Have you checked out About.com online? It has lots of “neighborhoods” featuring information about all sorts of interests, and one of them is music education. Started in 1996, About.com has been run since 2005 by the New York Times company.

The music education site presents information and resources on music theory, history of music, profiles of musicians and composers, online music games, and lesson plans. Every week a newletter is emailed to those who sign up, with links to their articles about specific topics within each of these areas–spotlights on certain performers or composers from various musical genres, lesson plans, a free music resource of the week involving songs, links and downloads; timely series built around, for example, Women’s History Month, Jazz Appreciation Month, and Black History Month. There are ideas about practicing, buying instruments, history timelines, etc.

Apart from the music education site, the larger site, about.com also has “neighborhoods” devoted specifically to folk music, classical, guitar, top 40/pop music, and children’s music. You can also sign up to receive weekly emails with highlights and links for any of these topics.

I’m always on the lookout for music books that I can recommend to my students, give as birthday gifts, or just read to get my own inspriation kick started. “M is For Music” by Kathleen Krull is a beautifully illustrated children’s book that goes through each letter of the alphabet to describe styles, instruments, and musicians. Opening with some wonderful quotes such as “Without music life would be a mistake” (Nietzche), the book then dives into the letter A with a beautiful illustration of a very long accordion. Other words decorate the page such as “alto” “accapella”, and “aria”. There’s even an illustrated record cover of Louis Armstrong. The Beatles, Cajun music, Jazz, and even “finger snapping folk singers” grace the pages of this delightful book. My favoritie page is the one for the letter U that says “U is for ukuleles in unison”.
At the end of the book there is a glossary of all the words used in the book with more detailed definitions and explanations. This is a great book to use to introduce young children to musical conccepts. It’s defnitley a great way to get their music vocabulary jump started.

Have you ever noticed the difference in how musicians feel about performing compared with how listeners feel about it? Most people are very appreciative of performances, but sometimes people view things very differently.  There are those who presume that anyone who gets on stage is in it for the applause, or is egotistical, or a narcissist.  You might be interested in a survey about this (see below). 

More to the point for teachers, perhaps, is that sometimes parents or others seem to think performances only look like fun if everyone’s smiling!

To me, music is fun because it engages each person at his or her own level. It’s hard work but rewarding, and in doing that work, we learn that having fun isn’t all about smiling, relaxing or playing games.  As a musician, this is probably obvious, but it’s good once in a while to think about it, and if you have an angle of your own on this, or a story to share, by all means add a comment at the end of this post. 

So, to what degree is music about showing off, self-expression, self-esteem, or just plain self?  Are musicians narcissists?

Drew Pinsky, a physician who cohosts Loveline, managed to get 200 celebrities to fill out a “Narcissism Personality Inventory” survey, and found that the least narcissistic celebrities were…guess who? Musicians.

The study suggests that (more…)

Would you like to know what the presidential candidates say about music education? I did a little survey. You will be surprised by the results!

First, let me mention that I found it jarring to hear from my wife that in a recent focus group discussing education, nearly everyone seemed obsessed about making sure our state’s educational system helped kids get jobs. Almost as if they viewed colleges as vocational schools.

This is obsolete. Education shouldn’t help kids get jobs; it should help kids create jobs.

The creative thinking and discipline and communication skills learned through music education can help people invent something, start a new business, work for themselves–or just help them understand themselves and the fast-changing world we live in enough to identify the right companies and positions for themselves, and even shape existing jobs so they can really shine and make a difference.

OK, so which presidential candidates have made music and the arts part of their campaign? (more…)

Joe came to me, he explained, because his boss wanted to get rid of him, and Joe wasn’t about to let it happen.  In the midst of music lesson discussions about the instrument and learning techniques and tunes, I slowly came to learn the story of how Joe was taking his boss to the Labor commissioner for mistreating him, while enduring the mistreatment so as not to give in.

The violin was his refuge.  He started getting pretty good at it by the time the commissioner decided against him.  The next lesson was sad, all talking and no music, in fact, and in an unfortunate twist, he never paid me for that last lesson.  I always joke that I should have charged him triple my normal rates–the rates of a psychiatrist, not a music teacher!

A news article came out today highlighting a new recording studio in a cancer wing of a hospital, giving kids a chance to write songs and record them.  The idea is not merely to cure, but to heal.  Music has a holistic health effect that our pragmatic society has a hard time understanding.  It doesn’t match up with dollars and cents, but it makes common sense.

One more story:   (more…)

Kids love music, and if exposed to good playing, they love all kinds of music.  But, sadly, Michelle is probably on target in her recent post (Using Technology to Teach Classical Music) when she says kids do not look forward to studying about classical music.  Why should that be?  What is not exciting about Stravinsky, Prokoviev, Beethoven, Copland, to name a few?  Is it a teaching problem fixable by technology, or a cultural problem?

Years ago I saw a survey about kids’ musical preferences in a major newspaper.  Kids were asked what their favorite music was, but of all the types of music they were allowed to choose from, two notable types were missing: classical and folk.  Instead I noticed a category called “slow music,” which of course did not receive many votes.  Why did researchers offer kids the choice of “slow music” and leave out classical or folk?  They didn’t even kids a chance to answer for themselves.

I explored the “slow music” question while doing some music demonstrations for 7th graders.  When asked what “slow music” was, some kids said it was classical.  So I played them a slow Scottish fiddle air, and then a fast classical violin piece by Bach.  This intrigued them.

Sometimes the presumptions of researchers–or teachers, parents, and administrators–put words in kids’ mouths, and ideas in their heads.  Of course, this is what teachers and parents are supposed to do.  But in catering to what we presume to be the interests of kids, is it possible we sometimes merely follow instead of lead?  (more…)

Let’s compare two different worlds we live in–making music and using the internet.

According to Gallup polls, 95% of Americans feel that music is part of a well-rounded education. Between 78% and 93% feel that learning to play music makes people smarter, results in better grades for kids in other subjects, helps teach discipline, and helps build friendships.

A recent Harris poll has shown that 88% of people with post-graduate education were involved in music in school, and 83% of those earning over $150,000 had a music education. Researchers explained the connection between music and income partly by pointing to the life skills learned through the discipline and the strong experience of working together with others.

One of the researchers pointed out that the beauty of music is that it brings “both hard work and enjoyment together, which doesn’t always happen elsewhere.”

It certainly doesn’t happen everywhere. While music students learn about real-world struggles and rewards in a very immediate way, our growing infatuation with computers allows many to fantasize that they can “cut to the chase”– (more…)

If you are like me, buying numerous subscriptions to all of the music magazines you could be interested in would really break the bank. Plus, who has the time to hunt for articles on the topics that you are interested in. On a recent internet hunt, I found a helpful site that has access to articles from several music magazines and it is all free.

(more…)

I’ve been “reading” the great new book by Daniel Levitin called This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. The book examines scientific observations about how music affects our brains and vice versa. It’s especially fascinating for music teachers.

I recommend it very highly, though not the way I’m trying to “read” it, which is by listening to it. My new mp3 player came with a free month of Audible.com so I chose this book, but I found it pretty hard to follow a nonfiction book read out loud. No chance to flip back a few pages and reread a few key points. (And don’t dare daydream or you miss a page!)

I’d like to mention here just a few interesting points raised in the book–about practicing, ear training, and the effect of music lessons on brain development. I hope to refer again to this book in some future blog posts as well.

Practicing

Levitin describes an experiment where researchers tried to define “talent.”  They examined music students who were regarded as most talented, and invariably found that those students who were the best musicians (more…)

Yet another study has come out this month, demonstrating the value of music in general education. Click here to view a summary of the study.

The study looked at 4,739 elementary and middle school students in four U.S. regions, and found that across all areas, students scored significantly better (17-33%) in English and math if they attended schools with high-quality music programs. Schools with higher-quality music programs showed better results than schools with lower-quality music programs, and both showed better scores than schools without music. Oddly, schools with what the study called “deficient choral programs” scored worse than the others. It seemed to be the instrumental programs that lifted the student’s learning across the board.

The study was funded by NAMM, an association for companies in the music products industry, and was published the week of June 10 in the Journal for Research in Music Education.

There are, no doubt, many reasons for these findings, and all of us music teachers probably have our pet concerns about it. One unheralded reason that I think music helps performance in other subjects is that music teaches communication skills: no one can be well understood, face to face with other people, unless they have a good sense of rhythm and timing in their speech. Just try saying something forcefully and you will notice how clear your rhythms are. Kids do not learn this in academic subjects or on a computer; only in music and drama are these skills essential for success. In addition to rhythm, musicians also learn sensitivity to others, and an ability to perform in real-time situations.

Sometimes it seems that school systems are so focused on management, administration, budgeting, test scores, and legal paperwork, that the only people who really seem to care about kids anymore are the parents and teachers. Let’s hope more official studies about the benefits of music can push administrators to step up to the plate and fund and improve music programs for the sake of our kids, and our society as a whole.