A blog for college students of Music Education
“Blogging helps student musicians learn to think critically about their work and evaluate their performance.” – @LindsayMorelli
The #MusEdChat on June 21st, 2010 discussed how music educators use or could use blogs, podcasts and wikis in the music classroom. The topic for the evening was suggested by @katiesw1.
It is my distinct pleasure to present to you the 14th Edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival! This post will highlight the best and brightest in blog posts from the month of April. There were many fantastic submissions this month, and you can find them below. This is the last edition of the Carnival for the 2009-2010 school year; we will resume posting with an issue in September. In the meantime, consider checking out the main landing page for the Music Education Blog Carnival over at MusTech.net. Enjoy reading, and be sure to share this post with any fellow music educators (or future music educators!) you know!
Andrew Ritenour presents The Educational Beauty of Twitter posted at Future Music Educators.
Janice Tuck presents Music Primary Singing Resources posted at The Music Teachers Blog
Zoe Toft presents Stories in tune – The Magic Flute; Part 1 posted at Playing by the book, saying, “I’m not a music educator per se but a mum who wants to introduce my young kids to more classical music and so I’ve started a series called Stories in Tune where I review picture book versions of classical music pieces and write up the play and response they inspire in my children.”
Susan Haugland presents Why, not What or How posted at Susan Haugland’s Blog.
Brenda D Muench presents BoomWhacker Mysteries in First Grade: Part One posted at Tech Tempo.
Wendy Stevens presents To Give or Not Give Makeup Lessons posted at ComposeCreate.com, saying, “Since many music educators also teach private lessons, this article gives them a list of options for making the most of their valuable time. Many independent music teachers will also find this information helpful.”
Thomas J. West presents PMEA In-Service Conference 2010 – Live Blog posted at Thomas J. West Music, saying, “The Pennsylvania Music Educators Association’s annual conference and All-State Ensembles Festival took place in Pittsburgh, PA on April 22-24. This live blog features the story of attending the conference while serving as an All-State chaperone, as well as “pearls of wisdom” from conference sessions as tweeted by music educators and music ed. undergraduates.”
Steve Baker presents The World’s Greatest Band Director posted on Facebook.
Evan Tobias presents Open scores and music students: An invitation to compose from Jason Freeman posted at Catalysts & Connections.
Joseph Pisano presents Jazz Appreciation Month: Celebrate Women Jazz Artists -Lesson Plan posted at Music, Technology and Education: Mustech.net
Craig M. Cortello presents FROM THE BAND ROOM TO THE BOARDROOM?The 9 Common Lessons of Music Education That Translate into Success posted at Business Musician’s Blog.
Andy Zweibel presents Collegiate Leadership Academy at MENC’s Music Education Week posted at MusicEdMajor.net.
Cary Stewart presents Measures of Success – First Look posted at Third Stream Music Education.
Cary Stewart presents Measures of Success – Second Look posted at Third Stream Music Education, saying, “Part Two of the method book review”
Jenny Boster presents The Importance of Beginning Technique posted at The Teaching Studio, saying, “The Teaching Studio is a relatively new blog all about teaching piano lessons. This was an article I wrote during the week we focused on the topic of teaching beginning piano technique.”
Chad Criswell presents Is Beta Blocker Use By Musicians A Form Of Doping? – Opinion | Music Education Magic – Music Education Magic posted at Tales From The Podium.
Samuel Wright presents iPad & The Future of Music Education posted at Wright-Stuff Music
Theresa White presents Group SMS Program – Swaggle.mobi posted at Education in Music, saying, “Also could go in education. It’s used as an educational technology 
”
Jim Frankel presents The Other 80%: An Industry Perspective posted at Music Technology in Edcation.
John Bogenschutz presents Dissection of a College Music Education Major posted at Tone Deaf, saying, “This is a comic I draw and this comic is based on College Music Education Majors.”
We have officially made it to the last week in April, which means it’s probably crunch time for most college students/teachers out there, and the end is in sight for those of you in the public schools. However, don’t forget about an incredible opportunity to share your thoughts with the music education community which ends this Friday-the 14th Edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival! This carnival will be a showcase of the top blog posts related to Music education in the month of April, and will be hosted right here at MusicEdMajor.net on the first of May. Not only is this the last week to submit your posts for this month’s carnival, but it’s your last chance to submit until September, as the Music Ed Blog Carnival will be taking summer vacation with the rest of us! Don’t miss your chance!
Here are the steps to take in order to submit your blog post to this month’s carnival:
This is your last opportunity to have your work featured in the Music Education Blog Carnival until September, as the Carnival will not be published during the summer months. Don’t miss this incredible chance to have your work read by hundreds of like-minded music teachers. Get your submissions in by April 30th at 11:59 PM EST by visiting the Music Ed Blog Carnival Submission Page today!
It is with great excitement that I announce that MusicEdMajor.net will be hosting the 14th Edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival (and LAST of the 2009-2010 school year)!
A Blog Carnival is essentially a showcase of the top content from Blogs in a particular niche. The Music Ed Blog Carnival, specifically, is a project of Dr. Joe Pisano at MusTech.net, and is a monthly[1] showcase of the top Music Education blog posts for a given month. In this case, you can expect the Carnival to be published on May 1, and be a recap of the month of April.
Are you interested in writing for the Music Ed Blog Carnival? Not sure what to write about? It’s quite simple, actually: write about music education! Okay, maybe that was a bit obvious. However, the Blog Carnival does allow you to submit your post under one of the following categories:
If your post falls into any of these categories (which it likely does, seeing as how there’s an “Other” category!), I strongly encourage you to submitting it to the Carnival!
It’s easy! Just make sure your post is related to Music Education (this is a requirement!), and then head to the Music Ed Blog Carnival Submission Page to submit your entry. You’ll need to enter the Permalink URL[2], your name and email address, the category under which the post goes, and any additional comments you have (this would be a great chance for a brief summary of the post). That’s it!
If you’re interested, and you have a post (or an idea for a post), just head on over to the submission page to submit your post for consideration! Be sure to check back on May 1, 2010 to find out if your post was published in the Blog Carnival! This will be the last carnival of the school year, so get your posts in soon!
This is a re-post of an article I wrote on my personal website a while ago. In light of some recent discussions I’ve had, I felt it had merit here. Stay tuned for a few other posts from the andyzweibel.com archives in the coming weeks!
I just recently was talking to a close friend, who is a graduate student in the Frost School of Music at UM, pursuing a DMA in Instrumental Conducting. She is also a graduate assistant with the marching band, and a TA for the Frost Symphonic Winds and Wind Ensemble. As a future band director, she recently went to the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) convention in Austin, Texas. She came back with a new found inspiration, and attributed it to the experiences she had at CBDNA, which made me think abut my experiences after returning from conferences. I’ve realized that what my friend is experiencing is similar to what we all tend to experience after an event such as CBDNA-something I have come to call “the conference effect.”
On the most basic level, “the conference effect” is the sense of inspiration and excitement for the profession that many people (in this case music educators) tend to feel after spending a day/weekend/week immersing themselves in what they love at a conference. I know the feeling myself, and I know that many of the music educators reading this know it as well. When you return from a conference, you feel revitalized-almost like a new person, and ready to take on whatever challenges may approach you. In my case as a student, conferences are the times when I find myself wishing I could actually be out in the field, teaching, right away. However you react specifically, this heightened level of inspiration motivates us all to be our best in the days and weeks following the conference.
It is important, though, to keep in mind the effect that timing has on this inspiration. I have only ever been to three different music education conferences: the Midwest clinic in Chicago in mid-December, the FMEA conference in Tampa in early-January, and MENC’s Music Education Week in June. Midwest, while extremely enjoyable, comes just at the end of the semester and the beginning of the holidays, so when the conference is over, I tend to find myself extremely inspired, but with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs for the rest of December. Music Ed Week, while also enjoyable, runs into the same problem, as it takes place during the summer holiday. FMEA, on the other hand, occurs just before the spring semester begins, and I find myself beginning each spring semester with a renewed excitement for what I am doing, in part because of the lasting effects of this inspiration I get from the conference. This has been even more obvious the past two Januaries, when I had the opportunity to spend the week in between FMEA and the beginning of classes working with a high school band in LaBelle, FL at a school where a close friend (and recent UM alum) teaches. By the time the conference was over and my week of working in a real-life situation was through, I was prepared to do whatever it took to get myself teaching right away.
I’m sure any person who has been to a conference in their field has had experiences like mine, where they have felt a renewed excitement for their profession in the days and weeks following the conference. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s likely that we are more productive in this period than we are in any other, as a result of this excitement. So the real question is-how do we artificially create this “conference effect,” and the productivity that comes with it, when there is not a conference to inspire us? If we can somehow trigger this motivation without actually going to a conference, we can increase the caliber of the work we do throughout the entire year, instead of just for a few select weeks after conferences.
Let’s examine what types of activities take place at these conferences. For music education, specifically, we can narrow it into three main activities: learning, networking, and concert-going. Generally, any music education conference will include each of these three aspects. Attendees go to sessions where they learn about a specific subject, they speak to other professionals in their field and network with them, and they attend concerts put on by performing ensembles over the course of the conference.
So, how can we recreate each of these in our daily lives to artificially create the “concert effect”?
Hopefully these tips will help everyone be able to re-create “the conference effect” in their every day lives. Do you have an experience with this effect? Do you have a great story from a conference you’ve been to? Thoughts on my ideas? Leave a comment!
Under the moderation of Andy Zweibel, the first ever #MusEdChat took place on March 1st, 2010 on Twitter. The topic being discussed was “What are effective methods of assessment in a performance based class?” With 20 people participating from around the world (and probably many others watching), many ideas and resources were discussed. To read the full transcript, visit the transcript page for this chat.
First, many people posed relevent questions about the grading of performance. Questions like “Objectivity vs. subjectivity? How do you all quantify this? (@pisanojm)” and ” Can you grade creativity? If so, how? (@Guitarguy73)” were posed and discussed. Some replied that you can grade creativity through assessing students’ ability to compose within standards, while other responses suggested grading according to assessment of a combination of things such as attendence, participation, and preparation. The use of rubrics as a grading aid was also suggested.
Andy (@Zweibz7) then posed the question, “Those of you who don’t teach general music, what areas do you feel should factor into a student’s grade?” There were quite a few responses to this question. One response was, “Honestly mine is purely based on attendance in rehearsal and heavily on performance. (@kgard)”. Others cited progression and participation as elements of grading.
The conversation then briefly shifted to common technology used in grading music. The use of blogs in the music classroom was discussed. One thought was to record rehearsals, and have students blog about their thoughts and ideas for that particular rehearsal. Other technological programs included SmartMusic, Voicethread and Moodle. Thoughts were even shared about online lessons via Skype. Then the group discussed the effectiveness of having students record themselves for purposes like self-assessment. Products like Audacity and Myna were cited as making this process easier.
During this time, another conversation was happening on the same chat.This conversation dealt with assessing composition. Just like the other topics, there were a variety of opinions. As stated by @MusicEdTech,”Here’s my rubric for assessing a composition assignment- 1) Did you fulfill the basic requirements of the project? 2) did you work diligently during class? That’s it.” Another suggestion was to use strict rules, but to allow them to be creative in some aspects as well. It seemed as though many of the teachers in the chat used either Noteflight or Musescore to facilitate this in their classrooms.
Then the participants began discussing how to grade private lessons in grades 3-6. It seemed as though most of them used a pass/fail method for grading. The suggestion then came to just give every student in these grades an A. The argument for this method was that a negative grade will turn students away from music. Others disagreed with this argument stating that students need to have actual feedback, otherwise they will not progress and will quit anyway. @iteachmusic65 then commented that the younger students should mostly get A’s, but then as they get older, the teacher should raise the bar, causing them to acheive higher goals.
As you can see, in just one hour, an impressive amount of valuable information was transmitted between 20 people involved in Music Education. To see the entire transcript of the chat, check out (link to transcript). To make searching through the information easier, here is a list of links that were shared in this chat:
If you would like to take part in an invaluable learning experience with music educators around the world, join in the discussion on Twitter at 8PM EST on Monday nights under the hashtag #musedchat! The topic for this weeks chat is, “How does music education fit into the education reforms coming to the U.S. in the next 5 years?”
Not familiar with Twitter? Learn how to participate by checking out Dr. J Pisano’s tutorial, and by visiting the official #MusEdChat page here at MusicEdMajor.net!
