Intelligent Music Teaching

In this collection of essays, the author describes fundamental principles of human learning in the context of teaching music. Written in a conversational style, the individual essays outline the elements of intelligent, creative teaching. Duke effectively explains how teachers can meet the needs of individual students from a wide range of abilities by understanding more deeply how people learn. Teachers and interested parents alike will benefit from this informative book.

An Introduction to Effective Music Teaching: Artistry and Attitude provides the prospective teacher with front-line tested strategies and approaches that are based on current research and the author's three decades of service as a public school music educator, department chairman, and public school district music administrator. Starting with a brief overview of the history of music education in public schools, Alfred Townsend gives the reader a deeper understanding of the importance of music education to all students, gifted or not. Readers then examine artistry (command of content and mastery of methods) and the ABCs of teacher attitude, the critical component that unlocks learning for many students. With an open and accessible writing style, Dr. Townsend reviews the six components of effective teaching, showing that artistry and attitude can be combined to fuel student learning and teacher leadership. Using all of this information, the reader constructs a personal, practical philosophy of music teaching and learning that will form the basis for his or her instruction. Readers will also experience artistry and attitude in action through well written case studies of effective teachers. With increasingly diverse student populations teachers now face,this book provides music teachers with ways to interact effectively with students of all backgrounds, attitudes, and talent.

Instrumental Music Education: Teaching with the Musical and Practical in Harmony, 2nd Edition is intended for college instrumental music education majors studying to be band and orchestra directors at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels. This textbook presents a research-based look at the topics vital to running a successful instrumental music program, while balancing musical, theoretical, and practical approaches. A central theme is the compelling parallel between language and music, including "sound-to-symbol" pedagogies. Understanding this connection improves the teaching of melody, rhythm, composition, and improvisation. The companion website contains over 120 pedagogy videos for wind, string, and percussion instruments, performed by professional players and teachers, over 50 rehearsal videos, rhythm flashcards, and two additional chapters, "The Rehearsal Toolkit," and "Job Search and Interview." It also includes over 50 tracks of acoustically pure drones and demonstration exercises for use in rehearsals, sectionals and lessons. New to this edition: • Alternative, non-traditional ensembles: How to offer culturally relevant opportunities for more students, including mariachi, African drumming, and steel pans. • More learning and assessment strategies • The science of learning and practicing: How the brain acquires information • The philosophies of Orff and El Sistema, along with the existing ones on Kodály, Suzuki, and Gordon. • The Double Pyramid of Balance: Francis McBeth’s classic system for using good balance to influence tone and pitch. • Updated information about copyright for the digital age Evan Feldman is Conductor of the Wind Ensemble and Associate Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Ari Contzius is the Wind Ensemble Conductor at Washingtonville High School, Washingtonville, NY Mitchell Lutch is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Central College in Pella, Iowa

Recordings of works composed for band and suitable for grades 2-5.

Starting Out Right: Beginning Band Pedagogy is the only complete resource for organizing, planning, and teaching beginning woodwind, brass, and percussion students. The book covers every aspect of teaching beginning band students from the first sounds on the instruments through the first full-band performances. It is the only comprehensive reference that offers step-by-step guidelines for teaching each beginning band instrument, as well as organizing and running a successful beginning band program. Based on the public school teaching experience of the author, the book is designed for use in undergraduate methods and pedagogy classes as well as for clinics and workshops at the undergraduate and graduate levels. This book is also designed to be a reference for the many novice teachers who lead beginning bands or those teachers whose expertise is not in the band realm. While the focus of the book is on teaching beginning band, much of the book can be of use to band instructors at any grade level. The book is divided into several parts, which cover the sound-to-sign-to-theory approach to teaching musical literacy; child development as it relates to teaching music; recruiting and retaining students; developing fundamental sounds and skills on each woodwind, brass, and percussion instrument; teaching students to read tonal and rhythmic music notation; and selecting and rehearsing beginning band solo, ensemble, and full-band music. The book also addresses curriculum design, scheduling, and staffing of band programs. Ideas about managing student records, inventory, and equipment are also given special attention. Written in a casual narrative style, the book features real-world examples of how the principles in the book might be applied to actual teaching situations. Another special feature of the book is a set of early field-experience application exercises. Starting Out Right guides readers as they explore a comprehensive individual and ensemble approach to teaching each woodwind, brass, and percussion instrument.

The prevailing discourse surrounding urban music education suggests the deficit-laden notion that urban school settings are "less than," rather than "different than," their counterparts. Through the lens of contextually-specific teaching, this book provides a counternarrative on urban music education that encourages urban music teachers to focus on the strengths of their students as their primary resource. Through a combination of research-based strategies and practical suggestions from the author's own experience teaching music in urban settings, the book highlights important issues for teachers to consider, such as culturally relevant pedagogy, the "opportunity gap," race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, musical content, curricular change, music program development, student motivation, and strategies for finding inspiration and support. Throughout the book, the stories of five highly successful urban music teachers are highlighted, providing practical, real-world advice for music teachers across the domains of general, choral, band, and string music teaching. Recognizing that the term "urban" can encompass a wide variety of different school and community settings, this book challenges all teachers who work in under-served and under-resourced settings to take a critical look at their own music classroom and work to tailor their pedagogy to meet the particular needs of their students.

"This book is designed for faculty and graduate assistants working with undergraduate music majors as well as non-majors in colleges and universities in the United States. It includes suggestions for designing and organizing music courses (applied music as well as academic classes) and strategies for meeting the developmental needs of the undergraduate student. It addresses concerns about undergraduate curricula that meet National Association of School of Music requirements as well as teacher education requirements for music education majors in most states. A common theme throughout the book is a focus on "learner-centered pedagogy" (Weimer, 2013) or trying to meet students where they are and base instruction on their individual needs. The text also maintains a constant focus on the relationship between teaching and learning and encourages innovative ways for instructors to assess student learning in music courses. Teaching is connected throughout the book to student learning and the lecture model of "teaching as transmission of information" (Bain, 2004) is discouraged. Activities throughout the book ask instructors to focus on what it means to be an effective teacher for music courses. As there is limited research on teaching music in higher education, we have relied on comprehensive texts from the general education field to help provide the research base for our definition of effective teaching (Davis, 2009; Svinicki & McKeachie, 2014)"--