Creativity can be experienced in many roles of musicianship: performing, improvising, and composing. Yet, activities that encourage creative thought in our music classrooms can be a challenge to implement. A strong music education curriculum for middle school general music is important; as this may be the last time we reach students who do not…

Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature potentielle, or Workshop on potential literature), an over 50-year old movement that began in France, seeks to apply mathematical constraints to literature and the arts. In this article, I will give a brief survey of this movement and how I have built a learning module based on it for my mathematics for the liberal…

The purpose of this research study is an examination of a music artist-teacher's pedagogical approaches and practices in teaching composition to a Year 5 IB (International Baccalaureate) class in a Singaporean specialized arts school. The study is approached as a qualitative case study spanning a 5-month period involving observation and recording…

This study presents strategies for teaching highland Afro-Ecuadorian culture and for broaching the topic of race and racism through the documentary film "Más allá del fútbol." Produced in 2008 by the author, this film explores "afrochoteño" identity and culture as well as the issues of race and racism in Ecuador through a…

What is composing and how is it valued? What does a good education in composing look like; what constraints hinder it and is it possible to overcome such constraints? Can composing be a personal, creative and valuable activity for the school student? What role does the teacher play in all of this? These are questions that I discuss in this…

The methods of the Dalcroze approach to music education--eurhythmics, solfege, and improvisation--have had a profound influence on modern music education. In particular, the overt training in kinesthetic abilities, and the assertion that the relationship between music and movement is an intimate one, is at the heart of Dalcroze's approach to…

By exploring "the trumpet" as a metaphor, a successful mid-career instrumental teacher and a teacher educator jointly conducted a narrative inquiry into pedagogy used with a high school composition class. In particular, they focused on the dilemmas that arose when, within this class setting, the instrumental teacher implemented informal…

Composition is learned by discovering that musical ideas can be experienced in a variety of ways, and that new musical ideas can be created by reconfiguring learned materials in new contexts. The act of imagining, defining, and communicating unique musical ideas awakens in young people a dormant part of their brains, unlocking an awareness of the…

In this article, the historical roots of tablature for stringed instruments are noted, and the use of tablature is explained. Modern guitar tablature is then shown and explained, and the author leads the reader through the basics of using Guitar Pro 6, a guitar tablature program that simultaneously displays standard Western staff notation. The…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the effect of ear playing instruction on adult amateur wind instrumentalists' musical self-efficacy. Ten volunteer members of a community band in a small town in Ohio completed the "Ear Playing Profile" both prior to and following an eight-week period of instruction in playing by ear…

Sheet music, song lyrics, and audio recordings may not be the first primary sources that come to mind when considering ways to teach about changes brought about by technology during westward expansion, but these sources engage students in thought provoking ways. In this article the author presents a 1917 photograph of Mountain Chief, of the Piegan…

This pilot intervention compared the effects of songwriting and discussion as methods for teaching self-care to caregivers of those with dementia. The investigator led a psychoeducational discussion and a songwriting intervention with a group of caregivers, focusing on self-care. Participants answered two open-ended questions that were analyzed by…

A yearlong project into the electronic compositions and compositional approaches of children led the author to investigate theoretical frameworks to support an analysis process that accommodated the capacity to re-live and reinterpret data through the same technologies that were used to create it. An exploration of the hermeneutical approach to…

The purpose of this study was to examine collaborative composing in high school string chamber music ensembles. Research questions included the following: (a) How do high school string instrumentalists in chamber music ensembles use verbal and musical forms of communication to collaboratively compose a piece of music? (b) How do selected variables…

To provide a comprehensive and balanced curriculum, the accomplishments of women composers and performers must be included in general music classes. This article addresses obstacles that have challenged women musicians and provides an outline for a unit that highlights seven American women who have achieved significant "firsts" in the world of…