NY, NY - It's a hell of a town (unless you're a teacher)

New York City's mayor has proposed a budget that would cut over 6,000 teachers from NYC schools... that averages to about 1 in 12 teachers. Read more here.

Rachmaninov on Recording

Sergei Rachmaninov had some pretty interesting thoughts and reactions to Gramophone recording capabilities and radio broadcasting in an article he wrote in 1931. To see his thoughts, and to view just how far accessing musical performances have come, check out this article.

A Piano that can speak?!?

Austrian composer Peter Albinger has taken recordings of the human voice, and matched the frequencies to that of a player piano. In effect, we are able to "hear" what the human voice "sounds like" as a piano sound. In the video here, he took a child's recitation of the "Declaration of the International Environmental Criminal Court," written by Laureates Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and the Dalai Lama, and has the sound duplicated on a player piano. The video is in German, but has English subtitles. It is rather amazing...

20 Practice Tips

I think one of the most challenging things to do as a music teacher is to get your students to practice their music outside of class. Most parents would probably agree that their children are not practicing as much as they would like them to. While this doesn't speak of all music students, it does speak of many, especially those who are struggling with a particular piece of music.

In any case, here is a list of 20 practice tips that are important to keep in mind as one schedules out their time during the week and goes about practicing.

Bach in the Forest...

Even though this is a commercial for a limited edition phone (which I couldn't care less about), the actual video is amazing. A group of individuals went through countless hours designing, creating, and assembling this gigantic wooden xylophone in the woods. As you will see, the downward track, with hundreds of wooden blocks, "performs" Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" from Cantata 147 when a wooden ball is released down the track. Invisible Designs Lab's Kenjiro Matsuo is responsible for making the radical idea a reality. Take a look for yourself...

Great Art

I am a firm believer that good art should be shared with people. My brother-in-law posted this link on Facebook a few minutes ago, and I just had to share it. This cellist demonstrates how creative music-making can be. He not only plays this incredible composition, but he also beatboxes an accompaniment. Absolutely amazing... as the video says, he clearly takes the cello to the next level. Check it out here.

The Achievement Gap

Policies such as LIFO are hurting our schools in more ways than we may even recognize. There are increasing studies pointing out the achievement gaps between schools in moderate to high socioeconomic areas versus low socioeconomic areas. The practice of LIFO and non-performance based tenure are deflecting accountability, and perpetuating the status quo and the project of statistics such as young African-American males are more likely to end up in prison than graduate high school. Is education really a basic right in this country? If so, we have a long way to go to guarantee those rights to all. We still have a long way to go to live up to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream. For more about the achievement gap, read this article.

Teacher Absences Affect Student Learning, Too

As teachers, we all know the frustrations of having students that are absent: the lost planning time, the extra time spent helping the student catch up, the extra stress on each end, etc... Yet, studies are showing that a teacher's absence can be just as bad on classroom success and stability. It's not just student performance and consistency at stake... it can be the very safety of our students. For more information, read this article.

Good Theory/Aural Skills Drill Program

For those of you who are teaching theory/aural skills to your students, consider checking out this program. Aquallegro seems to me like an excellent drill and practice program to enhance or provide remediation on skills or concepts discussed in class. The teacher or student can preset what types of questions are contained within each of eleven modules, and keep track of their progress along the way, making the program fully customizable to the individual's needs. And best of all, it's FREE... The program can be downloaded from the link above.

Ways to Encourage Students toward "Obscure" Instruments

Chances are, when you ask a young student interested in playing an instrument which one they want to play, the answer will not be the bassoon. Looking back on my interest in playing in the band while I was in the third grade, I didn't even know what a bassoon was, let alone what it sounded like. Yet, if I could go back in time, I would have chosen the bassoon over the flute. The bassoon is such a unique and versatile instrument, almost like the "cello of the woodwinds".

To inspire some of the younger players to fill some of these "obscure" parts within a band, I think it is important to show them exactly how versatile and interesting these instruments can be... and what better instrument than the bassoon!?

Several of my classmates have posted videos from Eastman School of Music's Bassoon Ensemble, The Breaking Winds (very clever), in their blogs this week. I think some of these videos could be great at building interest in the bassoon... it might even create "too much" interest, if there is such a thing. It would be a great problem for a band teacher to have too much interest in a variety of instruments than to have instruments completely neglected, sitting on the shelves to collect dust. As a firm believer that students being exposed to any kind of music enriches their creativity, using contemporary songs in order to bring a heightened level of interest is paramount at getting the students to internalize certain concepts. I have embedded one of this group's YouTube videos below, and it is a collage of songs from Lady Gaga.

You can also access the group's page on YouTube here.

No more LIFO in Georgia

Georgia has become the latest state to end LIFO, bringing the total number to six. StudentsFirst is really helping to make a difference and start this education reform. Bravo to Georgia policy makers, and hopefully the trend continues in other states. You can read more here.

Arts Advocacy 2011: Kevin Spacey

Actor Kevin Spacey comments at Arts Advocacy 2011 on the importance of arts education. In his speech, he also challenges US policy makers to restore funding to the National Endowment for the Arts. Using his words, "we need to send the elevator back down" to ensure that today's youth can act upon their own inspirations and creativity and enrich their lives through our arts programs.

RCSD Budget Deeply Cuts Art, Music, Foreign Language

The Superintendent of the Rochester City Schools, Jean Claude Brizard, has released his proposed budget for the Rochester City School District for next year. In his 300-page proposal, he outlines 908 job cuts, which include 46% of the district's music teachers, 42% of their art teachers, 35% of their foreign language teachers, and 19% of their physical education teachers. The evening news is reporting tonight that 88 out of 150 of the district's special education teachers are going to be cut with the proposed budget. The Board of Education votes on the proposed budget in two weeks. You can read more about the proposed cuts here.

As a person who has grown up in the suburbs of Rochester, and continues to reside in the area, this community has always valued the arts. The Eastman School of Music is a major icon for Rochester, and is at the center of the city's musical life. The city sponsors several music festivals throughout the year. I just don't understand how we can claim that we are educating the whole child when we deny them the right to music, art, languages, and physical education. And New York State wonders why people are flocking out of this state... It angers me to no end.

Brizard is not popular among the teachers in the area. In fact, the teachers had an overwhelming no contest vote for Brizard, yet the School Board denies their accusations and refuses to remove him from the position. In the meantime, as the schools continue to fail, and more and more of the city's schools are forced to close, Brizard is pulling in a paycheck of over $220,000. This is sick. The dead weight needs to go. It's time to show that NY cares for its students... yet until we oust the administration that seems hell bent on running the state's education system into the ground, things like this are going to continue and increase in frequency. The same mismanagement is happening with the SUNY/CUNY system. I think it's clear time to say that considering finding employment in Rochester anytime soon is not going to happen... let alone anywhere in New York State.

The One-Armed Pianist's Quest for Success

This article is quite an interesting one that tells of one pianist's quest to overcome physical limitations and continue performing. Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in a tragic accident, commissioned several works throughout his life, and had an extensive collection of piano repertoire written for the left hand. Completed in 1957 (four years before his death), Wittgenstein's School for the Left Hand consists of 3 volumes, and includes music from the likes of Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Wagner, among others. The article also gives links to audio clips from Wittgenstein performances, and compares them to contemporary performances, and also lists a few other reading sources.

Using Classical Music to Deter Vandalism and Loitering

Oregon has just approved a campaign to play classical music from speakers at all light rail stations in high crime areas in an attempt to deter loiterers and vandals, and surveillance shows it actually works. The primary focus is 18-25 year-olds, for whom classical music "isn't cool". This is not the first time I have heard of such a practice. The train and subway stations in Buffalo, NY have been doing the same thing with similar results. To contradict this, malls around the country like to play classical music like Vivaldi while people shop, for studies show that people actually end up purchasing 20% more in such stores. Television ads often use Classical music to promote high class products and lifestles, such as the Zales Jewelers commercials using Vivaldi's "Spring" from "The Four Seasons". How does this say that today's culture values classical music? Does society value classical music? Is there still value in classical music? If there is, and I believe there definitely is, how do we get others to believe the same?

Promoting Music through License Plates

Tennessee recently unveiled a new state license plate, dubbing it "The State of American Music". Proceeds from the $35 plate go directly to benefit music education in Tennessee led by funding education initiatives through state museums and charities, including the Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum among others. To see the plate, click here. Wouldn't it be nice if other states would follow suit and design plates for the same purpose? Maybe we will see a new trend emerge...

Music vs. the Musician's Personality

Does music reveal a musician's personality, or [does] a musician's personality reveal the music?


This is an interesting question brought about by Mark Wigglesworth in his blog entry on Gramophone.com. He posed the question after being asked not who his favorite composer was, but rather which composer revealed his own personality. The rest of the rather short article is quite interesting as he breaks down what he views the musician's role to be, and the direct connection between music and musician, or music and a musician's individual personality.

Who Said Classical Music is Dying?!?

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra gave a concert at the Sydney Opera House on March 20, 2011. The concert was streamed live around the world, and was viewed by more than 30 million people, which is over three times more views than the famous U2 concert. There were over 3 million streams to mobile devices. Overall, a total of 422 TB of data was transferred, which is the equivalent of sending over 145 million MP3 files around the world. To read more about the event, see pictures from Sydney, or get a link to the symphony's website, check out this link.

William Steinway's Diary

William Steinway ran the famous piano company for most of the second half of the 19th century. Steinway kept a diary for about 36 years, writing about things such as the New York City riots during the Civil War, and the lengths he went to protect the factory, as well as detailing the political machinations behind the drive to bring mass transportation to New York in the 1890s. The Steinway factory cared so much for its employees that it built housing, an amusement park, and a school for them. The Smithsonian Institution, who owns the diary, has now made it available in facsimile and transcription, and it can now be viewed online here. The website conveniently allows you to browse the entire diary or to search for a specific date.

"Teaching the Artist Within Every Student"

At the 2011 Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Conference, Joanne Haroutonian gave a lecture about the ability for students to be artistic. She outlined what she called the "Artistic Ways of Knowing," which describes the artistic process of learning, enhances students' sensory awareness of the artistic process, and explains artistic awareness to people outside of academia. She highlights five basic concepts: 1) Perceptual Awareness and Discrimination, 2) Metaperception, 3) Creative Interpretation, 4) Dynamic of Performance, and 5) Critiquing. She then goes on to explain each of the five concepts in greater detail, and shows how teachers can incorporate each into their lessons. She concluded her lecture with a quote from Picasso: "A painter transforms the sun into a yellow spot. An artist transforms a yellow spot into the sun."

With the popular "An A is not enough" video (also embedded below) being circulated this week, it is clear that the arts demand perfection, and that a 90% clearly isn't enough when it comes to performance. The conductor suggests that other subjects "teach" students to become complacent, and that a "B" is good enough; in fact, "above average". Yet, if each member of an ensemble only performed 8 out of 10 notes in a concert correctly, the result would be horrible. Music and art challenge our students to strive for the best they can be, and teach them life lessons that the regular academic subjects cannot.

We need to really fight to keep music and art programs in our schools, for it gives students an outlet to their imagination and expression, and better prepares them for the real world. Real artistic expression is something that has to be fostered and developed over time, yet when a student realizes the inner potential that they have, the sky becomes the limit.

Claron McFadden on Human Expression

"The human voice: mysterious, spontaneous, primal; the vessel on which all emotions travel, except, perhaps, jealousy. And the breath, the breath is the captain of that vessel. A child is born, takes its first breath, and we behold the wondrous beauty of vocal expression: mysterious, spontaneous, and primal... When you're totally in the moment, the vessel of emotion is open. The emotions can flow...". 

Claron McFadden's message here is a very interesting one in the way to approach human expression. Having studied in Rochester, NY at the Eastman School of Music, McFadden is a world-renown soprano. As someone who knows very little about vocal pedagogy, I found myself captured by her sense of articulation, and her personal expression in her singing. McFadden closes her short lecture with a performance of John Cage's "Aria" for solo soprano, and walks the audience through this very non-traditional score before singing it live. This is a rather captivating performance, and could be used to get students thinking about expression in music, as well as to challenge what their conceptions about music really are. I am not normally a big fan of late 20th-century or early 21st-century music, but McFadden found a way to bring this piece to life for me. The TedTalks video came across my PLN this week, but I have embedded the video from YouTube below:

Florida's Student Success Act Becomes Law

Earlier this morning, Governor Rick Scott signed the Student Success Act, which will greatly improve Florida's quality of education. Scott stated, "I am proud that the first bill I sign [as governor] is this important legislation that will give Florida the best educated workforce to compete in the 21st century economy. We must recruit and retain the best people to make sure every classroom in Florida has a highly effective teacher." To read more about the legislation's policies, click here.

Michelle Rhee, CEO and Founder of StudentsFirst, stated, "This landmark legislation recognizes that teachers are the most important factor in schools when determining a child's success. We applaud Florida for its adoption of bold and comprehensive education measures that put students first."

I posted a link to StudentsFirst.org earlier in my blog with a map depicting how in danger a teacher is to be laid off with budget cuts. Florida should now have changed from orange to green, indicating that the state now takes performance into consideration for firing teachers (ending LIFO), and effective teachers are therefore at a lower risk of losing their jobs. I applaud Governor Scott, and urge more governors to stand up for education in their individual states.

Sheet Music on the Go

Piano Street is an online digital musical database of piano scores. The site now offers a version for mobile devices, giving a user access to over 3,000 study scores (over 23,000 pages of music) from standard classical piano repertoire, and includes all the scores on the regular website. The new mobile website works on devices such as the iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and other smartphones. Access does require a paid subscription, but it does give the user another access point to scores, especially if they are not near a library with a good music collection or away from their personal score collection.

For access from mobile devices, visit the website at m.pianostreet.com.
To follow their blog, click here.

Intro to Noteflight

http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/2a4bcfb2a960fafcea067531ac067d78ccd8ebc6

As part of this week's assignment, we had to become familiar with the free online notation software program Noteflight. After exploring another freeware notation program (MuseScore) last week, I find myself preferring Noteflight. As a person who is quite familiar with the ins and outs of Finale, Noteflight offers its users more options than MuseScore. I really like how users can create scores and share them over the net with other Noteflight users, and how a person can email a URL to their score or embed it to a blog (which I have done later) to share music with others. This would be a great tool to have students use as they learn to compose their own music; they can input it quite easily, edit it, share it in whatever way they want, and get feedback from other users or instructors anywhere they have access to an internet-connected computer. Noteflight's interface is quite user friendly, and offers quick access to articulations, dynamics, and other more advanced features that freeware notation software normally does not give the user access to. Overall I was quite impressed, and will consider using this software with future students of my own.

Part of the week's assignment was to replicate an arrangement of "A Bicycle Built for Two" by Harry Dacre. Below, find my score, embedded into the blog, which should allow you to play the file. It should automatically scroll for you as the music progresses.

Breakthrough Education Reform in Florida

The Florida House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed landmark legislation yesterday, recognizing how important they view education in Florida. Among the achievements, there is an end to LIFO, and requires parents to be notified if their children are being placed in a classroom with an underperforming teacher. The tenure process has also been overhauled, and teachers that have tenure could get fired due to unsatisfactory performance. There is also no automatic renewal of contracts, regardless of performance. While the fight over tenure could be a negative point among teachers, it challenges teachers to perform to their very best, and ensures that Florida is trying to make sure the best teachers are the ones in front of their students. These are just a handful of the items passed. To view the full article, click here.

Putting Students First

Tony Pedriana is a former principal from Milwaukee's city school district, and author of "Leaving Johnny Behind: Overcoming Barriers to Literacy." He notes how the mantra "Children First" was a central topic during his career as a teacher and principal. This article, entitled "What it really means to put students first," highlights the actual trends that he saw develop out of an effort to put children first, and how we fell far short of that goal. In the end, he concludes that putting children first has never been our real goal with the choices that we have continued to make over the past several decades. "No Child Left Behind" is a joke, and only leaves more children behind each year. If we really are going to uphold the vision of putting children first, we have a long way to go, and a lot of people to hold accountable for the choices they make. Michelle Rhee at StudentsFirst is a good stepping stone in current advocacy, and she's willing to fight the fight. The real question is, what are you willing to do to help the cause of children and learning in this country?

StudentsFirst launches Save Great Teachers Map

This interactive map allows a user to click on an individual state to view how that state handles teacher layoffs, and also empowers them to take a stand to fight for teachers' rights by giving links to email governors and legislators, encouraging them to put an end to LIFO.


To make some sense of the color coding, states in red represent states where teachers have the greatest chance of being cut this year, and also are states that enact LIFO. States in orange are at a slightly-less high risk, and leave it up to individual districts to decide what teachers get laid off (although most are still by seniority). States in green are the lowest risk, and have performance factors included in layoff decisions.


The full article can be found here.

An End to LIFO in NY?!

New York State currently enacts a policy called LIFO (Last In, First Out), where the last teachers to be hired must be the first to be fired should districts cut back, regardless of an individual's performance in the classroom. This has been a major point of contention among educators, and a popular topic in NY schools. Finally, it appears that the policy may be reversed... every movement requires an initial courageous volunteer to take the first leap of faith...

Michelle Rhee's latest Wall Street Journal Op-Ed

MARCH 11, 2011

In today's Wall Street Journal, Michelle Rhee published an op-ed about New York state's refusal to overturn the policy of "last in, first out" (LIFO). It mandates that the last teachers hired must be the first teachers fired, regardless of how good they are.

Last week, the New York Senate passed a bill that would make a teacher's performance a key factor when layoffs are required. Following that, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo introduced a bill that would address the issue of how we define performance, but was entirely silent on the subject of how layoffs are conducted. And with 5,000 teacher layoffs headed toward New York City alone, the harmful policy of LIFO remains firmly in place. 

Michelle wrote: 

According to a recent Quinnipiac University survey, 85 percent of New Yorkers support ending the last in, first out policy. Four major editorial boards in New York City have called for ending the practice. We need Gov. Cuomo to do more than just say he's for reforming it. We need him to actually put forth a bill that eliminates it immediately.

Click here to read Michelle's Wall Street Journal editorial.

How to Listen

I am a big advocator of getting my students to listen to as much live music as possible, offering extra credit if they attend any live music concert (provided they bring me a program or ticket stub). I believe that there can be good lessons in any musical performance, and that basic tools learned in the classroom can be used to stimulate conversation around a particular listening experience. It also gets the students participating in their local cultural life, and doesn't require that they listen to music that they find no aesthetic value in. To me, it didn't matter if it was a Queen concert (or a cover such as this ukelele rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody") or someone playing a series of Beethoven piano sonatas; the overall lesson was in listening to someone playing music.

Recently, one of my friends who is a teacher in the Bronx shared with me an interesting piece of information: the letters in the word LISTEN are the same as the letters in the word SILENT. I think this is a great piece of information to share with students: to really listen effectively, we have to be as silent as possible in order for the true performance to shine through. If we aren't quiet, we might miss something that could in turn be the part of a piece of music we like the best...

Yet, to challenge the common thought that listening can only be done with the ears, I want to draw your attention to another video on TED.com. In this roughly half-hour long video, the deaf Scottish percussionist, Evelyn Glennie, challenges the audience to think about what it means to really listen. Glennie, not wanting to believe that a deaf person couldn't rise to the same musical accomplishments of a hearing person, fought the odds against the British educational system, and changed the way that they admit candidates to their degree programs. As an accomplished percussionist, Glennie's lecture-demonstration clearly shows us that listening can be accomplished in more ways than just with our ears.

The Budget Crisis and our Schools

DEFICIT. That one word has so many lasting implications on today's society, and impacts everyone directly. As costs rise and money and jobs dwindle, even the most cautious of budgets can get challenged. Our schools receive funding from three sources: 1) the federal government, 2) the state government, and 3) local taxes and private donations. As money gets short, the amount of assistance provided to our schools by each of these areas deteriorates. Programs like music and arts, deemed "unessential education," often are the first victims of the budget ax.

Today, the City of Rochester school district is voting to completely cut music and art from the city school curriculum in the fall. Hundreds of teachers are outside city hall protesting the cuts. Rhode Island recently made the news with thousands of teachers getting pink slips. New York, California, Wisconsin... the list goes on and on. New York is also proposing capping administrator's salaries at around $125,000/year. There are a few administrators around Rochester that are currently making close to a quarter million a year, including the Superintendent of the Rochester City Schools.

Recently on TED.com, Bill Gates gave a short (roughly ten minute) speech entitled "How State Budgets are breaking US schools". While his focus was primarily on the state of California, he gave some underlying facts that are applicable to each of the 50 states. As individual states' budgets slash support to education, one option districts have is to cut teachers. This raises an interesting question: "Should it be the young or 'less good' teachers that get cut?" My response: how do we define what it is to be 'less good'? Clearly all teachers are not created equally, and some teachers are more productive than others. Yet who sets the standards that would label a teacher as 'less good' than any other teacher? That's a fine line...

Gates goes on to briefly highlight three things that states need to do to solidify a future for our schools: 1) establish more tools to educate ourselves with, 2) maintain clear and honest accounting practices, and 3) have courageous politicians that will go against the grain and fight for education, not having to worry about "shooting the messenger". This is a good start, but we need to hold our officials accountable for the decisions they make. 

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. I have to say that this is completely new to me, and is being done in connection with my MMME program requirements at Kent State University. I hope to provide some interesting topics here to stimulate discussion about current trends and issues in the field of music education.