Bands and orchestras are often repertoire machines – churning out a fixed collection of pieces year after year. Directors are judged by the pieces they select and how their ensembles perform at concerts and competitive festivals. Through all of this, rehearsals become desperate scrambles to the finish line – a process that, while it can be rewarding, leaves little room for creativity from the members of the ensemble. This system creates an overemphasis on reading and performing music, a fraction of our national standards. What can we do to fix this imbalance?  How can we create an ensemble whose individual members that can think for themselves and compose music?

In 1996, I was hired as a band teacher for a “high need” district. There were literally zero kids in band at the time, which meant that I was given the opportunity to create my own vision for the music program. Without having to rely on the traditions of a district music program, I created a curriculum that focused on four things: musical discipline, technique, listening, and composing.

Starting with the sixth grade band, the oldest band members when I arrived, I grew my program one year at a time. In fact, it took my five years to have what most would consider a functioning band. Throughout it all, I was able to tailor my program to address all nine national music standards – including that elusive fourth standard, composition.

I found that, while my band was both growing in size and technical ability, I was still not satisfied with their overall musical progress. Bands often finish a year having played a dozen tunes, yet if you ask them to play “Over the Rainbow” (for example), you get a sea of blank stares. The same is true if you ask them to mentally change the key of a song.

As I thought more about this, I realized that the skills required to play by ear or to change keys are important for many musicians. If I ask the Dirty Dozen band to play, “Over the Rainbow,” in G – and as a waltz! – they would do it. Instantly. That was the musical experience I wanted to create for the students in my band. I needed to figure out how to get there.

It became clear that I needed to create experiences that would help my students to become more flexible musicians. That realization led me to focus on four specific skills:

1. Musical Discipline. We all know we have kids who “float” through band. Playing the notes, showing up on time, and just being a good kid.  But how would they respond if we expected them to be able to play a dozen songs like “Camptown Races” or “America, the Beautiful”? What if, when the flute player is out sick, we passed his flute part to the saxophone player and asked her to play it with the group? Lastly, what if we were working on Bach chorales with the choir and needed to transpose the band arrangements on the spot?

2. Technique. Put simply: I want my students to really know their instruments. I felt we needed to move from static technique, scale patterns, and rhythm exercises, to true musical fluency – demonstrated, in part, through an ability to play songs by ear. How fun and rewarding would our band or orchestra class be if you could simply call a tune and your students could play it? They could call their own pieces, too! This ability will undoubtedly help with their reading skills as well.

3. Theory. It was important to me that my students had some understanding as to what was happening both melodically and harmonically in the music we chose to rehearse and perform. Finding ways to move them beyond a mere “button pushing” experience and towards a brader conception of “musician” proved to be my biggest challenge. Why did Bach choose that note? Who is the alto voice here? Basses–can I have a I-V-I pattern over these four measures?  Theory should not be a class with 14 kids in it.  Our band and orchestra classes should be theory classes!

4. Composition. What if student composition became the primary function of your band or orchestra? What if the band was a lab for performing student arrangements and compositions. To help support this goal, I actively sought opportunities for my students to compose. For example, I had every HS student arrange the Star Spangled Banner for orchestra. The grand prize was their arrangement played by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra at their summer concerts.

How I did it:

Knowing that consistent repetition is the best way for students to learn, listening and ear training had to be a part of every rehearsal. I had a 45-minute period every day and a two hour rehearsal every week (alternating with jazz ensemble). This is a simplified list of what I did over a twenty-week period:

1. Play “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.

2. Play the piece in four different keys.

3. Rotate through all 12 major keys.

4. Learn Bach the chorale, “Wachet Auf”.

5. Write the solfege into “Wachet Auf” using pencil.

6. Sing, learn, play all four parts (SATB) using solfege.

7. Rotate parts: Trombones play melody, flutes play bass, etc…

8. Start playing scale patterns through all 12 keys. Start with “Do-Re-Do” or “Do-Ti-Do”. As the students get more comfortable with neighbor tones, move to “Do-Re-Mi”, etc….

9. Ask the students to play “Wachet Auf” in F or C.

10.  Pass out Level 1 song. Have students identify key and solfege. Play song. Pass parts to your left (clarinets to flutes, etc…). Play song, etc… Pass again.

We went to state MEA festival with the band that year. For our concert, in order to demonstrate the work we had been doing in the classroom, I had the audience choose individual cards for piece, key, and who would play melody/bass/counter. The choices were “Amazing Grace”, “Wachet Auf”, or “Over the Rainbow”. After asking the audience to set all of the musical parameters, I simply turned around and counted off the group. Everything went off without a hitch! After that, I turned around to the audience and said, “Now we will play it in G!” This was not just a neat trick; it was a great way to demonstrate the type of musical knowledge that my students had developed.

Additionally, while in class, my students loved played a game we called, “Switching Genres”. Basically, we would learn a tune like “Wachet Auf” – a traditional Bach chorale – and play it in the style of a waltz, reggae, salsa, or a swing tune. Of course, in order to successfully play this game, the students have to understand some basic concepts about every style. Their skills created a new space for musical play. Not only did we have a lot of fun, but they were engaged in some very powerful music-making.

Now, while it is tempting to think that this idea is revolutionary, you should remember that this is what most musicians have been able to do for forever. Until public school music teachers got in the habit of pumping out concerts and relying solely on printed music, musicians used to be able to play “Cotton-Eyed Joe”, switch keys, tempo, feel, genre, and whatever else the occasion required them to do.

It is important to remember that the group that performed at the concert was not an “elite” group (as defined through years of private lessons and a tradition of winning “Superior” ratings at contest). The seniors in this program were only the third group of seniors to ever graduate from the program. I bring this up to highlight the idea that any program is in a position to adopt some of the central tenants of an approach like this.

Some recommendations:

1. Track the tunes the students in your band can play. Are you teaching the American songbook?  Are you teaching American folk songs? Can your band members play “Cotton-Eyed Joe”, “Over the Rainbow”, or “Guantanamera”? I am using this Form today to track what tunes my students play.

2. Do everything in all 12 keys. Learn a song a week and a key a week. Start with two keys, move to 4, etc…

3. Learn crazy tunes that use odd modes or styles and move them through the keys (The theme fo The Simpsons, The Theme from Jaws, Carol of the Bells, etc…).

4. Find games that work for your band. You could make a chart where you “race” to 50 tunes. Maybe a “Nextel Cup” where musicians get a certain amount of points for cycling challenging songs through all 12 keys.

5. Involve the community!! What songs are important to the community? What songs do they want passed down?

After committing to this system, you will be surprised at how much less time you are spending in rehearsal going over key signs, intonation, and listening skills. You will have built some serious musicians with serious ears and serious skills.

If we don’t do it, who will?

Music samples of this group: http://brandtschneider.blogspot.com/p/music-samples.html

Brandt Schneider, a native of Newtown, CT, received a BA from Oberlin College in 1991, a MPA from Syracuse University in 1994, and a Sixth Year degree in Educational Leadership from Southern Connecticut State University in 2008. He has taught as a music director in Los Angeles, Louisiana, Newtown, and Derby. He has been selected as the 1993 Jackson High School Teacher of the Year, 1998 Wal-Mart teacher of the year, a recipient of the 2002 New Haven Symphony Excellence in Music Teaching Award, and received a 1993 commendation from the State of Louisiana legislature for outstanding teaching. In 2001 he was designated a Palm Education Pioneer. He has presented workshops and served as chairman of various Connecticut Music Educators (CMEA) Festivals and Ensembles. Mr. Schneider is a member of Teach for America’s Class of 1991.

After joining the Derby staff in 1996 the performance music program grew from zero to fifteen large ensembles. Students performed with Jung-Ho Pak, Tom Duffy, Ted Rosenthal, Phil Bowler, Awadagin Pratt, Earl MacDonald, Dan Goble, the Yale Concert Band, and the UConn Jazz Ensemble. Students attended the 2001 and 2004 IAJE Festival in New York City. In 2002 both the DHS Jazz Ensemble and Small Ensemble program were selected to perform at the CMEA Conference. In 2005, Mr. Schneider presented a workshop on Handheld Computers in Jazz Education at the IAJE conference in Long Beach, CA.

Mr. Schneider became the music director at Seymour High School in 2008 and led the high school band and choir to superior and excellent ratings in their first year.  In 2010 Mr. Schneider received a grant to deploy iPads in the Seymour High School music department.  You can visit his blog, Things to Come, and follow him on Twitter: @brandtschneider.

Classmates described Emma’s performance piece as sounding like “a rain storm, with a little bit of hail.” She led her ensemble in an intricate texture of “body percussion” clicks, whistles, claps, stamps, snaps, thumps, and chanted lyrics. The whole thing had a magical flow that was so smooth, no one could tell it was written in a 5/8 time signature.

Dave’s piece featured two basses and an oddly-constructed drum kit: two upside down metal classroom desks, a piano bench, an open hard shell bass case, and a tic-tac box. The traditional drum kit lay abandoned in the corner, where Dave had left it after deciding that the sound of his mismatched homemade kit fit better with the storyline of his composition.

Peter insisted that his audience be seated in the middle of the room, with the six keyboard players in different corners. Each player’s part contained a whirl of repeated eighth notes, sometimes consonant with one another and sometimes dissonant, while a lone guitar part played sustained pedal tones above it all. No one was surprised when Peter revealed that he wanted listeners to have the feeling of being lost in the middle of a noisy crowd.

Reading the vignettes above, you would probably think these were advanced, maybe even “gifted” students of music. In fact, the people described above were actually community college students in a beginning theory class, and they had almost no prior musical training or experience. Emma had never seen sheet music before, and her fully notated 5/8 “rain” piece was her compositional debut. Peter customized his own part to have simply one pitch because that was all he was comfortable playing on the keyboard. Dave, a “garage band” drummer during his teenage years, had never dreamed of leading an ensemble or making big decisions about the nature of a piece. In a room filled with students, not one of these three would stand out as being particularly gifted or talented, so how is it that they were able to step out of their roles as beginning music students and create such dynamic creative moments?

During this and many subsequent activities, my community college students are experiencing first hand the intensely emotional, “bigger than life” power of music-making. We begin with a mere spark of an idea and gradually bring it to life by revising, rehearsing, and performing in front of an actively-engaged audience of fellow classmates. The nurturing of this creative awakening in beginning students goes way beyond what is commonly done in traditional music theory teaching. My goal in this type of interactive class is to help students turn their musical exercises into real artistic experiences, reaching further than mere creativity for creativity’s sake (Nachmanovitch, 1990).

To accomplish this, I find myself relying on three important pedagogical strategies: Teaching according to the Artist Model (Black, 2010), where students are expected to perform with professional-level conviction and polish, even at the earliest skill levels; helping students understand the principles of music theory as a set of musical options rather than a set of hard-set rules (Langer, 1997); and encouraging students to use their original compositions to tell stories that really mean something to them (Black, 2010). Although these may sound like simple ideas, I find that every time I weave them into a class or workshop, my students are consistently able to produce dynamic, artistic performances with only minimal supervisory guidance and input. I have come to realize that I cannot actually teach them how to be creative; I merely provide an environment in which their innate creativity can evolve into true performance artistry (Jorgenson, 2008, Goodkin, 2001). I am simply the facilitator; they are the creative artists.

Experiencing Music through the Artist Model

You may be wondering why I am talking about composition and performance to describe a music theory class. Early in my teaching, I decided that no matter what my music classes were entitled, I was going to teach them through actual performance activities (Jorgensen, 2008; Goodkin, 2001; Shamrock, 1997). As a performer myself, I understand that the reason people generally want to learn music in the first place is to make music come alive (Werner, 1996). That’s what I need to help them do. To me, it shouldn’t matter if a student has no prior musical experience. Regardless of their age or experience level, students arrive excited and ready to discover how they can express themselves through sound. It is my job and privilege to guide them in that journey.

My assignments are always composition-based and take students through the complete artistic process: initial improvisation and creation, notating ideas in formal composition, rehearsing with an ensemble to bring the piece to life, then finally performing the completed work in front of the class. This is not the type of assignment typically given to beginning music students. However, my goal is to guide students toward becoming artists in their own right, and I don’t believe I can accomplish that by assigning beginner tasks. According to the Artist Model, even beginning musicians with limited technical means can learn to communicate to an audience with depth, emotion, and expression (Black, 2010).

To set the stage for a semester of musical immersion, I give the initial composition assignment at the first class, long before I have time to teach students how to play an instrument or notate complex musical figures. In order to make the assignment accessible and exciting for classmates of all skill levels, I draw on material from the Orff method (Perlmutter, 2009; Shamrock, 1997) and have students first compose a rhythmic piece for “body percussion.” Using this universal instrument, students are not limited by technical issues. They can create “through their technique, not with it” (Nachmoanovitch, 1990, p. 21), accessing the sounds they imagine without facing insurmountable technical limitations. Since students don’t need to struggle with overwhelming technical frustrations, they have room to focus on the musical aspects that make for a true artistic performance: for example, dynamics, phrasing, and accents.

We initially encounter these expressive elements as a group while practicing simple rhythmic examples in the first class. I add the expressive markings into the exercise not as advanced concepts, but as an exploration of how much they can contribute to the music. These are not “extra” markings; they are necessary components for expressive Artist Model musical communication (Black, 2010). In the same way, I immediately introduce multiple time signature possibilities such as 5/8 and 7/8, along with changing meters. These essential tools provide students with multiple options when searching for a variety in rhythmic feel and expression. There is simply no reason to put off such exploration until students are “more advanced.”

Before sending students off to compose their own pieces, I always like to model a few basic body percussion pieces in class. My examples are simple–maybe two or three percussion sounds and a few subtle dynamics. Once the students leave class to work on their own, they take these ideas and run with them. Amazingly, the compositions students bring back the following week are anything but simple. Their creative energies go wild as, like experienced artists, they take a basic technique and personalize it until they find something truly engaging (Nachmanovitch, 1990). One student composer even distinguished between stomps with the heel and stomps with the ball of the foot; indeed these did produce two very distinctive sounds. Many students write pieces that feature percussion kits with seven or eight sounds (I once heard a student apologizing to his ensemble: “Sorry guys, I meant to just write two parts, but I kept finding more interesting sounds and I didn’t know how to choose!”).

Nearly every piece features abundant marked dynamics and accents, including sforzandi and subito changes. The compositions that are turned in contain a myriad of time signatures, and almost always there are some with changing meters. In my first two years of teaching alone, I received dozens of first-day body percussion pieces, and each one was uniquely special. By the end of the first round of performances, every new composer has contributed something important to the class, and their personal artistic experience gets off to a successful start.

Reframing Rules as Creative Options

As I have worked to maximize creative opportunities for my students, I have found myself in a familiar but troublesome paradox: music theory is about learning rules, whereas composition is about breaking rules.

In order to balance these seemingly opposing ideas, I have begun to work with what I now term the “cause and effect” approach to music theory. There is no rule that says a piece must start on the tonic chord, but many pieces do because it has the effect of feeling stable and safe; it causes a feeling of being “home”. My students become aware that they can start a piece on whatever chord they desire, but if they want to create that stable feeling for their listeners, a tonic chord is probably the best choice. The result of this initial teaching is that students immediately begin making purposeful musical choices. Like real professional artists, they don’t construct their pieces according to pre-established rules, but make expressive choices that fit with their artistic vision. There is no “wrong” choice, but they have to be ready to explain why they did what they did. I have discovered that when students intentionally make a “wrong” choice and stand by it, they not only achieve artistic ownership of that musical concept, but they end up understanding the musical “rule” a lot better (Langer, 1997).

I will never forget the day when Navine performed his first pitched composition. Without a doubt, Navine was the least experienced student in the class. We had studied chords and harmonic function for weeks, but he still struggled to understand basic chord construction. Navine’s composition ended on a hanging dominant chord. At the end of the performance, audience members looked at each other uncomfortably. Trying to save the moment, I fished for feedback: “How did that make you feel?” “Weird,” came back immediately. “Unresolved.” “Like it stopped before it’s supposed to.” Navine suddenly started grinning. “Awesome!” he said. “I tried to write something that you wanted to keep going.” “How did you do that, Navine?” I asked. “I….well, the last chord….it’s the function that wants to go ‘home’, but I didn’t let it.” It was a true lightbulb moment. All of a sudden, Navine understood harmonic function. He didn’t understand it because he studied, but because he used it to create a specific feeling and it worked. That day was a turning point in his composition because he stopped looking for “the right answer” and started focusing on his right answer. Harmonic function wasn’t a mystery any more, and it wasn’t a rule to be followed; it was a tool he could use to tell his own musical stories.

Story Telling and the Artist Feedback Loop

Thinking about music with cause and effect approach lays the groundwork for what I think of as true artistic activity: musical storytelling. I have observed that students are always better able to focus their creative energies when they center their music-making around a storyline. As musical story-tellers, students are never being creative merely for the sake of being creative. Instead they chase wildly after specific moods and colors. Their creativity has real artistic direction and purpose.

Go back to the opening vignette about Peter and his surround-sound keyboard piece. Every musical choice he made was driven by his desire to create a specific storyline. Peter wanted his audience to feel what it’s like to be lost in a crowd, so he chose to literally surround them with a crowd of keyboards. After making this decision, the instruments were no longer simply instruments. Suddenly they were characters in a story, and Peter had them “chattering” away, using repetitive eighth notes, like they were real people. Of course, the story was not just about a bunch of talkative people; it was also about feeling lost in a crowd of strangers, so Peter added a mournful sustained guitar line into the texture. This is powerful composition.

Remember that Peter was not an experienced composer and was uncomfortable playing more than even one or two notes on the piano. He didn’t have a way to test the effectiveness of his piece while he was writing it at home. His writing was based almost entirely on cause-and-effect hypotheses, so at the end of the class performance, he could hardly wait through his classmates’ applause to start asking for audience feedback. In our class, asking the audience to describe what they felt in a composition is the primary way for composers and performers to check the effectiveness of their artistic work. It is almost like a game of Charades: if you can get an audience member to say one of your key words for a piece, you know you hit your artistic mark (Black, 2010).

As students become more experienced, this feedback loop evolves to include non-verbal communication, where performers try to feel what the audience is feeling and adjust their playing mid-performance to elicit different responses–the essence of the Artist Model (Black, 2010). With constant interactions between musicians and audience, my once-inexperienced community college students actually get more real-world artistic experience than many musicians I play with professionally. What is important here is that through their music, students learn how they can communicate real stories and real emotions to real people. Even if they don’t remember one bit of music theory they learned from me, I know this kind of artistic process will stay with them far beyond this particular music class.

A Final Note

One of my community college students once joked to me that he bet a classmate five dollars I couldn’t go one class without saying “Don’t just be creative; be artistic!” He won the bet. I certainly talk a lot about artistry, not just in my classes, but in life in general. That being said, I think I have learned more from my community college students than I have from any other experience. Every person who steps into the world of music comes to music deserves to have the feeling of being an artist: of creating a meaningful story in sound, conveying the story to an audience, and having the audience connect to that story. Perhaps very few of the students that pass through my classes will go on to be professional musicians, but each of them will remember what it feels like to do something meaningful and communicative with their unique brand of creativity.

References

Black, B. (2010, September 3). Personal interview.
Goodkin, D. (2001). Orff-Schulwerk in the new millennium. Music Educators Journal, 88(3), 17-23
Jorgensen, E. R. (2008). Art of teaching music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Langer, E. (1997). The power of mindful learning. Reading, MA: Merloyd Lawrence.
Nachmanovitch, S. (1990). Free play: Improvisation in life and art. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, INC.
Perlmutter, A. (2009). Orff-Schulwerk with and without Orff instruments. Teaching music, 16(5), 48-52.
Shamrock, M. (1997). Orff-Schulwerk: An integrated foundation. Music Educators Journal, 83(6), 41-44.
Werner, K. (1996). Effortless mastery: Liberating the master musician within. New Albany, IN: Jamey Aebersold Jazz, INC.

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Mari Black is an active multistyle violinist and teacher, whose work draws on many diverse musical styles including jazz, tango, folk, western classical, as well as Celtic, American, and Canadian fiddling. Her performances take her everywhere from Canadian fiddle festivals and Scottish highland games to the stage of Carnegie Hall. Mari has taught at the Mark O’Connor fiddle camp, the Kinhaven Music Festival, and the Boston Youth Symphony’s Intensive Community Program. Her guest workshops include appearances at the Yale School of Music, Boston University School of Fine Arts, New York’s School for Strings, the American String Teachers’ Association national conference. Most recently, Mari served as the Professor of Music at Bunker Hill Community College, where she spent two years developing the framework for a new multistyle music program that produced ground-breaking interdisciplinary arts performances. Mari is currently completing her doctorate work at Columbia University’s Teachers College, where her research focuses on the development of college-level multistyle string programs.

Private lessons, applied music, one-on-one music education. Typically, what comes to mind is an image of a teacher and a student sitting down to work on the student’s technique and repertoire. The focused, individualized teaching can supplement the work the student is doing in a traditional K-12 or college setting, help an adult learner keep up the skills they learned earlier in their life, or introduce an entirely new instrument to a student.

How can creativity factor into one-on-one teaching? Should it be present in this setting? My answer would be a resounding, “yes”: creative exercises can and should be a fundamental part of your private work with students.

Many teachers ask their students to warm up by playing scales, intervals, or arpeggios. This strengthens technique and literally warms up the student for the rest of the focused playing they will be doing throughout the rest of the lesson. These hallmarks of traditional music education can also be used as a springboard for creativity in the private lesson.

Try asking your student to play a traditional warm-up exercise of your choice. Then, using 1, 2, or 4 bars, depending on the student, begin a “musical conversation,” asking the student to improvise over the exercise. They can try using the notes of a specific scale in their improvisation, only specific intervals, or the pitches of various arpeggios. After they have finished the exercise, it is your turn to play! Keep your playing at the same level of complexity as theirs, and take cues from their performance. Encourage your student to begin playing right on the downbeat; with lower-level students, this can be a great way to help them internalize the pulse. Keep trading bars until you would like to end the exercise.

Many students, especially if they have never engaged in this kind of on-the-spot creative process before, can feel uncomfortable or nervous. If this is the case, ask your student to “keep it simple”, starting with quarter, half, or whole notes, and perhaps just one pitch. Again, make sure to keep your playing simple as your student begins to explore improvisation.

Incorporating this kind of exercise into your warm-up technique can have many benefits. Your student gains experience improvising, and because the exercise is based on technique, their knowledge of the scales, intervals, and arpeggios will improve. Make sure to highlight aspects of their creative playing once the exercise is done for encouragement.

This exercise can be modified or extended in a few different ways, sometimes even in the same lesson. Try asking your student to begin their musical phrases on the same pitch that you use to end your musical phrase. This strengthens their ear. Of course, you should do the same thing, too! As you and your student listen to the music you are making together, the repeated pitches create a sense of a flowing musical line. This can lead into a discussion of how to create melodies that aesthetically please you both.

Call-and-response can also be used in this same context as well. Start by having your student mimic your playing. Again, if the student is new to this kind of playing, keep it simple at the beginning by only using two or three pitches and basic rhythms. Many students enjoy trying to “trick” their teacher, too, so give them an opportunity to be the leader in call-and-response as well.

Lastly, try asking your more advanced students to take a look at a melodic theme from one of their pieces. What are the musical characteristics that define this theme? Try using these as a springboard for improvisation. If a theme has specific rhythms, try engaging in a musical conversation using those rhythms alone. Specific pitches can work, too. A melody’s intervals can also serve as inspiration for improvisation. To extend this idea even further, you can ask your student to write an alternate melodic theme that would still be able to work with the rest of their music.

By engaging in creative activities that are directly linked to the music your student is working on, you can add some spice to your private teaching and strengthen your student’s musical understanding and aural skills. Creating can also give your student some added musical self-esteem, too! And lastly, remember that improvisation is not just for jazz. Any genre and, of course, any student can benefit from this kind of musical work!

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Justine Dolorfino is a 5-8 orchestra teacher at Heritage E-STEM Middle School in West St. Paul, MN. In addition to this position, she also teaches private lessons with TakeLessons.com and School of Rock Burnsville’s Early Childhood Music Program. She is a graduate of Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, where she earned her Ed.M., and Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she obtained a dual degree in music and psychology and completed her senior thesis on a psychosocial approach to teaching extracurricular music. Besides teaching music, she also has a strong interest in social media and holds two part-time positions in this field at Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy and Streamified.

The Five Lessons I Learned In Prison And How They Made Me A Better Teacher
Alex Moroz

As I was putting away my things and saying goodbye to my students, one of them said something that I will never forget.  We had just finished playing Lil Wayne’s, “How To Love” on pianos and guitars when this student looked at me and said, “I’m gonna miss music class when I get out of here.”  What’s remarkable about this student’s statement is that “here” doesn’t refer to a school or a summer camp, but it refers to a juvenile detention center—a place where youth are stripped of freedom and independence—and this student is actually going to miss something from it.

In my journey as a prison music educator, I’ve taught incarcerated adults at the Decatur Adult Transition Center and incarcerated youth at the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center. In this article, I’d like to share five lessons that I’ve learned from teaching incarcerated people. These lessons could help teachers connect with their students—particularly those who are considered at-risk—because they can help teachers reach out to a broader spectrum of learners.  These lessons are intended to assist teachers in recognizing that all students, regardless of previous experience or current circumstances, have the potential to achieve greatness. It is my hope that these ideas will find themselves into your own classroom.

(Please note that my use of the word “prison” encompasses my experiences at state prisons and a juvenile detention center.)

Lesson #1- Know Your Students’ Cultures

Every child is going to learn differently – a combination of experience, biology, and culture. In order to be successful, educators must seek to understand their students’ backgrounds in order to get a handle on how they perceive information and learn. This includes knowing where students are from, what their cultural values are, and how they communicate with others. Once teachers learn about their students, they must use their knowledge to their students’ benefit.  However, prior to that, teachers must believe that no cultural hierarchy exists. This part is difficult for many people because even the slightest stereotypes and prejudices are often misleading.

I came from a culture that completely contrasts that of my students’ at the prison and juvenile detention center.  Despite these differences, I made a point to connect with my students by asking about their lives and backgrounds and sharing stories from my own life.  I’ve found that this informal communication creates strong bonds between teacher and students. This knowledge also helps me to develop my teaching style, adapt it for my students, and design our classroom activities.  Lastly, I feel that my students become more engaged when I take the time to know and value their unique attributes and contributions.

Lesson #2- Adapt Your Activities For Student-Centered Learning 

It seems like many music teachers are afraid to implement student-centered activities because they think that it will lower the credibility of the curriculum, inhibit the growth of musicianship and musical skills, and diminish the importance of having a teacher—when, in fact, it does the opposite.  As music educators, we’ve established specific goals for our curriculums to meet the national standards of music education.  These standards are quite straight forward, and I think that most educators can agree that they are legitimate goals that should be taught in music classrooms.  From what I’ve observed, though, many of our large ensembles fail to meet several of these standards because many music programs are heavily focused on performing, leaving little time to cover important issues related to identity, culture, and history. In short, the role of the “director” takes the place of the “teacher”, and, outside of developing the muscle memory to play the third clarinet part, many students fall short of their musical potential.  Moreover, I’ve found that many music teachers, through their adherence to professional standards of quality classical music, dismiss the importance of valuing the musical and social culture of their students.  Based on what I’ve learned in prison, this is a dangerous practice: A failure to recognize a student’s opinion is a failure to recognize a student as a unique person. Identities can be strengthened when interests are built upon, and identities can be weakened if interests are ignored. Therefore, student-centered learning is critical for providing a meaningful education and fostering personal development.

While teaching incarcerated men at the Decatur ATC, I learned that people do not participate passionately if they’re not interested in what’s being taught.  Keeping that in mind, I designed an activity that asked the CCJDC students to write a rap in a group setting. Here is what the students came up with over the course of two classes:

As you can see, we incorporated 8 out of 9 of the national standards with just one activity.  The only standard that we didn’t cover was “5. Reading and Notating Music,” which is the most commonly covered standard. While we could have included the fifth standard by extending this activity and notating the accompaniments and rhythms, that would have been outside of the goals of this project.

Lesson #3- Create A Nurturing Environment 

Students need to feel comfortable in order to express their thoughts, feelings, and opinions without the fear of being ridiculed, harassed, or embarrassed.  If students are not given an environment that nurtures personal growth, then their learning will be inhibited.  Music classes make students particularly vulnerable because most music is created through expressing emotions, which can be difficult or even terrifying for anybody.  Therefore, it is up to the music teacher to create a setting that empowers and rewards students for self-expression, participation, and critical thinking.

At the CCJDC, our environment is very friendly and we respect everyone for who they are.  Moreover, we don’t force our students to do anything against their will.  Our activities are designed to be fun and manageable for all skill levels, and everyone wants to participate because we set them up for success.  We also radiate positive energy and give our students constant encouragement by recognizing every accomplishment.  Our students respect us just as we respect them, creating an open environment where people feel comfortable communicating.  By doing all of these things, we create a setting that facilitates learning and personal development.

Lesson #4- Create Positive Experiences

Many of us became music teachers because we were inspired by our teachers and the experiences that they provided.  I’ve found that the previous lessons are ingredients to creating positive experiences because they lay the foundation for classroom success.  When music classes facilitate positive moments, teachers become more than classroom leaders—they become fellow human beings who are full of compassion.  Even greater, teachers become symbols of hope, safety, and inspiration, helping students to develop their personalities and grow as individuals.

As a prison educator, my main goal is to use music to give my students positive experiences by giving them a genuine sense of accomplishment. I do this by praising and recognizing their achievements in the classroom. While it can be difficult to know how successful we are at truly impacting a child’s life, the experiences that my students and I have had at the JDC seem to be making a difference. Often times, before an activity, a student will say, “I can’t do this,” only to change their tune at the end of class – smiling and getting excited when they realize that they can. Moreover, I’ve received comments like, “This makes me feel like I can actually do something,” which is inspiring to me as a music educator because I can see how music participation benefits students—particularly those with low levels of self-efficacy and self-esteems.

Lesson #5- We Teach Music

Through my experiences working with incarcerated students, I’ve realized that our current music classrooms often exclude students from low socioeconomic families because instruments, lessons, and other expenses simply cost too much money. It has made me ask questions like, “Do we need a 50-piece concert band to make music?” The answer, as any laptop DJ will tell you, is “No.”  While there are many meaningful opportunities to make music in our large ensembles, I want to join the chorus of music educators who are calling for the expansion of our curricular offerings into popular genres. There are going to be limitations to any music program – time, money, access – but recognizing the value in all styles of music will allow us to reach more students and provide them with meaningful musical experiences.

A change in music education begins with asking ourselves what we do. And, while we may be temped to say that we teach band, choir, or orchestra, the reality is that we teach music. Until recently, my arts program had not used any outside funding at all, though we had access to popular instruments like guitars, ukuleles, keyboards, and drums. We could also teach songwriting, lyric analysis, and critical listening skills as long as we had paper, pencils, and a sound system. Compared to a $3,000 sousaphone, these tools are a cheap alternative and allow students to make a lot of music.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that large ensemble programs should convert to general music programs. I am suggesting that music teachers need to be certain that their programs are not excluding students based on socioeconomic status or culture. Simply put: Every student deserves to learn music.  I say this since I’ve seen music’s positive impact on my students, and it hurts knowing that they never had the opportunity to study music before entering a correctional facility.  I hope that music educators will read this article with an open mind, because giving more students opportunities for musical growth could change lives—and possibly keep students out of incarceration in the first place.

I’d like to give special thanks to Dr. Mary Cohen, Dr. Jeananne Nichols, Nick Jaworski, Corinne Jones, and Jackie Pendola.  I’ve learned a lot from each of you, and I would not have been able to write this without your support.

Alex Moroz is a student in music education at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.  Currently, he is the director of the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center Arts Project and a student teacher in Chicago Public Schools.

During the spring of 2010, my fellow music teachers and I were faced with a significant challenge. Because of the financial strains that our district was experiencing at the time, we were asked to restructure our programs in order to serve a greater percentage of our district’s student body, thereby justifying the cost of our four full-time music employees.  At that time, we had approximately 10% of the high school and middle school populations participating in band and choir.  With the exception of a nine-week 5th grade general music class, students who were not in band or choir did not have music education built into their school day after 4th grade.

Although the task seemed overwhelming at the time, we had been presented with a great opportunity for growth. Our administration supported what we were doing for students, and wanted to see us do even more. They wanted us to find a way to get through to the other 90%. They supported us philosophically, but in order to in order to justify us financially, something was going to have to change.

After exploring several different options, we decided to add a nine-week general music class for all of our 6th through 8th graders. This meant that every student in the middle school would have a music class for at least a quarter of the school year. With that change, we went from reaching about 10% of the students in that 5th-8th Grade building to reaching 100% of them. After a few more changes that were made at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year, our 8th grade general music curriculum was developed around the use of ukuleles to play and compose music.

This class of about 25 students meets within our school’s daily block schedule. I see them two to three times a week for about 75 minutes. The students play on ukuleles that were provided for them through both the district’s budget and parent fundraising. We meet in the choir room and sit in rows or in a circle, depending on if students will be reading materials from a projector or from handouts. We explore playing and creating music as a full group, in small groups and sometimes individually.

The participatory model that I chose to use for this curriculum is based on a few key ideas:

1. Music is not as much rehearsed as it is experienced. In other words, students are held to participation standards rather than performance standards.

2. Students are involved in selecting the music they play.

3. Students are given opportunities to create the music they play.

As I was preparing for this new experience, there were several questions that came to mind:

• How could I ensure that student-selected music would be of sufficient quality and include teachable material?
• How could I motivate students to learn music without the pressures of an upcoming performance?
• How could I teach students to read music notation well enough to learn the songs in such a short amount of time?
• What was the best way to give students creative opportunities in this classroom environment?

After a little over a semester of trying this experiment, I have made some progress in finding answers to these questions.

(Note: Before moving on, I should say that the philosophical underpinnings of this class come from a variety of sources. The “participatory framework” comes from the work of the ethnomusicologist, Tom Turino at the University of Illinois. You can read more about the framework in his book, Music as Social Life. The use of the ukulele and the format of the class came from interactions I had with Dr. Matthew Thibeault, a music education professor at the University of Illinois. Dr. Thibeault has a great article about his ukulele ensemble available here. Lastly, Nick Jaworski (Co-Editor of Leading Notes) and I have discussed the format of this class a couple of times and he shared with me an unpublished paper of his discussing how the ukulele could be used with Turino’s participatory framework as a guiding principal.)

Using Student-Selected Music

Giving students the chance to have input in the creation of their own curriculum seems to have some risks to it, especially in a music classroom. Because the curriculum for this class was going to be developed in part from and around the music they chose, selecting materials with teachable concepts was critical. However, it is important to be wary of devaluing student’s taste in music all in the name of choosing what we as trained musicians to be quality music.

That being said, there is also value in experiencing a wide variety of music. It is for this reason that I deliberately chose to weave student-selected pop music with folk and early rock n’ roll music in order to create a comprehensive curriculum. It quickly became apparent that all the student-selected music definitely contained teachable concepts.  The basic elements of music can be taught using almost any song. In a scenario such as this one where the class is not an elective and it does not last for very long, students need to be reached as quickly as possible in order for the message to hit home and stick. In my experience, using music that they select is a very effective way to do that.

Motivating Students

When I realized that I would be asking students to concentrate on learning songs without the deadline of a concert, I was worried about motivating them to learn it at all. They quickly proved that I was wrong to be concerned. When given the opportunity to choose what they were playing and studying, students became self-motivated almost instantly and seemed to remain more engaged in the material than expected.  

The Use of Music Notation

Prior to teaching this course, all of the students I had were taking my classes because they had chosen them as electives. My 8th graders, however, do not choose to take my class – they have to.  Because of this, I quickly learned that when teaching students who fall into this category, it is important to consider approaching the concept of music notation from another perspective.

Instead of using the lines and spaces on the staff, we used chord frames and a little rhythmic notation (especially bar lines and measures) in order to communicate. Everything else was done aurally.

It was difficult for me to get used to this strategy at first, but for the group of students I had, this is what ended up working most effectively. After all, many of them will go through life never reading another note of music beyond my class. Some of them may never even see music notation again. They will, however, hear plenty of music. In fact, they will almost certainly hear it everyday. They have proven to me that you do not need to read music to experience or understand it. That is not to say that there’s isn’t value in reading traditional Western notation- I use it everyday, as do my band students. But, when it came time to choose priorities given the short nine weeks I would have with my 8^th graders, I decided to focus on what they would experience rather than whether or not they could find the “F-A-C-E” in the spaces of the staff.

Facilitating Creative Opportunities

Finding ways to promote creative opportunities has proven to be the most difficult part of this process. Creating a classroom environment that is both highly structured while making students feel safe enough to take creative risks has been challenging with this age level. Learning cannot take place in unintentional chaos, so it is important to clearly establish routines before deviating from them. In this case, I have had to adjust my goals for what students can accomplish during their time in the class in order to make everything more manageable.

In addition to the unexpected classroom management challenges, I was also surprised to see how fearful students were of their first experience with improvisation and songwriting as individuals. It took starting over with very detailed instructions, clarified expectations for performance quality and a little bit of time for them to be comfortable.

Eventually, they were ready for songwriting. They worked in small groups to come up with ideas for lyrics, chord progressions and motives, which we later put together and recorded as a class song.  All this was done without traditional notation. Students communicated most of their ideas by rote.

As I continue to develop this curriculum, I will push for more student-driven collaborative songwriting where they are able to make more of the decisions themselves. I will also continue to focus the goal of every classroom activity on some form of student creativity in the hopes of getting them to feel comfortable taking the risk of being self-expressive.

Data as our Advocate

Although creating and implementing the curricula for 6th-8th grade general music has been a challenge, it has had a positive impact on our music program as a whole. Enrollment in our performance-based courses has benefitted from an increase in student interest in music. The middle school numbers have remained relatively steady and the high school numbers have increased by about 5% in the last year. Enrollment in the high school’s non-performance based music electives (beginning guitar and music theory) has increased as well, a trend that we expect will continue. Another indication of success is that some ukulele students – many of whom did not previously own or play an instrument – have acquired their own personal ukuleles and are now able to make music independently at home.

Most importantly, though, we are now able to provide a more in-depth musical education to every single child in our middle school building, regardless of what electives they choose. We are serving 100% of our students. That is not only financially responsible, but also philosophically sound. As music teachers, we often state that we believe that every child should experience music in school. I am also pleased to be able to say that this is actually true for our middle school kids. I believe that implementing these programs was a step in the right direction. And I encourage all music teachers to take advantage of any opportunity to develop curricula like this-allowing them to share music with as many students as possible.

***
Caitlin McGovern teaches band, music theory, guitar and general music at Pleasant Plains High School and Middle School in Pleasant Plains, IL.  She holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She also currently blogs atwhatmattersinmusiced.blogspot.com. For more information about Ms. McGovern and her teaching, visit her website at caitlinmcgovern.com.

As choral teachers in the public school system, many of us have felt that four hands would be better than two: two hands to conduct and two to play piano. I teach middle school choir in a school district north of Chicago. Our student body is highly involved in the arts and eager to participate in one of the six choirs we offer. However, as with many districts, budgetary constrictions do not allow my choral program a full-time accompanist. As a result, each year I played for my daily choir classes, and held two or three full rehearsals with my accompanist in the days leading up to our performances. I can’t count the amount of times I thought to myself, “If only I had more time in front of my choirs instead of behind the piano! How much more musically they would sing! How we could connect!” A few years back, a gregarious sixth grade student helped make this happen.

Her name was Megan and she was a student in my sixth grade choir. She approached me one day after rehearsal, and said “Mrs. Lawless, I was wondering if I could accompany the choir on a piece at the Spring Concert this year? I’ve taken piano lessons for awhile now…”  My school, while home to a large choir and band program, offered little opportunity at the time for student piano players. I had been looking for ways to get these talented musicians more involved in our fine arts program. Megan was a proficient and musical piano player, easily capable of playing the accompaniments for the repertoire I had picked out.  I assigned her one of our sixth grade pieces to learn, she rehearsed with the choir three weeks later, and accompanied the choir at the Spring Concert. Since then, I have continued to use student accompanists regularly. Here are some ways I’ve found to find, train, and retain quality student accompanists.

Seek out student piano players in your district.

They are out there, eager to showcase their skills and learn from you. Inquire within your ensembles for interested students. Speak to the teachers at the feeder school(s) to get names of student pianists that will be coming up to you. Call local piano teachers and ask them if they teach any students in your district. If you have a paper newsletter, or online website or blog, make request for student piano players. The ideal student accompanist will also be a part of your choral program. The accompanists you train will become musical role models for the rest of the group, and will also be able to accompany the ensemble in daily class rehearsals.

Begin with musically accessible accompaniments.

When Megan first came to me in sixth grade, I started her with a piece that was slightly below her top ability level. This was not to doubt her skill level, but as you choral directors know, there is much that goes into accompanying a choir in addition to technical skill. By allowing Megan to master the fingerings, notes, and chords quickly, we were then able to work on the more expressive aspects of accompanying. This included training Megan to follow my conducting pattern and style, as well as following the choir’s ebb and flow. I trained her to listen acutely to their dynamic shifts and slight tempo changes and mirror them. We discussed what to do if a student skipped a verse in a solo, or if a choir missed an entrance.  As she progressed through the middle school, she was able to take on more difficult repertoire and more pieces at a time. By the time she was in eighth grade, she was accompanying small group sectionals, swing choir rehearsals, as well as a variety of repertoire at our concerts and contests.

Here’s a short list of pieces that I have used or would use with 6th grade accompanists:

• Firefly by Andy Beck
• Shout It Out! By Jay Althouse
• Just a Single Voice by Sally K. Albrecht & Jay Althouse
• Children of the World by Berta Poorman & Sonja Poorman
• To Joy by Beethoven; arr. Sally K Albrecht & Jay Althouse
• She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain arr. Russell Robinson
• The Clouds by Cynthia Gray
• Tarantella by Sandra Howard

Cultivate the whole musician, and showcase your accompanists in additional ways.

Offer them solo opportunities at your concerts to perform their private lessons repertoire. Have them play in the lobby before and after school choral/band/orchestra performances. Encourage them to take a solo to your district’s solo/ensemble festival, and/or have them teach a lesson to the class about the piano. Demonstrate that you are supporting their overall interest and growth as a pianist. Their confidence level will soar and they will gain the added benefit of more performance experience.

Work with your student accompanist one on one, outside of the class rehearsal, just as you would a professional accompanist.

Any conductor-accompanist relationship takes trust, practice, and understanding. This dynamic needs to be cultivated with your student accompanists as well. Trust will be gained by taking time to work with these students on an individual basis. Especially at the middle school level, constructive criticism must be doled out carefully. Positive reinforcement goes a long way with this age group. Carve out time before or after school, or during the student’s lunch or recess time to rehearse and provide feedback. During Megan’s seventh grade year, I used a small bit of my budget to bring in my regular accompanist to coach Megan during a class rehearsal. He was able to offer her immediate feedback and advice as she played, while also allowing me to work directly with the choir.

Now in 9th grade, Megan came back to the middle school just the other day to visit. She told me that she is now accompanying the choirs at her high school, and that she was grateful for the experience and opportunities she was offered to accompany at McCracken. I am grateful to her as well; her leadership and eager attitude resulted in three new student accompanists for my program this year. I look forward to continuing the tradition of student accompanists for years to come!

(Bonus footage! Around 4:52, you can catch a glimpse of a student accompanist performing a duet with our adult accompanist.)

***

Mrs. Meg Lawless received her Bachelor of Music Education Degree from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mrs. Lawless studied classical voice and jazz vocals under Mark Gilgallon and Nancy Davis Booth, conducting technique under Dr. Eric Stark and Henry Leck, and music education under Dr. Tim Brimmer and Cheryl West.

Mrs. Lawless began her career in education teaching middle school choir and band at the Hong Kong International School in China in 2005. During her time in Hong Kong, she also sang lead vocal in the jazz quintet FJQ, with bi-monthly performances in Hong Kong, Wanchai, and the SoHo District. After returning to the states, she has taught all varieties of choir, guitar, world drumming, and musical theater to grades 6-12, first at New Castle Middle School and High School in Indiana, and now at McCracken Middle School in Skokie, Il. Meg’s professional affiliations include the Music Educator’s National Conference, the Illinois Music Educator’s Association, and the American Choral Director’s Association.

In her spare time, Meg serves as the substitute conductor for the Indianapolis Youth Chorale. She also teaches guitar and voice privately.

If somebody from outside the field of music education were to observe a ‘typical’ large ensemble rehearsal, what do you think they would see? If we were to then ask that observer to create a list of the National Standards for Music Education based on what they saw in that rehearsal, what would that list look like? For many people, that list would begin and end with “Performing/singing, alone or with others, a varied repertoire of music.” We might also see standards encouraging proper posture, sitting quietly while another section works out a technically demanding passage, or learning ones scales.

In reality, only a small portion of the National Standards are concerned with ensemble performance. However, many music programs in the United States skew toward performance, sometimes even exclusively. Unless the ensemble is a jazz group, almost no time will be devoted to improvisation. Furthermore, students rarely study the anthropological elements of music (i.e., critical listening, history and culture) unless they are enrolled in some sort of music appreciation class.

As our education system continues to embrace standardized testing as an acceptable way to encourage and measure student growth, having some sort of creative outlet in schools becomes more important. For students who spend most of their days regurgitating facts onto an endless stream of tests, creativity is vital to their growth. I believe that with just a few small tweaks, the traditional large ensemble model can be the most important, enjoyable, and creative part of a student’s day.

Much of my interest in the past few years has been in providing new creative opportunities within the confines of the current music education structures. This is an interest that stems from this article, penned by Dr. John Kratus, one of my college professors. The article caused a storm of controversy by arguing that music education was not always adapting to changing societal needs. Many arguments against the article were written with blinders on, seemingly boiled down to “Everything is fine. Don’t ask me to cut down on rehearsal time.”

Rehearsal time is precious, but not precious enough to merit ignoring the other aspects of music. We can integrate different creative activities into rehearsals, activities that will give the students a better overall understanding of music.

Give your students time for chamber music

The traditional structure in a large ensemble is for the conductor to lead, and the students to follow. There will occasionally be a chance for student input during rehearsal, but the conductor dictates proceedings for the most part. If we can find some time during the year for chamber music, our students can take control and make their own musical decisions. This will help them grow into independent musicians, which will in turn improve the ensemble as a whole.

In his book Drive, author Daniel Pink lays out evidence showing that autonomy is directly correlated to job satisfaction. Having the ability to perform even menial tasks in whatever manner one sees fit gives the worker or student some sense of control. The authors of Love and Logic, Jim Fay and David Funk, argue that giving up some control in the classroom leads to a better classroom environment. Chamber music is one way in which you can give your students a chance to explore independent musicmaking.

A teacher just 20 minutes away from my own middle school devotes most Fridays to chamber music. Students break off into chamber groups for the entire day, and they perform for each other every few weeks. This year, I scheduled my concert dates to allow for almost three full weeks of chamber music between our final concert and the last day of school. The chamber music period will culminate with recital hours during the school day for parents, teachers and other students to attend.

Better yet, ask if your students are willing to come in during lunch or after school. My 7th grade flute students last year started up their own flute choir, and they rarely used class time to rehearse. Instead, we worked out an alternate lunch period once a week.

No sheet music, no problem

Improvisation should be a part of any music experience, not just jazz. Students should have time to create their own music, be it for four beats, 12 bars or any other duration. Improvising also forces students to make quick musical decisions based on a given set of parameters. They are composing within the moment.

In my classroom, we make sure to improvise every day. In all ensembles, we start class with a short period of rhythmic improvisation, based on the Learning Sequence Activitiesfound in Music Learning Theory. I will play a four-beat pattern in any meter (we stick to one meter per day) on my trombone, and the whole class repeats it back to me while staying in time.
After 6-8 of these unison patterns, I’ll say, “Alright, now individuals, please give me back a different pattern.” I choose 6-8 individuals by cueing them right before I finish my own pattern. The students have to create their own four-beat pattern right on the spot. Over the course of the school year, the student rhythms will go from very simple patterns consisting of four macrobeats, to complex rhythms with syncopations and even mixed meters.

Compose your own

I was fortunate enough to study composition for a year in college, and I saw how dramatically it could improve one’s musicianship. There is no doubt that investing time in composition made me a more creative musician, and helped me see the “big picture” in many pieces that I performed.

This is an experience that we can easily pass on to our own students. My friend, composer and teacher Brooke Pierson, came up with an exciting collective composition project that I was able to use successfully with my jazz band.

The teacher begins the project by laying out a few basic parameters. These can include style, key signature, tempo, form, etc. We began with the 12-bar blues form, and then the students began to brainstorm after listening to some Big Sam and Trombone Shorty for inspiration. The students were given some free time to improvise and encouraged to jot down any musical ideas that they wanted to work into the piece.

After the improvising brainstorm session, we got together as a group and the students performed their riffs. We notated all of the musical ideas that the students wished to share, and played through each one several times. I asked some guiding questions, like “Which one of those would sound good as an introduction?” or “Would this be best as part of a melody or background line?” and we starting piecing together our tune.
The piece took just over two months to complete, with us devoting maybe 35 minutes per week of class time to working on it. Several students would go home for the weekend and work on fleshing out melodies, or adding backgrounds. The finished product can be found here.

I borrowed another composition activity from Justine Dolorfino [ed. note: that source seems a little shady... - JD]. She introduced me to the concept of the ‘rhythm matrix’, which in our case was an 8 by 8 table, with each cell representing one beat. When a cell was marked with an ‘X’, the group would clap on that beat. Students divided themselves into eight groups, with each group being responsible for composing one row in the matrix. During performance, students mixed and matched rows and columns (just like a 12-tone matrix!) to create an endless combination of duets, trios and quartets. I’ve been using the rhythm matrix when field trips have whittled our class down to smaller numbers, and I’m looking forward to using it as a first day of school activity next year.

The rhythm matrix easily morphed into an activity on chorales. I filled an 8-column by 4-row table with numbers 1-8 representing scale degrees. Divide the students into four groups, pick a scale, and had them perform the impromptu chorale. After the initial performance, students were invited up to the board to make changes to what I had written, and see what effect it had on the sound.

Conclusion

Creativity and autonomy is not something for us to fear in our classrooms and ensembles. By allowing students the freedom to express themselves, they will form deeper musical connections and become better musicians. It’s important that we give students the time to develop these vital musical skills. A creative classroom is going to be one filled with happy, growing students.

__________________________

Joe Guarr is a trombonist, composer and middle school music teacher from Lansing, Michigan. He received his Bachelor of Music Education degree from Michigan State University in 2009, and has been teaching in Hartland (MI) Consolidated Schools since 2010. Check out his blog, The Trombonist’s Mouthpiece, or drop him a note on Twitter @jguarr

It’s a Saturday afternoon in late October. The air is crisp, clean, and filled with the beautiful chaos of high school marching bands preparing to perform; drumlines run check patterns, wind players warm-up using lips slurs, and flag corps count and drill. Parents and community members wait expectantly in the stands for their favorite group to finally take the field. The drum major salutes, turns, and gives that long awaited downbeat. Months of planning, countless hours of rehearsal, thousands of dollars, and gallons of sweat have been spent to make the next ten minutes happen. It’s a beautiful thing. Anyone who has ever been part of a marching band knows how wonderful it can feel to have that hard work pay off in one glorious performance where the individual recedes and the group emerges as a well-oiled machine.

There is another side to that coin, though. It’s the one with a face, the student that receded into the background. She joined band in 5^th grade to learn an instrument and to play music. She loves everything about band; marching, concerts, chamber music, yet she feels like something is missing. When she gets home from rehearsal her dad asks to hear what she learned in band today so she plays him the second clarinet part to the marching band arrangement of “Claire de Lune”. “Oh, that’s nice”, he remarks with a forced smile, “How does the melody go for that piece?” She frowns, thinks for a moment, and tries unsuccessfully to play it for him. “I’ll guess I can ask my section leader for a copy of the music and maybe I can learn it and show you.” Her parents are proud of how well she has done in band and they feel that band is helping her become a more creative individual. Yet the truth is that, after six years in band, she can’t play a melody by ear. She has never written a piece of music, never improvised, never arranged an ensemble, and doesn’t know the joy of creating something musically unique. But, man, can she play those scales!

Music Advocacy and… Music.

There is no question that high school bands, choirs, and orchestras in their current form provide some wonderful opportunities for our students. Through participation in these ensembles, students develop leadership skills, learn how to function as a part of a group, become disciplined individuals, and realize the benefits of hard work. In fact, this is how we often market our programs to our parents, administrators, communities, and future students. What is missing from that list of worthy benefits? What do so many of our advocacy efforts forget to mention? Music. School arts programs have gotten very good at justifying their existence and advocating for themselves by extra-musical means. I am as guilty as any in this. The issue? We are first and foremost music teachers.

Our job should be to foster musical creativity and literacy in our students. If our students resemble the clarinet player above then we have work to do. Students entering band want to interact with music in a way that connects them meaningfully to the past while validating what they love in the present. This means opening them up to a wider musical world. We do a nice job of teaching our students to be consumers and performers of music of the past. Where we fail is teaching them to be literate, fluent creators of music. If we are going to meet students where they are, give them a comprehensive musical education, and foster musical literacy, then we need to find a way to incorporate improvisation and composition into our programs.

Musical Literacy: Reading, Writing, Improvising.

In my own teaching, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, I use the concept of musical literacy as my reason for requiring my students to be able to read traditional notation. “We read the music and don’t play by ear in this band room. We will be literate musicians!” Lately, though, I’ve realized that line of reasoning falls short. In English class, we read great literature and, in the process, we learn something. Ideally, the same thing happens in our large ensembles.

Upon closer inspection, however, the analogy made between English class and our large ensembles falls apart. The problem is that students in English classes go one step further than most bands, choirs, and orchestras do. In English class, we are expected to write about our experiences – we try our hand at the craft, staring at the same blank page that sat on Hemingway’s desk and assert our will over it. Through the process we learn more of ourselves, how to communicate with humanity, and, at an even deeper level, we learn exactly what makes great writers so great. This crucial step is often ignored in our large ensembles. If we want students to be literate musicians, in addition to reading skills, we need to give them the chance to compose. Is that it, though?Almost. There is one more point that needs to be addressed: the spoken word. The ability to communicate in real time with those around us is one of the things that make us human. Most of our music making happens by recitation. The material already exists and we interpret it from the notation. This is valuable, but it is only part of the story. When we are fluent in a language we have the ability to both converse freely and express original ideas at will. One way to establish such fluency is through improvisation. Musicians throughout history have embraced improvisation: Bach as part of his compositional process, variations and call-response patterns in non-western traditions, jazz music, classical cadenzas, etc.

All of this points to a definition of musical literacy as containing three components: reading, composing, and improvisational skills.

When Simply Touching on the National Standards Isn’t Enough

We all have professional music standards to deal with, regardless of where we live. Here is a list of standards compiled by state. They are all pretty similar. Back in 1994 a group of educators came up with a whole set of national standards for music education. If your teaching experience is anything like mine, then you have turned in many lesson plans that cite how you have accommodated the standards in your teaching. This is wonderful, but how often are the standards covered in a meaningful way? Having one trumpet player create the lip-slur pattern for one day’s warm-up is not sufficient to cover the composition standard for the whole class, yet I have done it and I’m sure I’m not alone. We can hardly be blamed for overlooking improvisation and composition in our classrooms. For a variety of reasons our profession has found itself in a position where public performance is the primary, or in extreme cases the only, measure of success for individual programs.

A few things will need to change if we want our large ensemble students to be musically literate. First of all, we might to cut back on how much we perform (gasp!). This might mean that we perform fewer pieces on the holiday concert, we might only play in one extra marching competition, or we skip out on that downtown dog parade (not making that up). We can still entertain and educate our community through public performance of the best possible music, we will just have to be more selective about where, when, and what we play. Secondly, we as teachers need to learn how to improvise and compose and stop being afraid. How? Just do it. Go sit down at a piano, grab a guitar, or simply sing a line and see what happens. Write things down, play for your family or friends. You don’t have to be Charlie Parker or Bach, just get familiar with the process so that you will be able to guide your students. Lastly, you need to give kids space and permission to be less than perfect. Military precision is great on the marching field but creativity thrives in play, it takes time, and can be gloriously chaotic.

One Idea to Get You Started

At this point, you might be thinking, “This is all well and good, Brian, but how can I accomplish this in my classroom?!” For starters, you can check out this PDF with a unit idea that encourages creativity in the large ensemble. While the unit is specifically designed around a concert march, I believe the guiding principals are good for use in the orchestra room as well. After you’re done checking out the lesson, you can visit my blog, Creating Spaces in Band. If you’re a like-minded individual, interested in creating spaces for creativity in the band room, drop me a line and become a collaborator!

Moving Forward

Time, commitments, fear, tradition, lack of resources – these are all excuses that have crowded out creativity in my own teaching.. It is my job to overcome those excuses, as valid as they may be at times. The first step is to acknowledge that our music programs have become unbalanced. Yes, performance should be a major part of what we do, yet we cannot allow it to continually push creative practices out of the classroom. The student from the beginning of this article loves to perform but realizes that something is missing from her musical experience. The thing that is missing, whether she realizes it or not, is that she is not musically literate. She can read and reproduce the music of others but she cannot speak the language fluently or express her own original ideas. Many of us, myself included, came up in the same way and have the same shortcomings. By recreating what we were taught, we continue the cycle. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can change. Teach music, foster creativity, work towards musical literacy, and the rest will fall into place.

***

Brian Sullivan is a graduate student in music education at the University of Illinois where he coordinates and supervises undergraduate early field experience. This spring he was selected to be an assistant with the brand new Arts Experiences for Incarcerated Students project at the Champaign County juvenile detention center (and he’s really, really excited about it!)

Prior to grad school Brian spent six years as the instrumental music teacher at New Smyrna Beach High School in Florida where he was responsible for the marching band, symphonic band, jazz ensemble, guitar class, piano class, and AP music theory. Brian’s interests include creativity in the classroom, the social power of music, and educational technology. He shares his thoughts at www.CreatingSpaceinBand.tumblr.com.

Outside of school Brian is the worship leader at Wesley United Methodist in Urbana. He lives in Champaign with his lovely and talented wife, Elizabeth.

Researchers, lawmakers, and administrators all seem to agree on one thing: Our children need 21^st century skills. Despite this consensus, little has been provided in the way of substantive ideas, funding, or support in bringing these new ideas to fruition – especially in music education. Without this guidance, how are we, as individual teachers, supposed to provide these important skills to our students?

Many teachers, after starting the process of designing curricula that addresses 21^st century skills, experience a feeling of isolation, both in their school and within the music teaching community at-large. For those teachers who would like to make meaningful changes to their curriculum, resources and support are scarce. Indeed, some of this scarcity is undoubtedly due to the fact that, as a profession, we’re still determining what a ‘modern” music education will look like.

It is hard to ignore how often state and national music education conventions try to shoehorn 21^st century skills into the subjects we already teach in our classes. The profession, it seems, has decided that “creativity” is our ticket to 21^st century success. While there are definitely elements of creativity in various areas of music education, the majority of students are building musical literacy and interpretational skills by reading and rehearsing with an ensemble.  Take that in for a moment and ask yourself one very difficult question: How many of my students would be able to play with minimal or no music in front of them? This question is essential to assessing the ‘creativity quotient’ of what we teach. Because of the nature of our ensemble classes, truly creative activities can be difficult (and sometimes, very uncomfortable). With that in mind, we have to be willing to embrace a different construct of music making in order to reach our students and, most importantly, we must do this in order to expand our students’ concept of what music is and how can it be made.

For the record, this is not another article questioning whether or not our performing ensembles will continue to be a part of the school curriculum – we believe they will and that they should be. Nor are we going to suggest sweeping changes to your existing classes. Instead, the purpose of this article is to provide a few ‘levels’ of implementation, designed to integrate creativity and technology skills in your music curriculum. If you are willing to try any of these action steps, we assure you that your students will gain a greater awareness of the compositional process and structure of musical works.

Level One: Begin From Where You Are (Group composition within the large ensemble)

The first level we suggest is to bring elements of electronic music composition into your ensemble class. Begin by leading a large group composition project where students break into sections and create one or two short sound patterns. These can be based on notes of a scale (pentatonic works well), percussive sounds, or any combination that fits within a given meter and tempo. Students then have to collaboratively create a system of notation for their patterns. The patterns are ultimately performed and presented for the class and students identify the patterns that fit together the best. While this is not exactly electronic music per se, you might follow up by assigning an end of semester project where a student does the same thing on their own utilizing a laptop, iPad, or recording software. Promote some of these compositions in the lobby before or after a concert or post them to the web in order to drum up interest among students and parents.

The following is an example of a Level One composition from our freshman arts class. These students may have a basic understanding of music and theory, but have not had any formal instruction in composition or electronic music at this point.

This is an example of a Level One composition using Audacity, internal computer microphones, and ‘found’ sounds.

Level Two: Take It Up a Notch…Or Two!

Unlike level one, levels two and three involve creating new classes in your music program. This is a great opportunity to engage with the students in your building who do not participate in the large ensembles. To be successful, however, you will need to seek out professional development opportunities to learn about the software and hardware that will be utilized in your new classes. If you are familiar with digital audio workstation software such as Garageband, Audacity, Ableton Live, Logic, Reason, Cubase, Pro Tools, or any other DAW, we encourage you to choose one and learn as many functions as you can within that specific software (for out-of-the-box accessibility and stand alone functionality, Ableton Live is a great beginner’s tool). Based on your software selection, you can strategize your musical goals for these electronic music classes and determine what concepts and related projects you will cover.

Introduction and Advanced Studies in Electronic Music: One approach to Level Two

At Lake Forest Academy, the first of such classes is a yearlong course intended to introduce students to the principle philosophies and aesthetic concerns which led to the development of “electronic music”. Additionally, our students are introduced to the process of creating their own original works within the electronic music paradigm. We begin with a cursory survey of the late chromatic examinations of Erik Satie and the declarations of the Second Viennese School in order to establish the first of two foundational concepts essential to the understanding of electronic music as it exists today: music can and should be free of its exclusive dependence on the rules of tonality^[1]. The work of John Cage, ultimately the most central figure in the first class, serves to connect this seemingly radical idea of tonal freedom to contemporary expressions of the post-tonal principal, namely rap and techno music and their respective sub-genres.

The second foundational concept of Electronic Music Studies requires less of an intellectual leap on the part of the student. Despite this seeming simplicity, the second concept holds greater implications for their engagement with their own music and the music of others: music is, for all intents and purposes, now a plastic art form.  By this, we simply mean that the vast majority of musical experiences on this planet now involve engagement with recordings rather than performed/interpreted pieces. Historically, this represents a paradigm shift in the way music is conceived, arranged, and shared/distributed; however, for most students new to the field, this is a readily apparent fact (and is really all they’ve ever known). In order to understand these ideas, we start with an examination of the French musique concrete movement and its American response, the New York School experiments of John Cage and David Tudor, followed by a segue into the “high pop/rock” ambitions of The Beatles and The Beach Boys (where the studio truly emerges as a musical instrument of equal importance) serves to connect studio-based composition of the past with more contemporary examples of how the ultimate purpose of any musical work is to exist in some recorded medium.  Running parallel to these explorations are a series of DAW-based recording/production projects, which introduce key skills (sequencing and programming, field recording and sampling, editing wave forms and MIDI files, mastering and finalizing) and serve to build a small body of work for students to carry into future endeavors.

Laptop Orchestra

The second class is an ensemble for students who have completed the electronic music class and are ready to work collaboratively in creating and performing musical works. Laptop orchestras are becoming increasingly prevalent (see Stanford and Princeton for sustainable examples) and so an ensemble for electronic musicians isn’t difficult to envision. The challenge is to translate the skills and concepts developed in the first class into meaningful and practical guides for performance – all while maintaining an emphasis on composition.

Sound crazy? Just think of the first class as analogous to a music theory class, the only difference being that you are not covering the concepts of harmony and melody as much, but rather attending more to timbre, rhythm, and form. The key is to have students demonstrate these concepts through original compositions.

The ensemble class can be thought of as jazz band. Students must consider the concepts from the electronic music class in creating a collaborative work. In order to do this, they must be able to improvise and react with fellow classmates; that is, they will develop a sense of musical dialogue based on a common respect for sound itself (as opposed to a predetermined language for arranging sound).

This project was done during the 1^st semester electronic music course. The student composer has not studied music theory nor had any formal music instruction other than the aforementioned freshman arts course.

An example of a Level Two Composition using Ableton Live and a synthesizer:

Taking It One Step Beyond: Level Three

To take this experience even further, we have experimented with combining our full orchestra with the laptop orchestra for certain concerts. This combined group first performed during the spring of 2011 when we chose to do a derivative arrangement of Aphex Twin’s “Blue Calx”. This piece was chosen because the orchestra part was very tonal, which made the chord patterns very easy to discern (you must learn to crawl before you can walk). The students deciphered four distinct chord patterns. Once these patterns were arranged, we labeled them one through four (each section was between eight and 16 bars). An individual part, therefore, did not look too dissimilar from that of a standard part. Students simply had to be prepared to move from section 1 to section 3, then back to 2, and so on. Ultimately, the conductor makes the final decision as to which section is played at any given moment, but students did have input into the overall form during the rehearsal process.

As you can probably predict, the orchestra’s part was rather easy to rehearse by itself. The arranging of parts and balancing of harmonies took twenty minutes in each of four rehearsals. The main challenge of performing this piece successfully was getting the students accustomed to reading music that was not necessarily meant to be performed linearly. Because the piece is intended to be somewhat spontaneous and conversational in nature, sections can be repeated, taken out of order, or have musical elements such as dynamics and phrasing altered at the discretion of the conductor and students.

Many of you are probably unfamiliar with the process by which the laptop orchestra creates music (as in the Blue Calx example below). We won’t bore you with excruciating details at this point in time, but you should know that the process is one your students will understand almost innately. You will find that your students are willing to put in the time learning the software until they have a decent understanding of the software’s capabilities – much like when they were learning their first sequencing programs. Our version of Blue Calx was created with preset layers, which were added to the electronic layout both beforehand and during the performance. You hear a constant metronome tap throughout, which actually has little to do with keeping the ensemble together but rather has more to do with creating a point of rhythmic interest. If you listen closely, you notice that the upbeats between metronome clicks are actually of higher importance.

The samples used by the laptop orchestra were all created in Ableton Live and are mostly simple synthesized sounds put through a number of effects and filters before the performer finds the exact sound they desire. Once the sound is present, it can be added to the sequencer’s timeline. Those of you familiar with Garageband or similar programs already have experience with this; just think of Garageband without the pre-made loops and far more control over the kind of tone that is produced.

The result, which you can hear below, is something you may or may not find musically pleasing from an aesthetic point of view (a value judgment that, in our opinion, has little to do with the objective of this assignment).  As the teacher/facilitator, it was our responsibility to help shape the musical understanding from a conceptual perspective. There were students at every experience level playing this piece, and they were invested in it because, in essence, they wrote it together. The novice students had just as much input as the advanced students. Ask your administration what they think of that when they ask you what you are doing to incorporate differentiated learning and assessment strategies into your curriculum!

Here is “Blue Calx” as realized and performed by the Lake Forest Academy Orchestra and Laptop Orchestra (there is a link to the full arrangement at http://musiceducation.wordpress.com/).

“Blue Calx”:

Evaluate and Revise 

We weren’t sure how well these types of projects would go over when we first started. We were certainly stepping into uncharted waters. We are still not convinced that the construction of each level is complete. What we know is that there has been a dramatic increase in student understanding of musical concepts from a formal standpoint. As long as this is the case, we will continue to tweak and adjust the way in which we approach these projects since we believe that they are vital in allowing students to see that music is much more than printed notes with pretty melodies and harmonies. Music is also art and innovation – a fact that gets overlooked way too often in favor of high stakes performances and extra-curricular monopolies. We encourage and challenge you to try any of the ideas presented here. Share the results with a colleague and strategize new and (seemingly) crazy ideas together. Your students, your school, and your profession will benefit greatly.

Note: This article serves as an introduction to what a “soundwalk” is and why it is a good project for the classroom. If you are interested in a very detailed “how-to” resource, please download this PDF.  

“The world we perceive is always already a world we ‘make’ to some extent.”
Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking

When I was 18 years old, I visited the St. Louis Art Museum specifically to see an exhibition of installation pieces titled “Wonderland”. I wanted to see the exhibit because I was enamored with the idea of creating such large-scale pieces – each room feeling like an entirely different world.

One piece in particular has stuck with me. This one was different.  Titled, “Taking Pictures,” this piece by Janet Cardiff had the listener put on a pair of headphones, go to a specific corner of the museum’s atrium, and wait for directions. I was initially very confused – I literally had no idea what I had signed up for. However, as soon as Janet’s voice started telling me a story and imploring to follow her into the woods, I instinctively knew that I had to do as I was told. As I went further and further into the woods, illusions to the darker aspects of Little Red Riding Hood floating in, I physically felt like I was embodying a different person.  It was both strange and intoxicating; the experience has remained vivid in my memory for years.

Image from Janet Cardiff's website depicting a moment from her piece, "Taking Pictures".

A decade later, while teaching my high school music appreciation course, Janet Cadiff’s work would serve as the inspiration/model for a project that would literally make my students’ community one giant canvas. The project – known as a “soundwalk” – has become one of my students’ favorites and I know your students will find the process both challenging and rewarding.

What is a Soundwalk?

In short, a soundwalk is a fancy audio tour.

The (slightly) longer explanation:

The soundwalk takes an audio tour and adds characters, sounds, and plots – all while placing the listener in “real world” environments (i.e. not museums) – to create hyperreal, immersive experiences that allow the listener to explore an often familiar world in new ways.

After the artist creates a soundwalk, the “walker” puts on headphones and listens to an audio file. The audio provides instructions for where and when the listener should walk. What separates the soundwalk from an audio tour is the attention paid to the immersive experience – the walk is usually part of a larger narrative structure with strong character(s) leading the way.

Soundwalk examples

This video – taken from the point of view of a soundwalk listener – is a compilation of works that my college students and I have created for locations at the University of Illinois. I hope that the clips illustrate the ways in which the Soundwalk can create a variety of environments and experiences. Remember, these are simple videos designed to recreate the soundwalk experience – the soundwalk itself requires the audio file, a device to play it on, and the listener to physically explore the space.

For very detailed instructions on how to assign and create your own soundwalks, click here and download!

The Soundwalk has a lot of potential positives. Here are three that I feel are very important:

1. Exploration of school and community
2. Unique creative process
3. “Performance” opportunities for the general music classroom

Exploration of school and community

Listeners of a soundwalk often say that the walks make them notice parts of their surroundings that, over time and repeated exposures, had become invisible to them. Whether it is the painting on the wall, the stairwell you never bothered to take, the memorial marker next to the tree, or the most mundane dent in a locker, the soundwalk creates a space to both reflect on our surroundings and imagine other possibilities for them.

When I taught high school, I found that the narrative focus of the soundwalks were varied. One senior girl created a walk that took a virtual freshman (in this case, you) on a tour of the high school on the first day of school. It begins:

“Welcome to … High School. You’re going to spend the next four years here, so you better listen up. Right now, before you step off of that bus, check. Do you have everything? Are you matching? Is there toothpaste on your face or food on your shirt? Do you look like you dressed up or have too much stuff to carry?”

After that, she provides useful tips for any high school freshman from what clothes to wear in the gymnasium to which side of the stairs to walk on if you want to avoid getting pushed around.

While this soundwalk sounds (and is) very practical, it was created with a lot of consideration and care by the senior student, who genuinely wanted to share her knowledge with others. Of course, it would be impossible to undertake this soundwalk and not stop to think about the temperature of the gym, to imagine the stairs teeming with teenagers in a hurry, and to feel the anxiousness of a freshman on his or her first day. This soundwalk, through its exploration of a “mundane” environment (the school the students spend their lives in), gives the listener new eyes to experience their familiar surroundings.

Another high school example tells the story of two superheroes who have saved the school countless times and, along the way, won all of the trophies in the display cases. About 75% of the way through, as you pass through a doorway, you transform into new characters altogether!

As I’ve worked with more students in developing soundwalks, we’ve begun to understand how a focus on character and story really create the level of immersion required to make compelling art. Recent soundwalk topics from my college students include:

• A plea for help from a missing women who retraces her last known location;
• An interview between a doctor and a deranged patient lead the listener through the performing arts center, now a 19^th century insane asylum;
• A surprisingly difficult trip to meet up with a blind date, complete with car crash and police sirens;
• A top-secret mission for a secret agent who has been compromised;
• The sad, yet reassuring, tale of a man who struggled to be accepted by the outside world by retreating to the tunnels beneath the University of Illinois.

Unique Creative Process

I’ve been having my students create soundwalks for two years now. Perhaps more than the projects themselves (which I DO love), I’ve enjoyed being a part of the unique creative process that my students engage in while creating their projects. In order to create an experience for the listener that is immersive and gratifying, the artist(s) have to go through an iterative process of exploration, creation, testing, and problem solving.

Having watched my students undertake these projects and having spoken with them about the process, it is clear that the soundwalk allows students to think in new ways – focusing on the finer details on the micro level, the bigger picture on the macro level, and, all the while, they get to explore their surroundings in new ways.

Performance Opportunities for the General Music Classroom

The choir, band, and orchestra get to go on trips and perform at sporting events. Members of these ensembles also get recognized for their individual accomplishments through district honor groups and solo & ensemble festivals. Meanwhile, students in secondary general music classes don’t always get the same opportunities to share their work with the larger school community. Soundwalks, however, provide a chance to reach out of the classroom.  Here are a couple of ways to highlight your students’ work:

Art Show/Open House

When my high school students created their Soundwalks, we staffed a booth at the district-wide art show and let people check out mp3 players. It was a great way to connect our activities to the community. I remember how excited my students were to staff the table and share their creations.

Website

Now, with my college students, we are in the process of creating a website that will provide a large map with samples, descriptions, and routes of the soundwalks that we’ve made for the campus. The hope is that visitors to the campus would be in a position to explore in new ways. The whole process, one that makes the students’ large campus a canvas that will outlast their visit, creates an energetic and proactive classroom environment, unlike anything else I’ve seen.

Nelson Goodman’s quote at the top of this article is a great reminder about our ability to create realities for ourselves. Sometimes this can be seen in the adventures of children as they enact some imaginary world. Other times, we can see adults populate their own lives with friends, adversaries, talents, and weaknesses (just to name a few). The soundwalk is simply a deliberate extension of those ideas. Hopefully, it can find its way into your own classroom. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with students as they explore their surroundings, discover new stories, and create amazing work. I have found that the soundwalk, while not the only way to encourage this type of creativity, is a great vehicle for it.

Reminder: I’ve assembled a rather in-depth document to help answer some procedural questions you might have. Download it here. Please don’t confuse the level of detail with an actual prescription for how to create your own soundwalks. You should create your own, figure out a good process for you and your students, and then move forward! I’d love to see how things turn out for you. Please feel free to contact me at Nick (at) leadingnotes.org if you have any questions or if you give it a try!