The following resources for music teaching and learning can be helpful in varied settings ranging from K-12 school music education programs to community contexts. The majority of these resources focus on helping music educators or teaching artists design and facilitate hybrid settings that combine varied aspects of musical engagement and learning.
Contents
General Music, Hybrid Courses, and Projects
If you’ve ever asked a question such as “What should I do in my general music class?” or “What types of projects and activities work well for secondary general music students?” or “Help, I’m creating a new music class for students who are typically not in the music program, any ideas?” this section should be helpful!
Here are curated resources that I often share with people interested in project ideas, expanding their general music or hybrid classes, or who are just looking for some helpful ideas (some of the resources include affiliate links):
Books
Teaching General Music: Approaches, Issues & ViewPoints (2015) Ed. Carlos Abril & Brent Gault
This will likely end up being used as a foundational text in general music methods courses across the country as well as a go-to resource for anyone teaching general music. The book outlines the key (and emerging) approaches to teaching general music in the 21st century as well as critical perspectives to inform curriculum development and practice. The book is unique in the diversity of approaches to general music giving an updated and current view on the landscape of general music teaching.
Teaching for Musical Understanding (2014) – Jackie Wiggins
Teaching for Musical Understanding is helpful for broadening and deepening general music teaching by providing a strong foundation that informs the decisions we make in the classroom. It includes learning theories that can inform practice and ideas of how to teach for musical understanding that differ from or expand upon activities that often occur in general music classrooms. This is also perfect for teachers looking to engage students in higher order thinking skills in the music classroom.
Dimensions of Musical Learning and Teaching: A Different Kind of Classroom (2002) Ed. Eunice Boardman
Dimensions of Musical Learning and Teaching offers varied perspectives on teaching with a constructivist and student-centered style. Each chapter is rich with description of how to create engaging classrooms or ensembles where students are regularly making musical decisions.
Sound Ways of Knowing: Music in the Interdisciplinary Classroom (1997) Janet Barrett, Claire McCoy, and Kari Veblen
Sound Ways of Knowing lays the groundwork for developing interdisciplinary arts projects. It provides information on how to go about creating interdisciplinary units and includes a number of detailed units that demonstrate what high-quality interdisciplinary teaching looks like. This is a perfect resource for people who want to create their own interdisciplinary projects, groups of educators who want to collaborate on interdisciplinary projects, and general educators who are interested in arts integration.
Articles Free (NAfME Members) or Open Access Online
If you are a member of NAfME, you have free online access to all issues of Music Educators Journal, Update, and General Music Today. Some other journals are open-access online. Take advantage of these resources! [COMING SOON]
Here are a number of posts from this blog or those of others that can give you some ideas for engaging students in your own settings:
Select Posts From This Blog
- Public Forensic Musicology for Music Learning and Teaching
- The Potential of Style Swaps in Music Education
- Making Positive Impact Through Music
- Rap, Rhyme, and Rhythm for Music Teaching and Learning
- Inspiration or Appropriation? Impetus for Analysis
- Visualizing Music
- Expanding aural skills and analysis through engaging popular music and culture
- Blurred Lines, Forensic Musicology, and Music
- Serial Opera Format as a Springboard for Musical Exploration
- Expanding the Voice: From T-Pain to Tuvan Throat Singing
- Deep Listening in the Music Classroom
Project Ideas from the Consortium for Innovation and Transformation in Music Education @ ASU
Music Learning Playlists (modules for blended learning made possible by a Digital Media and Learning Competition 6 grant.) addressing topics such as:
- Building instruments & interfaces
- Coding & programming music
- Jamming
- Making beats
- Producing music
The Weight of Light Project is a large-scale project that invites students to imagine a future in which their community is powered by solar energy by creating music and stories of possible futures. Prompts, resources, and plans for the project are provided. This project and the related resources were made possible by a grant from the Herberger Research Council at Arizona State University.
Explore the Music and Ideas of John Cage
A series of activities and projects to explore the music and ideas of John Cage through musical engagement.
Posts From Other Blogs and Sites
In process of being updated. . .
- Explore the Music and Ideas of John Cage – E. Tobias and ASU Graduate Students
- A series of activities and projects to explore the music and ideas of John Cage through musical engagement.
- SongExploder Assignments – Adam Patrick Bell
- The Song Machine Assignment – Adam Patrick Bell
- A Series of Projects to Create Music with Technology – Ethan Hein
- Analysis with Musical Structure Graphs and Perceived Space Graphs – Ethan Hein
- Visualizing Song Structures (with AbletonLive) – Ethan Hein
- Remixing Verdi with Ableton Live – Ethan Hein
- Open your eyes by using your ears – Nick Jaworski
- Music as Identity – Nick Jaworski
- Soundwalks – Nick Jaworski
Take a look at other curated resources for music education.