arts dabble?

Posted on November 22, 2011 by mllama4

J – Each day, at school, I experience some of the most amazing and yet horrible emotions at the exact same moment in time. Every time my teaching is questioned I get a pit in my stomach, but I have to remember that every issue  raised provides me with an amazing opportunity to let people in to the world of music education. AND.. to let people, teachers, students and parents in on who I am as a teacher and my goals for every student that comes into my classroom.

To give a little bit of background- Waynflete is very supportive of the Performing Arts. They set aside blocks of time 2 0r 3 times a week for the students to explore who they are as actors, musicians, singers, improvisers, dancers, and even videographers. On paper this sounds marvelous. However, I am finding that what is currently in place does not support an environment where students can learn and grow as an artist, but instead dabble in a number of different art forms.

So this raises the question.. Why should the arts be in school? Why is music as important as math or science? Would it be okay if students learned half of their multiplication tables or perhaps just learn a few grammar rules but never learn how to put together an essay or a research paper, or understand the basic structure of a sentence?

So, why do we insist on just giving students a fun time in their Arts classes? Why is it okay to teach them a particular piece of music but not teach them the important essential learnings of being a part of a singing ensemble, or rather, being a musician?  Let’s just read a book in english class but not discuss it. Or let’s just write an essay without knowing the important elements that are apart of every writing process. ISN’T IT OBVIOUS!

If you haven’t figured it out.. I do not believe that it is acceptable for students to just “dabble” in the arts. My guess is that those who think this  may be fighting to keep their program alive at this very moment. No matter how short their time is with me, it IS important for them to gain a certain set of musical, social and even civic skills AND be actively involved throughout this incredibly complex but amazing musical learning adventure.

We are constantly fighting for music to be a part of the school day and be viewed as one of the “core” subjects…So let’s prove that it IS! Maybe, just maybe we wouldn’t have to fight so hard if we demonstrated this in the classroom.

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you are what you eat

Posted on November 19, 2011 by mllama4

R – I realized early in my career that taxpayers fall into two categories, and this was before the age of “Glee”: those that view their public school music programs as “entertainment” and those that don’t. And I don’t buy the argument of, “well, a little of both”. Either they do or they do not. And what you program for literature each term will likewise fall into two categories: it will feed into the entertainment belief or it will dissuade from it. Let me preface my soapbox with this: pop and jazz are two examples of genres that are imbedded in our culture, period. Programming literature that reflects either of these for instance absolutely can hold educational validity. Five Foot Two, Sincerely, Java Jive… these are staples in my program and always will be from time to time. Got it?

That said, what do we feed our choirs and why? The YHS Chamber Singers had a very heavy entertainment label attached to them once upon a time. So I started programming masterworks each Spring. I did this for two reasons: no one in the community is going to equate the Liebeslieder Waltzes or Vivaldi’s Gloria with “entertainment” and every one of my kids would come out on the other end of those experiences as musicians they had never been before. Three cool things happened within a few years of this approach. First, the kids’ perception of the program changed, including those not in the program. They had viewed it as an entertainment thing, and they slowly came to understand that there was an academic agenda instead (advocacy?!). Second, the kids’ musicianship skyrocketed. One of my kids after our first rehearsal with the Lord Nelson Mass in January of 2002 walked up to me and said, “Berg, my head hurts”.

Yesssssss……

The kids were on musicianship overload and it was a beautiful thing! Third, once the community understood that this was not an entertainment enterprise, the audience size quadrupled. Quadrupled. When they finally succumbed to the agenda being academic, the only thing that mattered was the quality of the performance itself. And that turned things around.

I have always said this: if you genuinely believe in the powerful, spirit engulfing qualities of Byrd or Bach or Brahms when their music is performed artistically, you will never need to “sell” them (the moment we do, we’ll know it’s time to pack our bags and give up the good fight…).

Afraid of coming across as too hoity-toity? After a performance in a shabby industrial town in Tennessee of the Mozart Requiem, which the concert manager had requested the Robert Shaw Chorale not perform because ‘it was too highbrow,’ a young woman waited for the autograph seekers to depart. “I suppose,” she told Shaw quietly, “there are two kinds of people who would understand the Mozart Requiem: those sufficiently skilled in musical materials and literature to appreciate its technical mastery, and those who have lately experienced a deep personal tragedy. I am no musician. Thank you very much.”

I was lucky enough to combine my Chamber Singers with the Chamber Singers of Noble High School under the direction of Erin Lowell a few years back to perform the Mozart Coronation Mass at our state music teachers conference. We wanted to illustrate that even a work such as this is accessible for teenagers. After the performance we took open questions from the audience and one teacher asked a very respectful but leading question: how many of the singers took private lessons? Out of 50+ kids, 6 hands went up. Then one of my basses, Jack Cooper, in front of the entire audience blurted out the thing I am most proud of in my career: “When you sing this in rehearsal, every day is a voice lesson”.

Program just one of the Waltzes. Program just one motet. Hop on choral public domain, download even one great short work by Mendelssohn for free, photocopy it legally and try it on for size this next term. Your kids and your community will understand you to be what you bring to them, and it can change who they are too.

You are what you eat.

Posted in Programming | Leave a comment

warmups: reference points

Posted on November 12, 2011 by mllama4

R – Once upon a time as an undergraduate, you were hyperventilating over your conducting technique and trying to remember which way the darn right hand should slide on beat 2 in a three pattern, right? Do you still, or did the repetition cause that to go to the subconscious so you can concentrate on other things? When you sing, do you have to remind yourself to hold the music up and sit tall or did that make it over to the subconscious as well?

Story time… last year I was able to do a workshop on warmups at the New Hampshire Music Educators Assn Fall Conference (that in and of itself doesn’t make me anyone special, but it’s relevant to the story). During the workshop I articulated my warmup trinity of ears, eyes and mind development, and when we got to tone we really developed a great round, blended (same vowel) sound together and moved forward. Next we got to the visual component and did an exercise that required nimble articulation and heavy duty watching the conductor to pull it off. They did it beautifully.

And their tone changed right back as if we had never worked on it.

Why? The fact of the matter is I’ve never not had this happen to me when working with a choir for the first few times. The NHMEA attendees shifted their mental energies from tone to watching visual cues and to articulation. In doing so, the mental energy focusing on tone dissipated. And so did their tone. Unfortunately I hadn’t worked with them long enough as an ensemble to have their tone remain intact automatically; subconsciously. And we talked about that.

We can only expect our singers to aurally transmit two things: 1) conscious decisions, 2) subconscious “automatics”. By definition, their initial learnings will only be applied via conscious thought. They then have the potential to eventually transfer that stuff over to subconscious automatics, which then expand with more and more training (beat 2 of your three pattern?). The benefit is that this then allows more and more of the singer’s mental energy to be transferred to the greater artistic minutia of each song.

You need to create in them the mental focus for the greater artistic minutia while maintaining what they’ve already worked on and established in warmup, not in lieu of them.

So the training is only half (and the easier half at that!) of the battle. It’s one thing to establish good breath support, establish good reading skills, establish good tone, it’s another to eventually have every single member of the choir transfer that knowledge to every single note of every single song without having to think about it. I believe this is where the train most often goes off the track in our rehearsals. When we nail a concept in warmups, do we then insist on it as a non-negotiable reference point the rest of the way? Or do we allow the concept to dissipate depending on what/what else we are working on? I’ve heard and seen many choirs display wonderful musical technique during their warmups, only to have the actual rehearsal begin.

An aligned approach: rehearsal = warmups + sheet music.

INSIST on the reference point. When your choir nails a concept in warmup, you (and consequently they) have the option of insisting on reproduction of that concept every moment of the rest of the rehearsal (the rest of the term?) without letting them get away with anything less. Jarika used to make me laugh when she was student teaching because she was relentless about this! Heaven help the choir the moment she saw or heard anything that strayed from what they had established in warmup! Did it slow down the pace of the rehearsal? You bet. Did the choir develop artistically because of it? You bet. Was it worth it? YOU BET! The alternative is allowing the reference points to kinda sorta still be there. Most of the time. Some of the time. When you’re paying attention to it. Simply put, the latter won’t result in a choir that transfers the good stuff to the subconscious (“gee, I’m always working on this with my choir and they never seem to get it”). The former can. And the subsequent goal of every rehearsal must include training singers to be the ultimate choral musicians: to do the foundational stuff automatically so they can mentally focus on the additional minutia of every measure of every song that really makes a performance sparkle. Don’t let them get away with anything less.

LMC 2004_0096_2

Posted in Warmups | 2 Comments

advocacy and concert programs

Posted on November 9, 2011 by mllama4

R – Alrighty then, let’s say you’re a public school music teacher – pick your grade bracket –  concerned about advocacy. And let’s say you just are looking for any way at all to debunk the myriad myths people have about what your program is or isn’t (“What? the kids learn something more than the songs???”). And let’s make this really hypothetical: let’s say that you are holding an event where hundreds of parents, community members and taxpayers will be showing up. And to make this WAY over the top, let’s pretend there was a way to pass something out to each and every one of them to read. For FREE!!! While they’re in their seat waiting for the concert to begin!

I know this scenario is radically far-fetched and completely in dreamland, but play with it for a moment… what would you give them? A piece of paper with student names? Song titles? Thanking the Boosters?

You show me a school music teacher who utilizes program notes in their concert program and I’ll show you a community that understands the educational agenda behind each song of the concert. You show me a school music teacher who utilizes a cover page in their concert program that discusses the philosophical and educational foundation of their music department and I’ll show you a community that supports the program for all the right reasons. You show me a school music teacher who includes recent data in the arts which powerfully articulates its value in their concert program and I’ll show you an informed community. You show me a teacher who truly utilizes their concert program as the most extraordinary advocacy tool at their disposal year after year after year and I’ll show you a someone who is walking the walk of really being pro-active.

“I don’t have time to do all that…”. Ya know what? I would argue that you don’t have time not to (if you’re not making time for this, what are you doing?). And based on national trends in K-12 education, I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that way.


Posted in Advocacy | 2 Comments

Why vs. What

Posted on November 6, 2011 by mllama4

R – Too much lip service is given to music teachers’ philosophy of doing what they do. It’s P.C. to ask “what do you do”, but it’s viewed as confrontational to ask, “why do you do that?”. And that’s a shame. Because growth doesn’t come from doing different “whats”. Different doesn’t equal better, better equals better. One of my favorite quotes, and I’ve used it often, is from Lindsey Buckingham: “If you’re any good at all, you know you can be better”. I’d submit the following premise: if that’s true, and I believe it is, then you can’t get better by looking at the what, you can only do so by looking at the why. Only when you’ve answered that do you have a reference point to look at what you do, analyze the effectiveness of what you do (how can you do so if you haven’t articulated why you even do it?) and see changes you can make to improve your teaching, your program. Your student outcomes. Micro: “why am I still doing this lesson plan the way I did 5 years ago?” Micro/Macro: “why do I still teach this course instead of replacing it with a different one?” Macro: “why am I teaching in this school, and why is my position educationally essential to the students in it?”

Notice one thing. NONE of these question what one does, they question why they do it. And once a complete understanding has been reached on any of these items, the answer may steer you in the precise, exact same direction as you’ve been going. And that’s cool(!) if that’s the case because it reinforces the value of what you do! Wouldn’t it be a shame though, never to ask those questions on a regular basis and fail to see one or more areas that deserve a second look?

Posted in Etcetera | 1 Comment

warmups

Posted on November 5, 2011 by mllama4

R – School aged and adult choirs. I get it. The body and the voice have to warm up. But why then do bands warm up? I got the trumpet in my case, it takes 12 minutes for me to warm up on it and I’ll do so before rehearsal begins. But I STILL have to warm up with the band. Why? Because bands don’t use warm ups to “warm up”. They use them to tune into the brain, cognitive and musical expectations from the players as musicians. Watch a band warmup and see if I’m wrong about this. They use warmups to tune the ensemble. TUNE the ensemble. At every dynamic range. And they do so through visual cues (music or conductor or both). They read through something. Together. They get ready to be musical.

And with all due respect, they somehow manage to do all this without back rubs.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a place for the vocal and physical warmup for choirs. It’s good to engage the choir in a relaxed atmosphere and let the “community” unfold. And a backrub never hurt anyone (though I DO remember this time teaching in Vermont when a logger… oh, skip it, I’ll save that story for another time). The issue isn’t if we should do all this or not, but rather, should this all be the primary goal?

I have a very strong conviction that the choral warmup should involve the ears, the eyes and the mind. When those three things are actively engaged through a series of warmups that are implemented for those purposes, great things begin to occur for the ensemble. Jarika and I will elaborate on each of these, but the overarching benefit is this: reference points!!!!! More to come on this subject.

Here is a link to an excellent article by Pamela Elrod that gets into the “what” behind the why. It is brief and a “MUST read”. The exercises (and mp3s accompanying each) alone are invaluable(!): http://www.singernetwork.org/bettersinging/detail.aspx?cid=f131ac22-0576-44a3-8a31-f762a6d649db

J – I LOOOVE THIS ALREADY! New Stuff to read :-) It’s all about the needs of your choir and the steps they need to take in technique and music literacy (listening and reading) to become a better ensemble and grow as individual musicians. That being said it is almost pointless for me to physically warm up my 4/5 choir- you bet they’re are physically warmed up! They were just running around throwing rocks at each other on the playground. I quickly re-align their posture and we are on our way!

KNOW your choir (and use these warm ups to get to know them)!!! The warm up up has been an invaluable part of my first couple of months teaching in a new school. I am able to introduce new “choral concepts” and continue developing those throughout the rehearsal process.

Posted in Warmups | 4 Comments

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Posted on November 5, 2011 by mllama4

R –  Okay, Jarika and I spend hours… HOURS… talking shop about choral music and music education. So here is a site for us to talk, vent, and articulate really obscure ideas without taking up a table at the Great Lost Bear. Then again, this may initiate more table time at the Great Lost Bear, but we’ll take that chance. It also will give us the opportunity to hear feedback from others such as, “Wow, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve read in WEEKS”, “Of all the blogs I’ve read, this is – by far – the most recent”, and “HEY, aren’t you the one who owes me $3 from that taxi cab 7 years ago in Sommerville???”. Yes, the possibilities are endless.

Then again, we do need to figure out how to work this thing first.

J – I thought about starting this because of Argy and her blog. She is able to post questions and write about everything that she is feeling throughout her journey at the Department of Ed. and the Arts Assessment Initiative, while keeping everyone questioning and talking about these very important topics.

There are so many days at school where I say “Oh, I need to write that down!” or “I need to ask someone about that?” I attempted to write in a journal but that lasted about day!

So here we goooo!

Posted in Etcetera | 1 Comment