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socio-cultural Issues

How do you program music for ensembles?

How do you program for ensembles? Jordan Randall Smith posted the following message on Twitter on 12/26/19 (along with some great connected questions): Many conversations about programming in music education tend to focus on the “what” (the repertoire). So, questions about principles and processes are refreshing! I suggest checking out the thread for varied perspectives on programming music. Here are some thoughts regarding programming music for an ensemble in an educational context. Consider these ideas as starting points to expand… Read More »How do you program music for ensembles?

Re-situating Technology in Music Education: Social & Cultural considerations

Tobias, E. S. (2017). Re-Situating Technology in Music Education. In S. A. Ruthmann & R. Mantie (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Technology and Music Education (pp. 291-308). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.   It’s often the case that music educators discuss technology in relation to tools and techniques. My chapter Re-Situating Technology in Music Education in The Oxford Handbook of Technology and Music Education focuses on re-situating technology in relation to social and cultural issues.       Here’s the abstract:… Read More »Re-situating Technology in Music Education: Social & Cultural considerations

Making Positive Impact Through Music

Making Positive Impact Through Music Music educators have a role in facilitating responses, music learning and teaching in relation to hate and bigotry occurring throughout contemporary society.  Valerie Strauss suggests that “The first thing teachers should do when school starts is talk about hatred in America” and provides numerous resources for doing so. Music plays an important role in helping people make sense of, meaning, of, and respond to the world. Music programs can play an important role in supporting young… Read More »Making Positive Impact Through Music

Performing Music with Digital Media

Check out Sight Machine by Trevor Paglen, Kronos Quartet, and Obscura Digital commissioned by Cantor Arts Center (recently featured on WIRED): You can also read a New York Times article by Julie Baumgardner about Sight Machine and themes of the project.  I find this collaboration interesting for some of the following reasons in relation to music learning and teaching: it explores socio-cultural issues through the arts it is driven by artistic inquiry  it combines digital media and acoustic instruments in a hybrid… Read More »Performing Music with Digital Media

Journal of Popular Music Education and Popular Music in Music Education

The first volume and issue of the new Journal of Popular Music Education is available for free online. Congrats to editors Bryan Powell and Gareth Dylan Smith, who were a driving force in the journal coming into existence.

Some Context on Popular Music in Music Education

People sometimes have the misperception that engaging with popular music in music programs is new. It is not. You can find examples of music educators in the US discussing aspects of popular music in music education for over half a century – whether in letters to the editor of MEJ, articles on approaches to teaching popular music, and (more recently) numerous research studies that address aspects of popular music in music learning and teaching ranging from approaches to learning by ear to socio-cultural issues around gender, identity, and power dynamics. You can get a sense of the long histories of popular music in US music programs by reading Dan Isbell’s article Popular Music and the Public School Music Curriculum and Robert Woody’s article Popular Music in School: Remixing the Issues.

Photo by Scott W. Vincent

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