A Music Education Blog Collective

There is an interesting comment on Melissa’s post regarding sharing student popular music online. Mallory writes “I really wish that all schools had the ability and time to look into children’s music. It was give the children a chance to express themselves individually, and then maybe more students would enjoy music, and the programs in […]

Do any of your students like hip hop culture? Do any of them like to play instruments? Can they enjoy both at the same time? Some students may experience a disconnect between what they view as “school music” and “their music”. When thinking about hip hop our students might not immediately think of […]

A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor looked at some perspectives of how American Idol has impacted music classrooms. It was interesting to read some of the quotes by various music teachers, though it seemed to focus mostly on the performance aspect of music education and the show. I posted my response to some […]

I enjoyed listening to these three different arrangements of Sabre Dance. (My favorite is a video performance by the exuberant Marimba Ponies–independent young musicians performing as a small ensemble that has no need for a conductor–isn’t that a goal our students should reach?) Thank you to Alex Ross for finding these arrangements. There […]

The recent International Association for the Study of Popular Music conference gave me a lot to think about. I will discuss some specific issues that were addressed at the conference in the next few days. The overarching feeling I had leaving the conference was that our field really does need to make more connections with […]

The issue of young people and concert attendance was recently raised again by Greg Sandow on his blog. Coming at it from a music ed perspective, Jen previously posted on this topic and I posted on the other blog I write. The voices of young people, especially much younger people, are unfortunately left out […]

For those of us who work with student rock bands or provide opportunities for students to create popular music in school, the traditional school music program provides little opportunity to showcase such student work. � I am often looking to create spaces for students other than those in the concert band, orchestra and choir, to […]

The screenshot of the new software on a recent post at Create Digital Music looks somewhat similar to the Hyperscore software developed at MIT. Both seem like interesting types of software to use with younger students and both use some non-traditional ways of creating music. They both also remind me somewhat of software I […]

While some school music programs include fiddle music as part of their curriculum, I wonder how many string students know the history of African American string bands or the roots of the instruments used in this musical style such as the banjo or fiddle?
On November of 2005, the radio program “Talk Back”, on non-commercial community […]

Music and the way people interact with music has constantly evolved. As we look forward to 2006, not only do we have our digital music files (i.e. MP3) but there seems to be a shift in how people are sharing their digital music files. While the RIAA may have Apple’s I-Tunes complying with the […]