Singing in the Instrumental Music Classroom - Reflections

Educators and theorists have long advocated the use of singing, or more specifically, vocalization, as an instructional technique in instrumental music classrooms. These scholars contend that vocalization activities afford students unique ways of representing aural and notational stimuli and may aid in the comprehension and performance of instrumental music, especially for beginners.
While the first content standard of the National Standards for Music Education includes the statement that music students from kindergarten through grade 12 should have experiences singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music, teachers of beginning instrumentalists often fail to use singing as an instructional technique in the classroom, and few instrumental method books even include it.
However, an overwhelming amount of research shows that vocalization may, indeed, have a positive effect on the training of instrumentalists. The findings of studies by Grutzmacher (1987), Lee (1996), MacKnight (1975), and McDonald (1987) indicate that vocalization using movable Do solfege syllables may have a positive impact on beginning instrumentalists, while Sheldon (1998) observed similar results with college students. Additionally, Davis (1981) and McGarry (1967) found that vocalization may be employed, to a high extent of effectiveness, with scale degree numbers and pitch letter names.
While this doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg in terms of justifiable research for the advocacy of vocalization in instrumental music programs, I think it is important, as educators, to find the actual source of the absence of this instructional process. I think this most certainly has to do with the fact that for many band students, singing seems to be an unreasonable task because it is too far out of many of their comfort zones. If we force our students to make a leap that is beyond their level of comfort, we risk all sorts of behavioral problems and having the flow of our class disrupted. Our first reaction to something like this that doesn’t work is to get rid of it and try something else. However, perhaps all our students need is some kind of stepping stones that help them bridge the gap and become more comfortable with this highly beneficial practice.

SSM: Effectively Using Journals -Reflections

I found this chapter particularly interesting because I think journal writing can be an incredibly flexible instructional tool that is useful across the entire curriculum. While often used as a class startup activity, it can also be used primarily to give students an opportunity to speculate on paper and rest assured tthat their ideas, observations, emotions, and writing will be accepted without criticism. Even when I was with Glassmen, we used journals all of the time for both discussion-based activities and private, personal reflection, which allowed to to be much more self-aware of both the musical and social aspects of the experience itself.

Further, I think that curriculum-oriented journal entries have the advantage of causing students to relate personally to the topic before instruction actually begins. Asking for a summary of learning or for a question about something causes the student to process and organize his or her thoughts about the material covered - a great instructional device, particularly in the world of music education where a classroom with any activity other than rehearsal can be hard to find.

Chapter 8 Reflections- Assessment

As a whole, I think two significant assessment challenges face those who seek to bring quality music programs to students in the United States. We are first faced with the challenge of maintaining a balanced curriculum in an environment where dependence on large-scale, high stakes testing of students in a small range of programs (reading, math, and science) severely limits learning opportunities to those tested subject areas. In this regard, music educators, along with colleagues in other disciplines and officials at the U.S Department of Education, strongly believe that testing must be implemented in such a way as to improve the total school experience, rather than in a way that effectively narrows educational opportunities for students. Second of all, music educators face the challenge of using assessment in their own programs in order to inform theirteaching as well as benefit the students in their classroom.

Additionally, music educators have historically used multiple forms of assessment for their students, reported on students’ musical progress to parents, and implemented sophisticated systems for the evaluation of school performing ensembles to establish publicly accessible quality measures in certain aspects of their programs. However, I think that they face multiple unique challenges as they seek to expand their assessment work. For one, music teachers are often responsible for teaching and assessing large numbers of students, such as in ensemble classes or across a weeklong schedule of elementary general music students, in addition to the fact that most important assessable work in music classes consists of multimedia products, such as performances and improvisations which must be recorded and scored individually. Ideally, I think schools should and would greatly benefit from balancing large ensemble rehearsals with small group lessons and provide recording devices and other technology to facilitate the collection, management, and scoring of students’ individual music work.

Chapter 17 Reflections - Concerts

Of the many facets and challenges of performing concerts in the world of music education, The behavior of public audiences is one issue that is very difficult to address. While school administrators and teachers can exercise direct control over the student body, when dealing with the general public this is certainly not the case, yet it is easy to have the same high expectations for their concert behavior. People whispering, cell phones, general talking, leaving before the performance is finished, and miscellaneous noise and disruption are all part of tho typical "bad concert behavior" list. However, despite this challenge, if we, as educators, can find a way to make an impact and do something about this, the real winners will be our students who will enjoy their performance experience much more with an attentive, well-behaved audience.