Teaching the "Wire Choir"

El Sistema: Why not in America?

dlewis — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:22:11 +0000

During a time when music in American public education is an oft endagered component, Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog April entry highlighting the 60 Minutes segment on El Sistema and the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra was very refreshing. I cannot imagine anyone not being very glad for the positive impact this music program is having on the impoverished young people of Venezuela. This orchestra program enables the Venezuelan young people see that there is an alternative to poverty through hard work and discipline. It shows them that there are constructive ways to express the many kinds of human emotions. In addition, the imagination, creative thinking music engenders can enable these young people to excel in a variety of fields outside of music. (See Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, entitled “Do schools kill creativity?” He refers specifically to music and arts relationship to the needs of the 21st century and future job opportunities.)

Why do we have such a hard time convincing school administrators, legislators, et. al. of the powerful impact music can have on a child’s life? What do you think?

(Related BBC Article: Venezuela youths transformed by music (2005)

Wordpress Theme Problem, Sorry!

dlewis — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:32:18 +0000

My prior theme was not playing nicely with Wordpress 2.51 on the "back-end" of my blog. So, I’ve changed to another theme for the short-term. Thanks for your patience!

Scala: A Rockin’ String Quartet

dlewis — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:35:03 +0000

I came across a video of Scala on John P.’s One Man’s Blog. Scala is a string quartet recently featured on Britain’s Got Talent. You will certainly recognize the faces on the panel if you watch any of the American talent shows. This may be something to show your string students and let them see some of the possibilities for string instruments. They are not as limited as some might have you believe.

Teaching the Wire Choir has a new home!

dlewis — Mon, 05 May 2008 02:20:15 +0000

Teaching the Wire Choir has a new home and its own domain name! You may be here as a result of an automatic forward from our previous home. The change was made this weekend and fortunately, there weren’t too many difficulties. All seems to be working fine. Please bookmark the new URL and visit again!

Student Self-Evaluation

dlewis — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:47:38 +0000

One of my goals is to help my students learn to listen as they play/sing. I want them to begin developing the ability to listen to themselves and the ensemble and respond appropriately to intonation, blend, balance, phrasing, etc. In short, all those elements that transform those dots on the page into something that communicates to both the player(s) and the listeners.

This is not a skill that develops overnight, it takes years of work. Therefore, I believe that learning to listen critically to oneself and one’s ensemble should be taught from the beginning.

A method I like to use is to regularly record the ensemble with my Zoom H2. A day or two later, the students listen to the recording and respond in writing to what they are hearing. Of course, I also expose to recordings of fine groups (orchestras, bands, choirs) so that they are developing a proper sound concept.

To help the students with their written evaluation, I have adapted our state’s music assessment forms (Orchestra Self-Evaluation Form; Chorus Self-Evaluation Form [MSWord document format]). We review the meanings of the various terms each time we do this exercise. After they have “graded” themselves, we discuss what they have heard and what they have written. The students are tough on themselves, but also are not shy about giving credit where it is due.

I would be interested to hear about how you help your students become listening and thinking musicians. Please leave a comment with your ideas.

Is it time for TI:ME?

dlewis — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:17:34 +0000

A couple of years ago, TI:ME was featured at the FMEA Convention. The focus of the convention was technology in music education. During one of the seminars I learned about TI:ME certification. I have given some thought to taking some of the TI:ME classes. However, while I use various types of technology in my orchestra and chorus rehearsals, my middle school does not offer any music technology classes. Nor do I think we will offer any such classes in the near future. In a time of shrinking resources, I don’t know how equipment and teacher time would be funded. I know that a number of people have taken a TI:ME course or two. What were the benefits you (and your students) gained from the course(s)? Would you take the classes even if you weren’t teaching any music technology classes? Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences and thoughts.

YouTube and Expanding Musical Horizons

dlewis — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:24:46 +0000

At the beginning of this school year, I instituted something called “Music Monday.” Every Monday, I would play a recording of a piece of music for my students. They, in turn, would respond to the selection by writing a description the piece using musical terms. We would also briefly discuss the piece, including whether or not they enjoyed it and why.

After a couple of month hiatus, I resumed the practice this past week, but with a twist. Instead of just using a CD recording, I used a clip from YouTube. Using the YouTube download tool at Tech Crunch, I saved the clip to my portable drive and projected it on screen using my LCD projector.

This idea hit me when I was visiting Evan Tobias’s blog, “Catalysts and Connnections.” The funny thing is that his post really didn’t have anything with using YouTube in the classroom. His post (inspired by another music blogger, James Frankel) was focusing on music notation software. But at the end of his post, he had a clip of Anne-Sophie Mutter playing a portion of Vivaldi’s Spring, with Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

As I watched that clip, the idea hit me to give my students the opportunity to see the music being made as well as hearing the music. One of my goals is to give students the opportunity to develop a sound concept for their instrument and the orchestra as a whole. I also want to expose them to string instruments playing a variety of genres. CD’s can certainly do this. But video allows the students to go one step further and observe the musician’s concentration, his/her instrumental technique and their very personal involvement with the music.

It was a huge hit! My students really enjoyed what they saw and heard. As we discussed the clip and Ms. Mutter’s playing, they talked about technique, intonation (one of my frequent rehearsal rants), balance in the ensemble, how the music portrayed or did not portray for them the idea of spring.

Where do we go from here? I plan to play YouTube clips for each of the orchestral instruments in a variety of genres. If you have some YouTube favorites that you think would benefit my students, I would appreciate it if you would leave a link in your comments.

Confession is good for the soul. . .

dlewis — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:20:53 +0000

. . . or so they say. Assuming it is true, I guess it’s time I come clean. I have taught band & strings during my teaching career. But, as of this year, I have ventured into the world of vocal music, teaching middle school chorus.

Fellow instrumentalists may be screaming, “Why would you do such a thing?” Well, recently I have been teaching high school and middle school orchestra. However, due to schedule changes in our district’s high schools, I had to leave my high school orchestra in the band director’s hands. My middle school asked if I would be interested in adding chorus to my teaching duties. Hmmm. I gave it some thought and said yes. What has followed has been a frenetic (and sometimes frantic) search for information to build my almost non-existent choral skills. Let see, voice class and choral pedagogy classes were how many years ago??

Added to this was my lack of piano skills. Oh yes, I took piano minor in college. I even took piano lessons my senior year in high school to help prepare me for piano minor. However, let’s just say that the I, IV, V7 block chords are my great friends.

One of the things I appreciate about music teachers is that they are willing to help each other. Two choral teachers in my district came to my rescue with recommendations for choral seminars, video tapes, reading materials, etc. Other choral teachers heard of my plight (thinking, no doubt, “Oh, this foolish instrumentalist!”), offered their help and were willing to answer my 1001 questions. Also, the band director at my school is an absolute gem. He has been my listening ear when frustration has reached a peak. Bless you all!!

So how did I prepare for and get through this year? I attended a summer choral workshop, read everything I could get my hands on, listened to choral recordings, watched choral pedagogy videos, asked innumerable questions, observed others, and sweat - a lot. When I didn’t have accompaniment CD’s, I used Finale and my limited keyboard skills to input the piano parts for the songs the choirs were singing. I then created Smart Music accompaniments from Finale and I was set for accompaniments. Purists may scoff at this arrangement, but for me it was absolutely wonderful.

Now, the end of the school year is around the corner. How has this new adventure gone? Overall, pretty well. I have learned a great deal (with a lot more to learn). We put on a Winter Concert and did more than just survive. A couple of months ago, I combined my 7th & 8th grade choirs and went to MPA (Music Performance Assessment, a.k.a. Contest, Festival). We fared better than I expected, receiving a Superior rating (did the vocal adjudicators have pity on this poor, miserable instrumentalist?). And, my numbers look pretty good for next year which means that I didn’t scare away the students.

Why make this confession to the music teaching world? In our district, anyway, more music teachers are having to venture into new areas. We certainly would rather stay in our area(s) of specialty, but sometimes that just isn’t possible. My hope is that others who may be facing a situation similar to mine will be encouraged by my experience. With determination and hard work you can keep a program going and even see it grow. I’ll never be Robert Shaw or a notable choral educator, but I do have a bunch of kids that like to come to chorus everyday - - and they are learning!

NAXOS Online Subscription for Music Ed Bloggers

dlewis — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:02:16 +0000

Wow! Thanks to NAXOS and Dr. Joe Pisano, the first 100 Music Bloggers who join the ME Bloggers campaign will receive a free subscription to NAXOS’ new online service. I was considering giving this service a try as a resource for the listening I like to have my students do in class. Now I am able to test it out for free! This will be a great addition to my teaching tools.

If you are a music teacher and haven’t heard about the 100 ME Bloggers campaign, head over to www.mustech.net and learn more about it. I began just a little over a month ago, and it’s been fun to put down some thoughts for my blog.

New List of Music Ed Bloggers

dlewis — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:33:41 +0000

Dr. Joseph Pisano has updated his list of Music Ed bloggers. There are 30 on the list now, about a third of the way to the 100 bloggers by Dec. 31, 2008 goal. Some of those on the list have been blogging for a while and some (like me) have recently joined in. If you have a few minutes to spare, follow the links on the list below and check out these blogs.

http://www.mustech.net
Dr. Joseph M. Pisano- MusTech.net
http://digitalmusiceducator.wordpress.com
Owen Bradley -The Digital Music Educator
http://etobiasblog.musiced.net
Evan Tobias- Catalysts & Connections
http://musiced.about.com/
Espie Estrella -About Music Education
http://jamesfrankel.musiced.net/
Dr. James Frankel- Music Technology in Education
http://weblog.siba.fi/msalavuo
Dr. Miikka Salavuo- Music Education, Technology & Social Media
http://pwhitfield.edublogs.org
Pete Whitfield- e-Learning for Music
http://www.musicedmagic.com
Chad Criswell- Music Ed. Magic
http://81.179.47.224/jon/
Dr. Jonathan Savage- Jonathan Savage
http://musictechforme.com/
V. Keith Mason- Music Tech. for Me.
http://tjweller.wordpress.com
Travis J. Weller- Composing Like Mad
http://mystro2b.edublogs.org/
Ken Pendergrass- Music is Not for Insects
http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/
Joel- So You Want to Teach
http://stengel99.wordpress.com/
Steve Engel- Music Ed. Lounge
http://fsharpbflat.wordpress.com/
Linda Granite- Bb, F#
http://musicisfree.ning.com/
Robert Brannan- The Music is Free
http://dvzmix.wordpress.com/
Deborah Valdivia-Zwolinski- DVZ’s Mix
http://choirteachers.blogspot.com/
Kyle Gardner- Choir Teachers
http://www.pauldraper.org
Paul Draper- Draper’s Blogspot
http://johnwilborn.wordpress.com
John Wilborn- John Wilborn’s Weblog
http://iknowithink.blogspot.com
Leo Park- I Know…I Think
http://gluedtothestring.blogspot.com
Stan Haskins- Glued to the String
http://edgroves.wordpress.com
Edgar Groves- Edgar Groves’ Weblog
http://musicedtech.wordpress.com
Barbara Freedman- Music Ed. Tech.
http://tomrudolph.berkleemusicblogs.com
Dr. Tom Rudolph- Make the Most of Notation Software
http://wirechoir.dlewisweb.com
Dale Lewis- Teaching the “Wire Choir”
http://docandry.edublogs.org
Dr. Kevin Andry-Dr. Andry’s Band Blog
http://sperham.wordpress.com
Steffany Perham- Perham’s Prattlings
http://alexruthmann.com
Alex Ruthmann- Alex Ruthmann’s Blog
http://www.beatechie.edublogs.org
Carol Broos- Be A Techie:)

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