Instrumental methods and literature
The work for this class is rooted in cultural responsiveness that will connect our content to students’ lives and allow them to be academically and musically engaged. All assignments were completed through the lens of a hypothetical community we could be serving.
In this course, I learned specific pedagogical methods for teaching band and orchestra and practiced them, integrating them into my teaching through peer teaching opportunities.
We also wrote detailed lesson plans, focused SLOs, and learned to write straightforward rubrics for practical assessment.
Finally, we looked ahead to administrative tasks necessary for running an effective music program and created recruitment materials, learned to analyze SARC reports, and created performance materials.
Teaching in the Field:
Elementary and Middle School Warm Ups
Elementary - After completing this lesson, students will be able to define the musical term ostinato, have been introduced to how an ostinato functions under the melody of a piece and will have performed an ostinato with an improvising soloist.
Reflection: If I could reteach this lesson, I would use the whiteboard to incorporate visual aspects into my lesson. Many students need visual cues to spark their memory, which would have benefited my writing “Ostinato” on the board, along with the definition we discovered together. I would also give the soloists hard mallets so that the Ostinato ensemble would hear the soloist better.
I would expand on the ostinato in the following lesson, changing the rhythm slightly. The third time we warmed up on this activity, I would allow the students to compose their own ostinato pattern, and teach it to the class.
Middle School - students will be led through a warm-up to activate their breath, sense of meter, ear training and tonality, and musical nuances for the rest of their lesson.
Reflection: My primary personal goal was to keep the classroom management tight. As I was
watching my peers do this teaching episode in this specific classroom, I was noticing
they were having a hard time engaging the students and because of this the classroom
management was going downhill.
management she had seen in the teaching episodes.
I would like to continue using visual learning by incorporating more imagery in to my
lessons. I find that it can be difficult to time adding to visual elements on the board
because it leaves the students unengaged while I am writing. But, I know that it is
important and will help my lessons.
Recruiting Materials
For this project, I put together all the necessary materials for recruiting for a band and orchestra program. For this assignment we chose a familiar elementary school and analyzed the most recent SARC report, so that we could tailor or recruitment activities to fit the needs of the community.
Concert Project
In programming this concert, we decided to put on a Winter themed concert. This would be the culmination of the first few months of the beginning band as the concert takes place in December. All are welcome and encouraged to attend to celebrate the students’ growth and to have a sense of community and fun during this winter season. To stay on theme, we picked pieces that worked to represent a winter theme through varying cultures and musical ideas that were not too easy or too challenging. For the beginning band, the three pieces all work to represent an aspect of the Holidays in an inclusive way, with two non-denominational pieces (“Clip Clap Clop” and “First Fallen Snow”) and one themed piece that includes a sing-along (“Feliz Navidad”). In this way, everyone can participate and enjoy different aspects of the program that pertain to them. For the orchestra program, it is much the same, with two different religions represented (“Chanukah Lights and Dreydls” and “Classic Christmas Medley”) as well as a non-denominational piece (“Appalachian Hymn”). Through including hallmarks of the Holiday season as well as overall wintery themed pieces, our diverse concert program showcases the students’ skills in an inclusive way where different cultures and experiences are represented. Arrangements work nicely in this context as many winter and holiday songs are folk songs and not originally written for band or orchestra. The pieces are also organized in such a way so that there is a nice mix of lyricism as well as more upbeat songs, representing a good variety in the style and mood of the pieces. Students will be able to work on a variety of topics such as legato playing/articulation, melodic phrasing, complex rhythms, different moods, and more.
Cultural Exploration Slides
One way to engage students in the music they are playing is to incorporate familiar songs into lessons. Being able to arrange simple, recognizable melodies and teach a lesson using them can make a warm-up more relevant to students.
