October Conferences!

I apologize for the lack of posting in over a month. October was a busy month and November is starting off the same! October was also a month of wonderful conferences. I still have a smile on my face from the New Horizons Band performance at the CIC conference which took place at the start of the month. Various ways of thinking about music education beyond schools and considering musical practices in our communities were discussed.

The CARMU conference on Music Learning and Teaching, hosted by Oakland University raised many important issues for our field to consider. Topics ranged from ways in which to consider the process of revision in students’ composing processes, to a very moving session detailing how public school instrumental students gave instrumental lessons to children their age at a homeless shelter. The focus on music learning and teaching with a particular focus on student centered learning was refreshing. Keep your eyes out for a forthcoming journal from CARMU that will include some of the papers. Lucy Green gave a thought provoking keynote presentation on informal learning and the music classroom. If you haven’t come across her work before, definitely take a look at the Musical Futures Project taking place in the UK. Also consider taking a look at her forthcoming book Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy when it becomes available. Another exciting aspect of the music learning and teaching conference was the fact that dialogue was built into the conference schedule. After every three or so papers the attendees would form a circle and discuss issues that arose during the previous presentations. The discussions that took place were very insightful and a powerful part of the conference experience.

The New Directions In Music Education Conference on Teaching Elementary & Secondary General Music hosted by Michigan State University was also thought provoking and surely left attendees feeling positive about the potential for general music to provide meaningful opportunities for our students. Topics ranged from various approaches towards student composition to metaphorical ways of thinking about curricular change in relation to general music. Bennett Reimer’s keynote presentation on the importance of a new direction for general music had major implications for our field. A concert featuring original music created and performed by MSU students from John Kratus’ songwriting class was a particular treat. It was obvious that the experiences they had in the class and with songwriting were very meaningful in their lives. I’ll be posting resources related to the paper I presented, “You Can’t Drop a Needle on an Ipod: Rethinking Listening in the Web 2.0 Era” by Monday Oct. 12th.

One of the highlights of both conferences besides the excellent presentations and conversations which took, place was the combination of practicing teachers, university students and university professors attending. I highly recommend attending both conferences in the future!