The Summative Blog Post

Well, the term is over, and it's time for the final blog...

To make it interesting, I decided to do another Pixton comic to do most of the talking for me:
http://www.pixton.com/comic/u0jooqdz

As the comic says, I was very much a stick in the mud about technology in the classroom, especially in band, because I thought of it as a distraction. That and I became really irritated with how kids would use it at school. Plus, with  cyber-bullying and the dangers of finding pornography becoming more risky, I felt filtering the internet was the only solution.

However, it is great that I was exposed to many different technological programs for a music classroom's benefit. It's not every day you get a class where you get to tweak and explore things to find resources. While technology within band should not be a focus, there definitely should be more opportunities to use it, within not only classroom lessons, but even repertoire itself, as it would definitely do wonders for recruitment, and less of a drop-out rate for the subject.

I also realize the importance of technology in terms of music making as well. Exposing children to composition software and other ideas aside from instrumental proficiency will make the class much more enjoyable, and make them feel much less strained upon classical music. And the introduction to many different websites for music that I have found can certainly keep my students entertained. (Hellooo Community Band). Technology's opportunities for collaboration is also a key portion of music, and with the ability to collaborate with other musicans around the world, we certainly can teach many new things to students.

As for the cellphone thing... I've began to understand that I will not only have to conform school-wise, but lifestyle wise as well. I've acknowledged that contacting people has become more difficult as years have gone by without a cellphone, and that the frustration will only continue and progress if I do not get one. So I think it's safe to say that I'll need to talk to my family about possible options when I get home. Staying in contact with people and being able to take care of things instantly is an important job skill that I might lose at this rate.

All in all, technology is becoming more prominent in everyday life, and if we harness its powers to do good, rather than evil, it's not so bad. I guess I'll just have to embrace it.

Thanks for opening me up, Mr. Nantais!

That's it from me. A happy Christmas to all of my readers. Since I have a lot of repertoire to work on next term, maybe I should make a clarinet practice blog? Hmmm... It would be an interesting idea.

Playing with Pixton!

This week we were told to look at some applications and websites for digital storytelling, which was something I was actually quite excited to do... I am a huge fan of all the "create your own *blank*" websites, and all others that offer a ton of creative options.  And suddenly, I stumbled upon Pixton. Never have I ran into a website as flexible as this for creating your own comics! It may be hard to incorporate into a music classroom, however, which is the one downfall of using it. Unless you decide to maybe assign them a composer or piece to research if you want to include music history in your classroom... But it definitely supports school and business use, as it even has categories for both of them, if you don't want to do it for fun.


Pros of this website:

- Multiple backgrounds to choose from
-Characters are posable
-Unlimited amount of comics to make
-various characters to use and incorporate.
-multiple comic forms to use as well.


Cons:

Time consuming if you don't know what you're doing.
Free version only gives you limited character customization options.
Limits to only a few comic styles.


If students find this site too difficult to use when working on an assignment, I think it would be important to incorporate other sites and options for the assignment to be completed. But all in all, it's great to use even for fun, and people have even started their own series on this site as well.

Just to see how things worked, I created a little comic about a little mishap I had in my clarinet lesson last week... Enjoy:

http://www.pixton.com/ca/comic/chc31anj

P.S. I HIGHLY recommend any of my non-music readers to listen to all three pieces listed within the comic. They're all fantastic orchestral works with some absolutely delicious clarinet solos!

Happy studying.... If that's even possible.. .>.>

Composition.Getting Middle School Kids Started.

One thing I feel that we don't often touch upon in the music classrooms nowadays is allowing students to compose their own music. We're all taught how to play certain music by certain composers, but why are we never puushed to make music that's all our own? While looking for resources for online musical games for our group project, I had wanted to find maybe a few musical composition games out there that get the students started into composing in middle school. 

Unfortunately it appears that there are very few of them, which frustrated me immensely. Musical composition is an important part of music that is always missed out upon, as it challenges students to use their imagination, and collaborate with others...

Here are the few games that I found that would be great starters for composition in junior high:


Classics for Kids - Compose Your Own Music

This allows students to compose a cute little four measure melody.Great to use for a beginning music class once you've covered the concepts of whole notes and half notes and quarter notes. Unfortunately, no sharps or flats are included on this, thus limiting key choices to C Major and A Minor.
nyphikids.org - Musical Mingles

Taken from the New York Philharmonic Kid Zone, this game is filled with cute little bouncing creatures, that make noises every time they hit an obstacle. If you arrange the obstacles correctly and time them properly, you can create some great sounds!

http://www.sfskids.org/templates/musicLabF.asp?pageid=15

A cute little game that lets you mix measures to create a cute little tune. Change 'em up if you don't like what you hear the first time.

I hope in the near future, more online interactive games are out there for composing. However, I DO also recommend installing Sibelius into the classroom. I think it would be beneficial for your students if they knew how to use it!

My evening with Sir Ken Robinson.

Just recently I had finished reading an amusing TED talk with Sir Ken Robinson entitled "Schools Kill Creativity" Which was, surprisingly, rather interesting, and the many stories, especially of the musical choreographer he knew was rather refreshing to watch.

Lately, I've been finding many recurring trends in my other classes, which is causing me to really struggle with myself in my beleifs of music education.  This, included. One of my courses, Foundations in Music Education often features articles regarding many of the issues with current music education programs, and how they preferably "train" rather than "educate". Another, for Classroom Management, which talks about many ideas of classroom environments and discipline theories. For Classroom Management, there are many disciplines that we had looked over and discussed within  that talk about accomodating to students' strengths and abilities, which is something I strongly support. I was never strong in Math or Science, and the many aspects of English I did enjoy involved creative writing of sorts...


One thing that really stood out to me was the following quote:

"Kids will take a chance. And if they don't know, they'll have a go. They're not frightened to be wong... If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.... By the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong."


The thing is, this can even occur within a music classroom, as I have interpreted within my Foundations class...  Many of the music classrooms nowadays are strictly ensemble and performance heavy, focused intently on rehearsing for that Winter Concert, or Festival that is quickly approaching, even then, students are trained to play music with the dynamics and tempo markings they are expected to on the page, as well as the ones interpreted by the conductor. Furthermore, the heavy focus on classical music tends to turn them away from the idea of music all together. Through these performance heavy classes, you learn nothing but how to play an instrument, and nothing else... When really, music can give us so much more, such as identity development as well as the skills to develop praxis (practice and reflections) and opinions of their own. Many of the articles promoted the ideas of incorporating popular music into the classroom, as it is a part of the students' culture, as well as offering other forms of expressing yourself in music, such as composition and even the ideas of using informal learning processes, rather than the traditional Western music processes.

Through my whole transition from high school to university, I had found myself... Having... less enjoyment than I normally did... I listen less to music, focus on practicing my clarinet and fighting to sound "good", became frustrated because I thought it wasn't good enough... I used to play simple tunes on the clarinet by ear, or fragments of old band pieces and think I was on top of the world after practicing.  I think I even now, I  feel as though I don't laugh or smile as much... Now, less listening to music could just be because my course load has become heavier over the years... But still... I felt as though in a way, my of having fun with the clarinet had been squeezed out of me... Just this afternoon I was upset after a decent practice of Brahms (which I had been LONGING to play because I LOVED it) with my accompanist because I was slightly out of tune, or I kept making tiny mistakes/squeaks... The fun wasn't there for me anymore... I think I've even become (even more) of a boring person to people and feel like they don't want me around as much!

I didn't realize at all that the heavy focus of Classical was not for everyone, and since many of my classmates had been forced to take band, they didn't find it as satisfying or fun... I also think I maybe underestimated the power of using popular music in ensembles, and performing them if used properly can involve some form of educational purpose. I want everyone to experience similar feelings that I had felt when I had taken music in high school! I even wouldn't mind exchanging music between my students and I, and even encourage them to bring CDs of things they listen to, so we can analyze, discuss and apply to the classroom! One thing I never had in my experiences was people to jam with (insert forever alone face here)! I wouldn't mind a jam session every lunch hour, despite the fact that I'd never see an inch of quiet time in my office! I... I'm still even struggling to know if I want to be a band teacher anymore! Oh my god, I'm rambling!

Well, I see that this post got more lengthy than I had planned... But... the point is... This video has told me that I had lost a piece of myself... And I wish I had it back... But I don't know how to get it... Maybe I'm just stressed with my courseload this term... Major assignments should NOT be due in the same week. ):

iPad Apps for the Music Classroom and Creative Concert Repertoire Lists

During class this week, we had the opportunity to look at various music iPad apps, and see if we could find any which would be of any use in the music classroom. hile I found many of the apps that were at our fingertips rather entertaining, I didn't find that  many of them were rather useful. A lot of them seemed to be more for the sake of entertainment rather than education, save for a few of the musical instruments.

One of the ones that stuck out to me most was a trombone app, which not only made noise at the touch of a finger, but had guidelines for slide positions for each note. I could certainly see this as very useful for student trombonists if they encounter any difficult sections in their music, or any notes that they are unaware of, and should assist them with how their parts will sound. I think if made with proper detail, any instrument app for an iPad OR iPhone if it is available to the students can certainly help them have a better understanding of the instrument.

Another, was Bebot. Yes. You heard me right. I find Bebot useful for educational purposes. Why? Not do I see it great for demonstration of pitch and tuning in instrumental sections, but I can also see it being useful for singers, as the different qualities of tone the little robot produces based on how high/low your finger is on your screen seems like it can help teach students to develop the appopriate vocal tone... But as I am not a voice major, I cannot say for certain, and this is merely speculation.

Personally, I feel that if there are going to be iPhone apps for instruments, they have to be made by someone very knowledgeable about the instruments themselves, and know their ENTIRE way around them. If it's not accurate, then it's completely useless.

Later on within my week, our Symphonic Band had received new repertoire after playing a FANTASTIC concert the week before and one of them was this recently composed peice to be incorporated with a good old silent Felix the Cat cartoon! Which we all found extremely awesome:

 

(For the version showing the band with the video projected next to it, click here!)

 

Although it's going to be a really difficult peice, I think it will certainly be a very fun peice for us to work on, despite the fact that I barely survived sightreading it. (CURSE YOU VERY NEW E-FLAT CLARINET REED!!) What I really like about this day of age in musical ensembles is that there is many repertoire out there that composers somehow incorporate technology into whether it is a video or an audio track. I certainly think that there needs to be much more repertoire like this that can be accessible to high school band programs, as they are great spring concert repertoire choices that could not only entertain parents, but attract the attention of many possible new recruits. I had recently gone to a Music Educator's conference in Manitoba, and one of the listed reasons for band programs to decline was the day and age of technology being an important factor. Well, why not spice up the repertoire a little?

 

The issue with this is that many of the peices like this that are composed end up being terribly difficult... I beleive that many of the composers for band should take many examples from many of the new music composers and help bring this technological creativity to a junior high or highschool ensemble respectively. If the repertoire is both fresh, and manageable for a school ensemble, students may look at band programs with much more praise.

 

Of course I am not saying that this should be done constantly, but once in a while, we should give the students something that they'd never expect to be made for a band.

 

 

Well, that's it for now. To end this post, I'll give you another great example of music and technology being incorporated together by Eric Whitacre, one of my favorite composers:

 

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you... "Godzilla Eats Las Vegas"!

The SFS Music Lab!

A few days ago for class, we were assigned to find some useful sites/tools for a SMARTboard within a music classroom. I went on google to see what nifty websites I could use, and wound up finding this site for kids created by the San Fransisco Symphony, called the Music Lab. It has a couple of good lessons and concepts to use for Elementary to Grade 7 beginning band programs, and ranges from the basics to harmony.

The site is complete with many silly little flash animations which should keep your kids amused while they're learning these musical concepts. There's also a link to different instruments within an orchestra, and opportunities to compose a peice of music!

If you want to check out the lab, click here!

Cellphones and my Anxieties

Lately, I've felt as though my school-life has begun to tear at the seams. I have been doing the best I can to keep myself organized, however, there is always the little things that seem to slip my mind. I think one of the biggest things that has been making me feel like this though, is the amount of contact I've had to keep with people. Often when arranging meetings, I often prefer face to face, and if it slips my mind,  I'd just go straight to emails, not having a cellphone on hand at all. Now, however, it is becoming more difficult for me to remember, or even sit down and email. And if I don't respond to an email in time if I see one, there's no way to cll me, which makes things even more difficult.

As my time on earth has passed, the need for a cellphone increased tenfold. When I was younger, I had told myself that I wasn't EVER going to get one. I saw all my high school classmates with their own, spending a ridiculous amount of time with them in class, texting away and fooling around, not showing any respect towards the teachers at all. It wasn't a big deal to have a cell phone to me then, anyways. It wasn't like anyone wanted to contact me.

Now, it seems more than ever, EVERYONE needs to get into contact with me, or I want to get into contact with them. There was a point in time when I had a pay-as-you-go that my grandfather had no use for anymore. As soon as I brought it with me to university, people were sending me texts and calls out the yinyang. And the minutes expired every month. If I wasn't out of minutes and I didn't have time to put on more, it became frustrating because people were always trying to call me.! Now that this year's reached the half-way point, I am getting a little frustrated, as I always need to send somebody an email, and it's always in a short amount of time. I've been hassled by friends before about not having a cellphone and now, I'm starting to feel the need to conform.

As a music educator, being easy to contact is incredibly important. And now that it's come to an age where cellphones are an absolute requirement for EVERYONE, I'm noticing how not having one's affecting my life and everyone around me. But the question is, can I find a cheap way to have one, without putting myself into debt or the need to walk miles to put money on it? Is it really worth it to put yourself into debt over a tiny little machine?