Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

Yesterday, I received an email from Apple announcing iTunes U. As Apple states on its website: “iTunes U is a part of the iTunes Store featuring free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more, that you can enjoy on your iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC. Explore over 50,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world. With iTunes U, there’s no end to what or where you can learn.”

I opened iTunes and used the search tool to see what “music” in iTunes U would produce. 150 items appeared from such universities as Yale Music, Arizona State university, Vanderbilt University and more.

When I began listening to the tracks, it made me wish that this was around when I was in college. You can find lectures, musical performances, and even lesson plans. I listened to and watched some excellent music performances from “Appalachian Celebration: A Celebration of the Life and Music of David Schnaufer” and two wonderful lesson plans from Andrea Peterson, 2007 National teacher of the Year, as a part of Smithsonian Global Sound Activities. When you listen to her first lesson, she describes a website to use in a multi-cultural music lesson. Her second lesson gives an excellent integration activity for 4th grade music and social studies classes. If you click “get” next to the lesson plans listed in the Smithsonian Global list, you can acquire 19 pdf files, all are free lesson plans on multi-cultural music.

There are several podcasts from classes, concerts, and lectures. You can also find tutorials–one I found on how to use GarageBand ‘08. The possibilities are endless.

As a resource for teachers, this is a great way to find music, lessons, videos, tutorials, or to hear lectures on current music education topics. However, I also have to think about what this means for colleges. If I were an undergrad and missed a class, being able to download the lecture through iTunes U is a great advantage. Or, if I were studying for the final, to be able to take a Saturday and listen to all of the lectures from the semester would help my studying considerably. However, one must wonder, if you can download all of the video lectures from iTunes U, then why would you get up for that 8:00 am class? What does this mean for education?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

This lesson is one that I wrote for SoundTree’s Teaching Resources. There are quite a few lessons and articles on this website. I encourage you to check them out. Enjoy this lesson!

Name Chant: An Activity That You Can Do With Your Students During The First Few Days Of School

Grade Level: 
K-3

Objective:
The students will successfully chant the “Name Chant” poem and their names to a steady beat. In addition, they will successfully read and play the notation of the poem.

 TI:ME Strategies Covered:
Electronic Keyboards or Music Production

MENC Standards Covered:
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music
5. Reading and notating music

Materials:

1. The “Name Chant” Poem
2. An electronic keyboard that can play various rhythms or a music production software such as Apple’s GarageBand or PG Music’s Band-in-a-Box

Procedures:

1. Have the students sit in a circle.
2. Introduce the “Name Chant” by rote while tapping the steady beat on their laps. If you are working with Grades 2 and 3, you can introduce this chant with the rhythmic notation, rather than through rote.
3. Go around the room and have all of the students state the chant together while tapping the steady beat on their laps. Then, each student will rhythmically chant his/her name between all of the students stating the “Name Chant” together. The form would be: ABACADAEAFA etc. with Section A being the “Name Chant” and Section B, C, D, E, and F being each individual student’s name.
4. Once accomplished, have each student choose a rhythm instrument to play the rhythm of his/her name.
5. Play a musical style/beat pattern from an electronic keyboard, or from Apple’s GarageBand or PG Music’s Band-in-a-Box.
6. Now have the students chant the “Name Chant,” then perform their names on the rhythm instruments. The musical style/beat pattern being played by the electronic keyboard or from Apple’s GarageBand or PG Music’s Band-in-a-Box provides the students with the steady beat and a musical style to perform the chant.

Extensions:
The teacher could use this lesson to introduce the four voices: talking, singing, calling, and whispering. The teacher could have the students chant the “Name Chant” and rhythmically state their name using one of the four voices.

Outcome:
This lesson will produce various levels of achievements. The ideal outcome is that the students can successfully read the notated rhythm while stating the chant. In addition, they can perform the rhythms of their names on rhythm instruments while a musical style/beat pattern is being played on the electronic instrument or music production software such as Apple’s GarageBand or PG Music’s Band-in-a-Box. I have seen my students gain confidence and ownership of rhythm patterns by just adding that simple electronic keyboard musical style/beat pattern or just hitting play on PG Music’s Band-in-a-Box to accompany them.

The rubric provided below gives the teacher a reference to assess a student’s performance. I assess the two skills individually.

Excellent: The student can state the chant successfully while tapping a steady beat. The student can successfully play his/her name on a rhythm instrument while a musical style is being played.

Good: The student can state most of the chant successfully while tapping a steady beat. The student can mostly play his/her name on a rhythm instrument while a musical style is being played.

Fair: The student can state only a measure of the chant and has difficulty tapping the steady beat. The student has difficulty playing his/her name on a rhythm instrument while a musical style is being played.

Novice: The student cannot state the chant successfully and cannot tap a steady beat. The student cannot play his/her name on a rhythm
instrument while a musical style is being played.

Recently, I read numerous posts on the MENC General Music Boards about “Music Teacher Hierarchy.” It was an extremely interesting discussion about how many of us went to college with the aspiration to teach band for the next 20+ years. Somewhere in the process of life after college, we shifted to teaching elementary general music. In the posts, some teachers have felt that others in the profession have thought that they took the “easy way out” when they decided to teach elementary music.

Luckily, I have only encountered one teacher who thought that, and I felt the need to set her straight because teaching elementary music is wonderful and by no means, the “easy way out.” Yes, it is not for everyone and I applaud those who realized that and moved to a better suited teaching situation. However, for me, it is what I feel that I was called to do and here are my top ten reasons for why I adore teaching elementary general music:

1. The students in elementary school are sponges! At this age, they are open to most of the teaching tools that you use and they absorb knowledge like sponges.
2. Orff Instruments! The students can master them well and you have a blast performing with them.
3. Technology! Students at this age know more about technology than most because they have no fear of it. Therefore, you can use it often in your classroom because it will excite them and they will relate to you better. In addition, they can teach you a thing or two about music technology, burning CDs, mixing music, recording music, iPods, the latest computers, even guitar hero…
4. Dancing! At this age, the students love to dance. Therefore, you can teach them many traditional folk dances and cultural dances without too much giggling…unless you are pairing up 5th grade boys with 5th grade girls.
5. Singing! I teach the students from PreK (age 3) to Grade 3. They are never shy about singing and will sing solos when asked because they are very comfortable with me (having had me as their music teacher for years).
6. Recorders! OK, you might not like listening to 20+ recorders at once. However, recorder music has evolved over the years. You can still have them play their traditional 2 to 3-note songs unaccompanied, or you can purchase a variety of recorder music that comes with synthesized accompaniments or have students earn karate belts to encourage their progress. The elementary recorder students love these new materials that we did not have when we were in elementary music class. The excitement on my students’ faces when they first hear and then master Don Muro’s Queen B from Introducing BAG is worth gold.
7. Smiling faces! Most of the elementary students love music class and will enter with smiling faces and ready to learn.
8. Improvisation! Students at this age are not afraid to improvise with their voices, Orff instruments, rhythm instruments, and body percussion. In addition, they come up with some excellent improvisations.
9. Light bulb or “A ha!” moments! Enough said.
10. Elementary is where you can “hook” them! At this age, you can successfully teach them the steady beat, expressiveness, phrasing, dynamics, singing, performing, composing, improvising, music in relationship to other subjects, world music, American folk songs, patriotic tunes, dancing, and so much more. This is where the students’ musical journeys begin.

If you are an elementary music teacher, please leave a comment or reason to why you like teaching elementary general music. I would love to hear from you!

If you have not seen my website or read my bio, you might not know that I am a woodwind tripler: I play clarinet, flute, and saxophone. When I was earning my undergraduate degree in Music Education and Performance at Ithaca College, I was a clarinet major. I studied with two excellent clarinet professors: the late Robert Schmidt and the wonderful Michael Galvan (who is still at Ithaca today).

I learned to play saxophone and flute in high school from my clarinet teacher, Fred Czarnecki, who was a tripler too. I am not sure where he is today, but he was one of the coolest and nicest musicians that I have ever met. He was also an inspiring teacher. He is one of the reasons that I decided to major in music.

When I began teaching at my current school, the Head of School asked if we could begin an after school conservatory. I liked this idea a lot, so I went searching for teachers. On a side note, The Conservatory at FHCDS is now beginning its 7th year! I looked around for flute teachers and found the amazing John McMurtery, who at the time was still finishing his doctorate at Julliard. I studied flute with him for four years and I cannot thank him enough for making me a better flute player and teacher.

All of this background information leads me to today’s blog: flute podcasts.

Last week, David Summer sent me an email describing his website. David is a musician and author. You might have read his numerous music technology articles found in such publications as Electronic Musician and Recording Magazine. He is also a doubler on flute and trumpet. In his email, he described his podcasts of flute duets. If you have ever studied or taught flute, then you are very familiar with the book “Selected Duets.” I know that I have played many of them with my own flute students. David has made a podcast page of him playing the duets and him playing just the 2nd flute part. This is a wonderful tool because you can send your students to this page to listen to the duet that you assigned them to practice. They can also practice with him performing the flute two part. In addition, he allows you to listen to the duets or  to download the duets. If you download the duet (right-click (PC) or ctrl-click (MAC)) as an mp3 file, you could possibly place it in Audacity (freeware) and make the tempo slower or faster without changing the pitch. This is greatly helpful to your students when they need to learn the duet at a slower speed.

I thank David for sharing his podcast and website information with me. I hope that you will go and check it out. Even if you are not a flute player, check out the website to get great ideas or just to listen to some nice flute playing.

Continuing with my posts on how the nine national standards from The National Association for Music Education (MENC) can be enhanced by technology in the elementary general music classroom, today I approach standard #9. FYI: This is out of order because I have blogged about Standard #8 on July 1.
Content Standard:
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

The following lesson is from my wonderful music colleague, Maedean Kramer, who is the grades 4-8 general music teacher at my school. Each spring she conducts a jazz unit with her 6th graders. The students must study a jazz artist. She has them create a powerpoint that includes the following items listed below. She provides them with several websites to gather the information, pictures, and audio samples. All of this is done in class. After the 6th graders present their powerpoints, she has a rubric for which she uses to grade each presentation. The students are aware of her rubric and grading system because she shows them the rubric before they begin their research.

This project produces some excellent work from her 6th graders. I hope that the project that she let me share on this blog gives you some ideas for your late elementary/middle school general music classes.

“6th Grade Jazz Powerpoint Presentation” by Maedean Kramer © 2008.

Slide 1: Title slide
Your name*
Name of the artist
Slides 2-4: Biographical information
Photo(s) of your artist
Personal information- date of birth, death if applicable, place of birth, family information
Any other interesting information you may have discovered- how did your artist get started playing jazz? Does your artist have a nickname? How did they get the name?
Slides 5-6: Instrument/Famous pieces
Photo of instrument
Possible photo of artist and band?
Famous pieces- name at least 2 or 3 and 5 at the most
Slides: 7-8: Other important information
Sound clip/file URL link
Relevant information that was interesting to learn
Slide 9: Why was your artist important to jazz?
You need to create an answer for this one- it’s not written down specifically
Slide 10: Bibliography
Be sure to include all websites you used for your research

*ITEMS THAT ARE IN BOLD ARE REQUIRED

MY CHECK LIST FOR POWERPOINT:

____ my name and artist on the title slide

____ one background for the presentation

____ smooth transitions between slides

____ effects are used appropriately and efficiently

____ spell checked and proofed

____ linked appropriately to the sound clip

____ contain all the required information (listed above in BOLD)

____ my powerpoint is saved to the group shared folder as well as in my personal file

____ all photos have URL credit

Today I was reading Dr. Scott Watson’s blog of comments from his participants for his summer course titled, “Using Technology to Unlock Creativity.” The comments from his participants are so wonderful and informative that it makes me hope that Scott will teach this course again because I would like to take it.

One item that I read about was that the participants really liked a presentation that Wayne Splettstoeszer gave about internet resources. One of the participants mentioned groove lab. When I went to check it out, I realized that I had visited this site before. It is an excellent site because it allows you to easily create your own drum groove with numerous instruments. Once you created your groove, you can save it as a wav, aiff, or au file. When you do that, you can import this audio file into GarageBand or other digital audio software and use it as a loop. Therefore, you can have your elementary students successfully create their own drum loops. The possibilities for where that can lead in your music classroom are endless!

I took my first two TI:ME courses with Scott and he is one of the most dedicated and patient teachers that I know. If you ever get the opportunity to take any of his summer workshops, I would highly recommend it!

Continuing with my posts on how the nine national standards from The National Association for Music Education (MENC) can be enhanced by technology in the elementary general music classroom, today I approach standard #7.

Content Standard:
7. Evaluating music and music performances.

Achievement Standard:
7a. Students devise criteria for evaluating performances and compositions.

When I use a portable digital recorder in my classroom, I use it for numerous applications. One application is so that students can evaluate their own performances. When we are preparing for a concert, I will use the portable digital recorder to record their concert songs. I then hook the portable digital recorder to the speakers in my classroom. Before we listen to the recording, we devise an evaluation criteria to see if we meet it. For elementary, some items we have included are:

1. Can we understand the words of the song? (If not, then we need to enunciate more).
2. Do we sound like we are singing or shouting?
3. Do we hear our musical phrasing?
4. Do we hear any dynamic differences?

We have added more questions that related specifically to the individual songs, however, these four tend to work for all songs. After we evaluate our performances, we work on our weaknesses and record our song again to hear our improvements.

The digital recorders that I have are used in my classroom are:

1. Apple’s iPod with recorder: Attaching the Griffin iTalk Pro recorder, Xtreme Micromemo recorder, or the Belkin recorder to your iPod video, iPod Classic, or iPod Nano turns your iPod into a digital recorder. It saves the audio files as a wav files. You can plug the iPod into your sound system to listen to the recording or you can upload the recording to your computer. Very affordable if you already own an iPod. As far as I know, none of the microphones listed above work with the iPod Touch.
2. M-Audio MicroTrack II: This portable digital recorder records in stereo with an amazing sound. You can plug the MicroTrack II into your sound system to listen to the recording or you can upload the recording to your computer. Once you have access to one, you will use it as a recording device and an assessment device. It is well worth the price.
3. Laptop: Though not as portable as the two listed above, using such programs as Audacity (freeware), Apple’s GarageBand (MAC) or Acoustica’s MixCraft (PC) and your laptop’s internal microphone (or purchase a better microphone like a Shure SM58 or the Blue Snowball microphone), you can also perform this lesson.

One final reflection on this lesson: One of the things that my students adore is that recording them provides them with a satisfaction that they can immediately hear themselves. Though yes, your students will get giggly when they hear themselves and try to decide who is singing the loudest, however, by using the evaluation that you set up with your students will assist in focusing your students’ listening skills.

Continuing with my posts on how the nine national standards from The National Association for Music Education (MENC) can be enhanced by technology in the elementary general music classroom, today I approach standard #6.

Content Standard:
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music

Achievement Standard:
6c. Students use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music notation, music instruments and voices, and music performances

This is a lesson for Grades Kindergarten and First. It utilizes the website tvokids.com’s Make Your Own Music Game. I had not heard of this website until one of the participants in the TI:ME 1B course that I taught in Maryland showed it to me. This is a wonderful website for the youngest of students because it allows them to create their own rock band, however, in an educational way.

To set up this lesson, I would connect my laptop to a projector and screen, or to a projector and SMART Board, or to a TV. I would show the students how to create a song using this website. It is a simple process: You would audition the members of the band by clicking on them and dragging them to the stage. The stage allows up to four musicians to play together. The following instruments are played by the musicians:

Beat boxer, stick player, drummers, bass player, electric guitarist, maraca player, and more.

If you do not like the musician you chose, you can replace him/her with another musician by clicking on the new musician and replacing the old musician with the new musician. One of the best features of this website is that there is a mixer, so you can increase and decrease the volume of each musician and you can solo each instrument.

For this lesson, each student would come up to the computer, audition, and choose a musician. Once there are four musicians on stage performing together, I would then choose a “mixer.” The student who is the “mixer” will use the volume controls to “mix” the song so that all of the musicians are heard. I would also ask the students some listening questions such as “Can you hear all four musicians?” “Is one musician louder than the others?” “Is one musician playing too soft?” When the song is complete, the website records the song for up to one minute. You can then send the song to the jukebox or email it to an email account. Some listening aspects taught in this lesson include listening and choosing a musician, listening and identifying the instrument that the musician is playing, and listening to each musician’s volume.

I would probably utilize this lesson on a day before a school break or at the end of the school year because it would generate a lot of excitement and fun for the Kindergarten and First Grade.

I often read the MENC general music discussion board because those posts contain a wealth of knowledge. Ones that really catch my eyes are the ones from first year teachers. I read a lot of posts from 1st and 2nd year teachers and I recall feeling all of their frustrations and fears during my first three years of teaching.

As I begin year 12 at the school that I currently teach, I remember the problems I had with classroom management the first few years; trying to follow a beloved teacher who had been there for 18 years; feelings of being extremely unprepared though I had spent 5 years as an undergraduate earning my music education and music performance degrees; and finally, questioning if this is the right profession and did I just waste 5 years of education…

If you speak with any teacher in the field, they will all tell you that at one point in their careers, they have had these feelings. During the first three years, you stumble, experiment with what works and what does not work, have no social life, and feel that your classroom consumes you. And, that is OK because it does get better. When you get to that fourth year, you begin to see your teaching paying off. The students are progressing because they have had your curriculum for three years. Those students who used to tell you “Mr or Mrs so-and-so never did it THAT way” have moved on to other grades. The students now know what to expect of you and you have grown some to know what to expect of certain age groups. Your concerts are growing on the parents so that you do not have to justify and validate every song anymore. In addition, I hope that your salary is also progressing. Your time management skills have improved and you have a bank of good lesson plans. Therefore, your social life is improving. Finally, you are probably required to fulfill professional development hours and you hopefully can now pick and choose workshops that are worthwhile to your teaching situation.

None of this occurs overnight. It takes time. The first year is purely for survival. And as you progress through the years you begin to see where your strengths and weaknesses are and you begin to see if there are other teaching positions that might fit your needs better or if the job you currently have is one that you can commit to for many years.

One final thought: When I began teaching at my current school, I had no music technology experience. None. It was not required for my undergraduate degree. When my colleague found a grant to turn her music classroom into a keyboard lab, I thought of ways to not use her lab. When she left a few months later, I was challenged to figure out how to use music technology in an elementary musical setting. I have enjoyed the challenge and in the process have learned many other methodologies (Kodaly, Orff, Gordon, etc) and have experienced some of the best “a ha!” teaching moments.

If you are a first year teacher, please do not give up. Email me if you ever need a pep talk. And if you are going to begin year 5, 10, 12, 20, 25, or 30+ at the same school (or not at the same school), congratulations!

When I speak with numerous music educators at various conferences, a more common phrase that I am hearing is “I have a SMART Board in my classroom but I am not sure how to utilize it with my curriculum” or some variation of this. About a year ago, I discovered that I could sign out a SMART Board for my classroom and get to use it if it was available. Last year, I signed it out numerous times and it has proven to be an asset to the music classroom. Below are some descriptions of ways that a SMART Board can enhance your music classroom. If you teach on a cart, you can utilize a SMART Board that might be in a teacher’s classroom too.

What is a SMART Board?
Simply put, a SMART Board is an interactive whiteboard. It requires a computer, an LCD projector to run, and the SMART Board software which is called SMART Notebook Software (the software is optional, but it can do so many things!). The computer connects to the LCD projector through the adapter that comes with the computer. The SMART Board connects to the computer through the USB port. This can be a wired or wireless USB connection depending on the particular SMART Board.

I just want to add that SMART Technology is just one maker of this interactive whiteboard. Promethean is another excellent maker of the board and I enjoyed trying their board at the recent NECC conference. Another model that teachers like is Hitachi StarBoard. Plus, there are more inexpensive and smaller versions of the board. To check out a great teacher/tech discussion on the topic at proteacher.net, click here. In addition, if you perform a google search on the topic, you will find numerous websites devoted to the discussion of which interactive whiteboard is best.

One final word before I go into the various uses. My SMART Board is on the rolling case as opposed to being mounted on a wall. If I had the choice, I would use a mounted SMART Board because it means less wires for your students to trip over and less items for your students to bump into which will cause you to “orient” your screen many times during the lesson.

Music Software:
I have used music software such as Sibelius’s Groovy Music Series and Harmonic Vision’s Music Ace with the SMART Board. We would perform a lesson, game, or create music together as a class. Each student would go to the SMART Board one at a time and complete a step in the lesson or create a certain portion of the song. An added bonus with the Groovy Music Series is that it has a button that allows the screen to get smaller so your youngest of students can reach the board without standing on a chair.

Music Notation:
Finale and Sibelius (or other music notation software programs) become easier and more memorable to use when the students create a piece together on the SMART Board. They are able to click and drag the notes from the note palette to the staff. Using a good set of speakers connected to your computer, you can play back their compositions beautifully as they watch the music proceed across the SMART Board screen.

Interactive Music Websites:
The students can take turns utilizing websites on the SMART Board. Here are some websites and ways that I have used them with the SMART Board:

1. New York Philharmonic Kidzone: I have had my Kindergartners play the Music Match Instruments Concentration game as a group. They come up to the SMART Board one at a time and click on the card. The card flips over and plays an excellent audio example of the instrument. When they find two cards that match, they earn points. They cannot lose this game because it continues until all of the cards are turned over. There are three difficulty levels, so it is a great game to reinforce instrument sounds with the students.
2. Dallas Symphony Orchestra for Kids (DSOKids): There are two sections of this website, one for students and one for teachers. I have utilized Beethoven’s Baseball with my 3rd graders and higher. It is a game where you pick composers to be the members of the baseball team. When Beethoven -the pitcher on the opposite team- throws a pitch, the students must come up to the SMART Board and choose the answer. This particular game works well with older elementary. It is a great assessment tool to a composer unit.
3. Ricci Adams Musictheory.net: Excellent website for middle and high school music theory. There are interactive lessons and training sessions (like note, key, interval, and ear training) that you can perform with your students at a SMART Board station in the classroom.
4. philtulga.com: Check this interactive and integrated website out! You will find numerous musical activities to perform with elementary students using the SMART Board. One example that I adore is on his counting music rhythm page. If you count rhythms with numbers, Kodály syllables, Gordon syllables, or French syllables, you can click on one of the side buttons to change the syllables between methodologies. In addition, the rhythms will be spoken with the syllables when you press the play button. Finally, the Sequencing with Simon is a fun music game to play that incorporates listening skills.
5. San Francisco Symphony Kids (sfskids.org): One of my and my students’ favorite websites. There are a variety of interactive musical activities from playing an instrument, to composing, to exploring the instruments, that can be done well with a SMART Board.
6. Virtual Instruments: Here are two examples of virtual instruments that you can use with your students via a SMART Board. Virtual keyboard. Virtual Gamelon.
7. Are you using Nursery Rhymes in your music classroom? Check out this website and project these excellent pictures of nursery rhymes on the SMART Board as you use them in class.

Powerpoint:
You can use powerpoint presentations on your SMART Board. One of the best ways that I used it this year was I made a powerpoint presentation that had the lyrics of a simple song typed onto the screen. When the student would come up to tap each word to the rhythm of the lyrics, the word would light up. This was an excellent way for me to assess the students’ rhythm skills. After they completed the song, we would then use one of the SMART Board markers and write in the rhythms of the song using stick notation.

SMART Notebook Software:
SMART Board has software that you can use to create lessons. The notebook software has a lot of bells and whistles to it such as games accessories like dice, spinners, etc. It also has various teaching tools like maps, graphics, pictures, tabs, etc. In addition, if you perform a google search for music SMART Board lessons, you will find lessons created with the notebook software that you can download and utilize right away. Some of my favorite lessons that I have found by performing a google search are:

1. The note tree: the students click and drag quarter, half, whole, and eighth notes off the tree and place them in the proper quarter note, half note, whole note, or eighth note circle.
2. Using the lines in the notebook software and creating a 2-line staff or a 3-line staff that the students can click and drag noteheads to the lines or spaces of the staff.
3. The note game: There are various notes projected on the SMART Board. The students must use the SMART Board pen to circle all of the quarter notes. When finished, they pull out the answer tab from the side of the screen, which will reveal where all of the quarter notes are. The students then can self-assess their answers.

These are just some ideas on how to utilize a SMART Board in your classroom. The board and software itself take a little time to get used to. However, your students will love using the board and you will love having a large, interactive, visual teaching tool in your classroom.

Have you used an interactive white board in your music classroom? If so, how? Please leave a comment and share your ideas.