In this article, the author asks music educators to imagine their band students being able to identify the melody of a piece as it jumps among sections after playing it just a few times. How about recognizing harmonic modulation, or applying dynamic contrast through understanding of compositional form? While these elements may seem obvious to…

Music teachers, like their colleagues in other fields, are living through a paradoxical time in schools. Currents of change in education and society seem to pull teachers in contradictory directions. Nowhere is this flux more apparent than in curriculum. While teachers are called upon to differentiate teaching approaches to meet the diverse needs…

To plan effective rehearsals and meaningful performances, band directors must engage in thorough score study and carefully construct standards-based lesson plans. While some may consider these separate steps, numerous aspects of the score-study process can help band directors create and implement standards-based lessons. When planning lessons…

Physical skills, such as fine and gross motor skills, are necessary for students to play musical instruments. Cognitive skills are necessary for students to comprehend music concepts. Emotional and social skills are necessary for students to participate in musical ensembles and general music classes. Attention to these extramusical goals in music…

Despite recent moves toward a more collaborative relationship between the academic pursuit of music analysis and the practical pursuit of music performance, there remains a gulf between the two disciplines. This is partly because attempts at collaboration have generally focused on the use of music performance as a way of teaching music analysis…

Paul Lehrman mentioned in Mix Magazine that school music programs, which traditionally have given students the precious opportunity to hear what real instruments sound like from both player's and listener's perspective, are in the toilet. Some within the profession have voiced similar concerns. K-12 music teachers have historically have had very…

This article describes an innovative approach to analysing, describing and evaluating the careers of musicians, and applies it in the case of 37 "professors", that is, instrumental teachers, working at a conservatoire in the UK. The professors emerge as flexible and committed musicians who enjoy teaching conservatoire students, and who…

This article was motivated by a staff development session when the brass faculty of a conservatoire were invited to share and discuss their approaches to teaching. It presents the results of interviews with six well known woodwind or brass players who have also taught at one or more conservatoires in London for periods of between one and 40 years.…

Author considered dynamic contrasts of music and proposed a philosophy that student musicians can readily understand. (Author/RK)

Learning music composition through use of innovative music symbols can be effective in stimulating student motivation and in developing learning comprehension. (RK)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of sex identification on the assignment of instruments to beginning band students. Participants were band directors solicited at music conferences and music education students solicited from major universities across the United States. Participants completed an online survey about instrument…

This article describes an experience the author had in July. He was the guest of honor at the fortieth class reunion of the 1965 graduating class of Shawnee Mission West High in Overland Park, Kansas, where he taught. These "kids," many of whom were in the band or orchestra, are now fifty-eight years old! Some had already retired but…

In the minds of some music teachers, school bands and orchestras are divided into two camps: the talented and the musically challenged. Considering their conventional methods of introducing rudiments to their young percussionists, it's no wonder that some students struggle. Take the snare drum as a classic example. First, the percussionist must…

Fiddling is a style of bowed string playing often associated with folk musicians in the Western world. Many styles have arisen in various parts of the planet, including, among others, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the United States. String teachers can include fiddling in their classes or lessons in a way that benefits both the student and…

In the name of superior curriculum and specialist teachers and programs, tiny rural schools have been abandoned and students moved into bigger and bigger schools. As schools and educational institutions have greatly increased in size over the past century, music teachers have found it more and more difficult to connect to the larger and larger…