ideas that the presenter brings.  For example, we were doing body percussion with a poem (what poem?  it doesn't matter) and Cribari talked about the quality of the clapping and stamping.  So, some of the clapping we did high, some lower (cupped hands), and the stamping (seen here) was given a special movement to make it musical, rather than just mindlessly setting your foot down on the ground.

This week I am doing a canon with my upper graders, and you can be sure we will be paying close attention to the quality of our sounds.

Passacaglia

I have always known that the college students play in recitals, but I have never been to one until Tuesday night.  I found out that our first chair viola (a freshman) was playing the Passacaglia on a theme by Handel by Johan Halvorsen.  I know that he is a good player, but his performance proved to me that he is a great player, and it was a joy to hear this piece played so well.  I didn't tape it, but you can hear it in this youtube video with Pinchas Zuckerman and Itzhak Perlman.

Musical Instrument Museum

Last week I took time off from teaching, composing, practicing and even (gasp!) listening to music.  It was time to take a spring break and see some baseball spring training in Arizona and hike through the beautiful red rocks of Sedona.

Hence, no blogging about music.  However, on our last day, we ended up at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.  Wow!  What an amazing new museum.  We spent about 2 1/2 hours there, and I'm sure we didn't see everything, and by the end I was so overwhelmed with the offerings that I was basically just walking through the galleries to make sure I hadn't missed anything too terribly important.

I stopped taking photos after 85 shots.

The top floor has instruments from around the world grouped by continent, then country (or sometimes region).  With headphones and a little transmitter, you could listen to various videos throughout the hall from each country - what a wealth of sound!  Also, you wouldn't believe all the variations on a theme - multiple kinds of drums, violins, things you bang on, things you blow into, etc.

I wondered how I could take anything from this experience to share with my students, and I ran across a sign in the China section about instrument classification.  It got  me to thinking about the various ways in which we have grouped instruments, from the modern Western thought of strings / winds / percussion to the Orff classification of metals / woods / skins, and then there are the ways in which instruments are played.  Perhaps I can put together a lesson with some of the photos that I took and have kids create their own classification system.

Why Teach Music?

Music Technology in Education

I am strongly considering getting an iPad 3 when it comes out next week.  I realize that this is definitely a want and not a need.  At home I use my desktop iMac for Sibelius and other music-related fun, and my trusty MacBook goes to school with me to show short music videos to kids, put music and lyrics up on the screen, and run powerpoint games (Poison Melody, anyone?).  I also bring my laptop into my private studio so I can play accompaniment tracks for my beginning students.  (That makes some of the early "songs" sound much more interesting than they really are.)

So, in preparation for bringing home this new toy, I searched for "ipad music education apps" and came up with a blog which I have added to "music blogs of note" on the left side of this page.  It would appear that I have much to learn to see how to integrate new technologies into the classroom.

This could be fun!

New student

I am so pleased with a new student who started with me last month.  He took recorder with me at Vista last year as a third grader (and did quite well).   He did not start an instrument in the school music program this fall, but he went to a children's concert by the Claremont Symphony Orchestra in January and came home to declare that he wanted to take violin lessons.

He has had 5 lessons with me so far, and I can tell that he takes his practicing seriously.  He also seems to have a natural affinity to the violin.  Today he told me that his goal is to be as good as Joshua Bell.  At the rate he's going, he can certainly achieve that goal!