Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

Thanksgiving always reminds me of items that I am thankful for. Some of these items include:

1. Having a healthy pregnancy so far.
2. Having a great husband.
3. Being able to teach music for a living.
4. Having the best students! One little voice smiling and saying “Hi Mrs. Burns! What are we going to do in music class today?” makes my day.
5. Listening to a student who could not match pitch, finally achieve success!
6. Listening to one of my private clarinet students get over the break after much practice and to see him/her smile and realize that he/she just achieved wonderful success!
7. Having a great job with excellent support.
8. Having had the “stepping stone” teaching jobs which made me question if I really wanted to teach. Without these stepping stone jobs (and believe me, the first teaching job was horrible! I lost money in that job!), I would have never realized how much I wanted to be a teacher and how to go about finding the school that was the “right fit” for me.
9. Music. Listening to it, performing, practicing, playing…every aspect and style of music are all good!
10. Being President-Elect of a terrific organization (TI:ME).
11. There are many, many more.

What are some of the things that you are thankful for?

One of my good friends who is also an elementary music teacher sent me this wonderful article written by Brian Eno. Check it out because I guarantee it will make you smile.

Click here to read  “Singing: The Key To A Long Life.”

It is that time of year when I am writing my progress reports for grades K-3. Since our school is divided into three divisions, Primary (K-2), Intermediate (3-5), and Upper School (6-8), my colleague and I decided to create categories for assessments for each division. For grades K-2, we assess the students’ progress in music class as follows:

1. Follows Directions
2. Uses His/Her Singing Voice
3. Demonstrates Appreciation for Diverse Music Styles
4. Shows Respect For Instruments
5. Demonstrates Note/Rhythm Reading Skills

For grades 3-5, we assess the students’ progress on the following:

1. Exhibits Cooperative Spirit
2. Sings on Pitch
3. Demonstrates Note/Rhythm Reading Skills
4. Shows Effort in Instrumental Class (Grade 5 Only)

When I am assessing the students, I will use my portable voice recorders-my iPod with the voice recorder or the M-Audio MicroTracks II-to record the assessments. Some examples of these include:

Uses His/Her Singing voice (K-2) or Sings on Pitch (3-5): We will play a singing and movement game like “Lucy Locket,” “Charlie Over the Ocean,” or Denise Gagne’s “I’m the Fastest Turkey,” which has the students singing unison and a solo. I will place the voice recorder in the room as they play the game. I will call out the name of the student who is ‘it’ before he/she begins the solo, so I know who I am assessing when I listen to the recording later. I will create a rubric, listen to the recording, and assess. This assists me when I need to grade the check list and write the comment on the progress reports. In addition, having the assessment on a recording device in very helpful when a parent asks the question “Why did my child receive a ___ on his/her progress report?”

Shows Effort in Instrumental Class (Grade 5 Only): This is a new class in which we took one of the three 5th grade general music classes per cycle and turned it into an instrument class. My colleague and I felt that since the students were learning the recorder in grades 3 and 4, grade 5 instrument class would have students learning saxophone, flute, or clarinet. We felt that it would be a natural progression and bring more students into the instrumental ensembles.  The students have loved this class. One of the items I use to assess the students in this class is Make Music’s SmartMusic. I can bring up their Standard of Excellence book on screen and the students come up to the computer, perform the exercise, and the computer assesses their performances. If they play the exercises correctly, the program will show green notes. If they play the exercises incorrectly, the program will display red notes. The students love performing and having the program assess them. They try to achieve more correct notes with each turn.

These are just a couple of examples of the way we assess and use technology as an enhancement tool for assessing the students. If you are currently writing progress reports, I hope that it is going well.

Each year, my K-3 general music classes perform a Holiday Concert along the grades 4-7 general music classes. I thought that I would share our repertoire.

1. Opener: “I Hear those Jingle Bells”- This is a great partner song by Teresa Jennings that can be downloaded off her Music K8 website. Grades K and 1 sing the traditional Jingle Bells while grades 2 and 3 sing an original Jenning’s song about a kid diving into a snowman. It is upbeat, a nice concert opener, and a successful one that younger elementary students can perform well. In order for grades K-1 and grades 2-3 to get used to each other, I will record each other’s part using my iPod voice recorder or my M-Audio MicroTrack II recorder and play it back so that the students can rehearse with it. Though Music K8 comes with some wonderful accompaniment CDs, I like to record my own students singing the songs so that they are used to hearing each other when I finally have them all congregate in the “gymatorium” to rehearse.
2. “Angel Band/Angels We Have Heard on High” - These two songs will be sung by Kindergartners and accompanied by third graders on Orff instruments and recorders. The third graders love having the extra responsibility.
3. “Shalom Chaverim” - Traditional Hebrew song arranged by Teresa Jennings and found in Music K8. It is a beautiful tune and Teresa orchestrates it nicely on her CD. I like to add my grades 4-8 band members, so I will have them play the melody line along with the pianist and opt to not use the CD. This way I can showcase some of my student instrumentalists, who in turn, feel success and very special for having a unique role in the concert.
4. “Haida” - Traditional, upbeat, song. This arrangement includes a clarinet part, which I again have one of my instrumental students perform. There are also parents at my school who play their instruments very well and I will include them too. This song is sung by grades K-3.
5. “Estes es la Navidad”- This song is sung by grades 2 and 3. It is yet another Jennings song. I adore her resource titled Music K8. My students love her songs, they are wonderful for a general music concert, and they are very successful in showcasing young students’ vocal abilities, vocal range, and memorization skills. She really knows how to successfully write for elementary. In addition, you do not need to use the accompaniment CD. The piano parts are written well and sound just as wonderful.
6. “An African Celebration”- This song is sung by grade 1. It is written by another favorite composer: Sally Albrecht. This song couples a simple “Sing we all Noel” with “Siyahamba.” My students love to sing this song!
7. “A Holiday Hand Jive” – This song is sung by grades K-3. It is written by Greg Gilpin, and it includes Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Happy Holiday. For this song, I recorded myself performing the keyboard track and added percussion sounds for the rhythm of the hand jive movements. I used MOTU’s Digital Performer and my Korg X50. Once finished, I exported the audio track, dragged and dropped it into iTunes, and then placed it on my iPod. The students then sing along to the recording, listening intently to the percussion sounds so that they perform the hand jive with the correct rhythm and tempo. I do this for the purpose of practicing successfully. My students love this piece and adore performing the hand jive movements.
8. The concert will continue with grades 4-7 performing their pieces. We end each year with Natalie Sleeth’s sweet tune “Christmas is a Feeling.”

What are your students performing at their Holiday Concert?

The new Wii Music has had music teachers wondering if this could be an educational tool in the music classroom. The game play has over 60 instruments. The jam mode allows you to improvise. The minigames include drums to simulate playing the drums, Mii Maestro to allow you conduct an orchestra, Handbell Harmony to let you match notes with handbells, and Pitch Perfect. To see a more detailed description, please click here.

This has been a hot topic among music educators. You can recently read two separate posts on the MENC general music boards:

1. MENC: Wii Music
2. MENC: Wii Music; Guitar Hero; Rock Band: Do they have a place in classes?

If you go to Jim Frankel’s blog, you see an excellent video of his girls playing with Wii Music.

From reading the comments on Jim’s blog and the MENC website, the consensus from many teachers is that it is a great tool for those days right before a school break. In addition, you will read how some educators have used Guitar Hero as a music fund raiser, which has got me thinking about how that could benefit many schools.

For me what it comes down to is this: Is it necessary to access Wii Music in your elementary classroom? No, it is not necessary. Could it be a useful tool to enhance your music classroom? Yes. Just for the reason that your students are most likely playing this in their own homes or playing it at their friends’ homes. Bringing it to your classroom to enhance a music class right before break is a great way for you to relate to your students and for your students to show off their “musical talents” and be the music teacher. You would be surprised how they will teach you a few things about these programs.

The Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME) is teaming up with the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) for the national convention this year. The conference is from Wednesday, February 11-Saturday, February 14, in beautiful San Antonio Texas. I was thrilled when TI:ME and TMEA collaborated to have this convention for various reasons:

1. Wednesday, February 11 is the TI:ME pre-conference day with many excellent presenters such as Dr. Jim Frankel from SoundTree, Dr. Charles Menoche from my grad school Alma Mata Central Connecticut State University, Dr. Sandi MacLeod of the Vermont MIDI Project, and one that I am looking forward to hearing, Peggy Morales of Romeo Music. She is presenting two sessions about technology in the K-8 music classroom. I love to attend sessions that are similar in nature to mine because I love to see other ideas on how to utilize music technology in the elementary music classroom.
2. TMEA is awesome! Their exhibit floor is one that I will never forget. You can find everything there from music ed to music performance to music tech.
3. The first TI:ME conference that I ever presented at was at the TI:ME/TMEA National Convention in 2004. However, it did snow in San Antonio that year, I am hoping that was a fluke. I had such a wonderful experience presenting at that conference, that I have attended almost every TI:ME conference ever since.
4. This past June, I had the honor of being a Sibelius Groovy Ambassador at the NECC Conference that was also held in San Antonio, Texas. This time in San Antonio, I was able to explore the town, a little bit of the Alamo, and the Riverwalk. San Antonio is beautiful and a fantastic place to hold a convention.
5. Keynote speaker this year is Jordan Rudess, who will speak on Thursday, February 12 at 12:30 pm. Jordan is an amazing keyboardist/pianist. You might have heard him on Bowie’s album titled Heathen, released in 2002.
6. Four days of music technology sessions ranging from young elementary music education to professional musician! Even if you can only make one day of the conference, you will still attend a great music tech session.

To see a list of sessions, you can download the pdf here.

time-tmea-sched-2009-1.pdf

To read about our wonderful clinicians, you can download a pdf here.

ti-me-session-descriptions-1.pdf

If you are planning on attending the conference, please come and attend my session “Technology Integration in the Elementary Music Classroom” on Friday, February 13, at 5:30 pm Lone Star Room E. It is right before the TI:ME reception, so come to my session, see and hear some of my students’ wonderful compositions and projects that they created with the assistance of music technology, possibly win the book “Technology Integration in the Elementary Music Classroom,” and then enjoy some food and good company with the wonderful people of TI:ME.

I hope to see you there!

As I was reading Martha Grondin’s excellent blog titled Artful, Tuneful, Beatful, I came across a post she wrote about a web-based notation tool called noteflight. This is a wonderful and free site that could be used for a class to compose a song or share a song with others so that numerous students from various schools could compose a song together.

Some of the benefits of noteflight:

• There are commands that are similar to those used in Finale or Sibelius, such as how to format a system break, delete a measure, save a file, etc.
• The magnifying tool is wonderful for younger elementary students because it makes the staff large so that they can easily place notes and spaces and lines.
• You can embed their compositions on a website, blog, wikispace, etc. Unfortunately, when I tried to embed one of my second grader’s compositions on this blog, it would not accept the embed code, but that is because I am lacking a plugin to do so. Therefore, noteflight also gives you the web address of your composition, so you can link it from your blog or webpage. This is an extremely helpful tool if you cannot embed items on your blog or school website.
• Entering notes is a very simple procedure. Press a letter on the computer’s keyboard, for example A, and it will appear on the staff. Then press the note value from the note value menu that will appear on screen.
• Saving a file is the same as saving a file with any program (Ctrl S or apple S). If your students forget to save, a message will appear reminding them to save.
• The Help menu is extremely helpful. It explains the application well so that you can easily maneuver it.
• The program saves various versions of your composition. Therefore, it can bring up a previous version of the composition at anytime. This is wonderful for a teacher because you can track the student’s progress and see how the composition was written. In addition, if you have a school brownout (this occurs too often when my students are on the computer composing), you can easily retrieve the earlier version of their composition so that they have not lost all of their work.
• Instruments: You can change the instrument sound.
• Key and time changes are possible.

Some items I would add to a wish list:

• It seems to only bring up a treble and bass clef staff together. I would love to see just a treble clef staff since my students are not learning bass clef just yet.
• If it could save your composition as a MIDI file, then I would feel like I found the free version of Finale NotePad (Finale NotePad is now $9.95).

Here is a link to one of my second grader’s compositions. This is a group of four students who were given a song that only had the note E. They were to use the computer’s arrow keys to change the notes to any note in a C Pentatonic Major Scale. They had a blast and many of them had no errors and achieved the goal of composing with the notes of a C Pentatonic Major Scale. I hope that you enjoy their composition!

I encourage you to check out noteflight. I feel that it is a great, free, web-based notation tool that could easily enhance any elementary music classroom.

If you have experience using this program, please leave me a comment!

Travis J. Weller is currently hosting the November issue of the Music Education Blog Carnival. As Travis states “The best thing that all these articles do is give us a moment to reflect on the current status of music education and they are being written by sincere educators who have a great view for our profession.” I could not have said it better.

Please click here to read the excellent articles that a part of the 5th edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival.

At our divisional meeting this week, my divisional director showed us “A Brave New World-Wide Web.” This slide show, or movie, is similar to “Shift Happens,” however, one thing that I particularly enjoyed about this presentation was the slide that read “Can you teach without technology? Yes, but why would you want to?”

It is an effective presentation for why schools should adopt technology as a tool in their classrooms.
  You can see it as a slide show version or as a video.

Though the election is over, this is still a great website to check out what both candidates’ positions are on music and arts education as a part of a complete education for all children. The site is SupportMusic.com, brought to you by NAMM and MENC.

NAMM’s mission is to unify, lead and strengthen the global music products industry and to increase active participation in music making (from www.namm.org).

MENC is the world’s largest arts education organization and the only association that addresses all aspects of music education. More than 142,000 members and supporters represent all levels of teaching from preschool to graduate school. Since 1907, MENC has worked to ensure that every student has access to a well-balanced, comprehensive, and high-quality program of music instruction taught by qualified teachers (from www.menc.org).

On the SupportMusic.com site, you can see a panel discussion held by Dan Rather on music and arts in education, as well as Wynton Marsalis discussing arts education on behalf of the Obama campaign.

Sorry for posting it a day late, but it is still good insight into our president-elect’s position on arts in education.

In addition, Education Week posted this today about President-Elect Obama’s Agenda for Education: The Democrat’s agenda includes expanding preschool, recruiting teachers, increasing funding for charter schools, and amending the No Child Left Behind Act.

I wish President-Elect Obama well on his term as our President of the United States of America.