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music education

Practicing, Composing, & Thinking Creatively in Music

Dave Douglas recently posted a thought provoking email from one of his readers raising questions about practicing, composing, and thinking creatively in music. Both the post and the comments are worth reading and thinking about. While the email deals with a university context it could easily be applied to public school music programs. The lingering questions I’m left with are: “To what extent do we provide opportunities for our students to think creatively in/with music? And for instrumental programs: How… Read More »Practicing, Composing, & Thinking Creatively in Music

Expanding the voice… From T-Pain to Tuvan Throat Singing

The electronic music foundation is presenting a series of FREE concerts titled “The Human Voice In A New World“. (The New York Times has a review of the first one.) The strand tying the various concerts together is the way the voice can be altered, processed, modified etc. When I first found out about the series I immediately began thinking about the many ways it could serve as a springboard for lessons and forms of musical engagement in both general… Read More »Expanding the voice… From T-Pain to Tuvan Throat Singing

AERA & Music Education

For those of you interested in music education research, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference schedule is now available. This annual conference is always full of phenomenal research sessions in a very wide array of disciplines. Here’s a quick look at the sessions sponsored by the Music Education Special Interest Group: Monday April 13th 12:00 – 1:30 Current Issues in Music Learning and Teaching Session Participants: Chair: Ronald P. Kos (Boston University)  From Transfer to Transformation: A Preliminary Inquiry… Read More »AERA & Music Education

2009 Arizona Music Educators Association In-Service (Conference)

I just returned from the 2009 Arizona Music Educators Association In-Service (conference). I had a great time attending sessions, and meeting many wonderful people. At the conference it was announced that MENC has started the following petition, available online: Be it resolved that we, the undersigned, agree that all Americans should work to enhance and support music education in our nation’s schools. To that end, we call on the U.S. Department of Education and all American leaders to: • Mandate… Read More »2009 Arizona Music Educators Association In-Service (Conference)

Fascinating Arts-Education Dialogue on ArtsJournal…….

A fascinating “Debate on Arts Education”, hosted by ArtsJournal’s Douglas McLennan took place on an artsjournal blog from Dec 1st-5th. The entire dialogue is archived on the blog. It is especially interesting to get a sense of where each contributor is coming from and consider their perspectives within the context of the roles they play in the arts. Unfortunately it does not seem that any public school arts educators or students were involved as invited bloggers. Of course, since everything… Read More »Fascinating Arts-Education Dialogue on ArtsJournal…….