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Blog: Catalysts & Connections

The ASU Music Education Department

A few years ago the ASU Music Education Department revised our curriculum to address the contemporary state of music education and help students adapt for a rapidly changing society. Along with providing more choices for undergraduate students we reorganized our curriculum around the following core principles: Flexible musicianship Innovative practices Inquisitive minds Community leadership Here’s a sense of what takes place throughout the ASU Music Education program: Music Education from ASU School of Music on Vimeo. Interested in a dynamic… Read More »The ASU Music Education Department

Should knowing how to read music be an essential requirement for children learning music? A response. . .

The National Association for Music Education recently shared the following twitter message (tweet) via its twitter account: Should knowing how to read music be an essential requirement for children learning music? http://t.co/mGB7ptrotE #musiced via @SinfiniMusic — NAfME (@NAfME) February 18, 2015 I offer an extended excerpt from my chapter Learning with digital media and technology in hybrid music classrooms in the forthcoming book Approaches to Teaching General Music: Methods, Issues, and Viewpoints, edited by Carlos Abril & Brent Gault,  as one… Read More »Should knowing how to read music be an essential requirement for children learning music? A response. . .

Solo, multitrack, mute? Producing and performing (gender) in a popular music classroom

Tobias, E. S. (2014). Solo, multitrack, mute? Producing and performing (gender) in a popular music classroom. Visions of Research in Music Education, 25, 1-29. My article Solo, multitrack, mute? Producing and performing (gender) in a popular music classroom is now published in Visions of Research in Music Education (VRME). For those unfamiliar with VRME, it is an open-access journal, which means that all articles are available for free on the journal’s website. An earlier version of this article was presented… Read More »Solo, multitrack, mute? Producing and performing (gender) in a popular music classroom

Dead Prez & Jean-Pierre Rampal – A serendipitous sample discovery

While listening to the following recording this morning I immediately thought to myself “I know that melody” . . . Jean-Pierre Rampal & Lily Laskine performing Kojo no Tsuki Now check out Dead Prez performing Behind Enemy Lines I looked at the liner notes of Dead Prez’s album let’s get free and couldn’t find any mention of the sample or its source. So, I am not sure of the actual sample source or whether it was manipulated during production, but… Read More »Dead Prez & Jean-Pierre Rampal – A serendipitous sample discovery

Music Education Policy & Department of Education’s Proposed Teacher Preparation Regulation Overhaul

The U.S. Department of Education recently proposed new regulations on teacher education preparation programs that largely mirror the “value added measures” approach focusing on teacher accountability in K-12 schools. For some perspective from experts in music teacher education, you can read the Society for Music Teacher Education’s updated post Public Comment on Proposed Rules for Teacher Preparation Program Reporting. For a sense of the general perspective on the proposed regulations among experts in teacher education you might be interested in… Read More »Music Education Policy & Department of Education’s Proposed Teacher Preparation Regulation Overhaul