It’s sad but true. The 3 bullet points of teaching BAND look a lot different than the 3 bullet points of teaching MUSIC. Unfortunately, the state of affairs in school systems across the country has teachers constantly justifying their programs by the ‘numbers’ of returning students or by citing music education research which (dubiously at best) tries to prove that music students math scores will improve.

For some reason music education has been reduced to a noble but dispensable cause. And if we’re not careful, it could disappear from academia altogether. Come to think of it, that might not be bad for the overall health of our so called profession.

As a 30-year veteran of the music classroom, I like your 3 points very much–a whole lot more useful than most of the stuff taught in university classes on “Organizing the Instrumental Music Classroom.”

You’re absolutely right that you can’t get anything done until the kids know the drill, so to speak. And that goes for small and large classes. I taught beginning band (among other things) for 21 of my 31 years, and frequently had mixed-instrument groups of 50+ brand-new musicians. It is possible to teach very large groups of beginners, if you have a well-developed system and enforce it religiously. An example: when the teacher must work with one small group or person, all the rest of the students need to have a silent task (fingering or air-drumming through a particular song or exercise, perhaps)–something to keep them productively occupied for the two minutes you’re demonstrating the flute embouchure or 3rd-position-without-grabbing-the-bell (for the 20th time).

I also like the group bonding thing. They were “band fags” in my school (quite the sophisticated moniker, no?) and the sooner you deal with it, giving kids group identity and language to be able to laugh at their poor benighted classmates who don’t know how great it is to be part of the band, the better.

You had some really good things about choice in an earlier post–for some reason, many band teachers feel that all choices need to be theirs (which supports my theory that most band directors are control freaks at some level). You really can give music students choices, including selecting performance music from a range of appropriate literature. And that helps. I agree that most kids don’t practice much, but suspect that they a) have not been taught how to practice or b)are focused on an arbitrary amount of time, not the task or c) have been directed to practice things they don’t like to do (including long tones). We had the Long Tone Olympics at the end of each marking period, with various events: straight, crescendo-decrescendo, etc. Great fun. And once you won, you became an Olympics judge.

Great post, Joel.

Best advice would be to read the stories on http://detentionslip.org, and don’t end up like those teachers. The site was recently voted #1 in education news.

@beloml - I think that comment is the best thing I have ever seen written on this blog. I should print it out and give it to my superintendent. Haha.

@Eugene Cantera - I know what you mean. My district has reduced elementary music time to a single thirty minute class each week. Can you imagine trying to teach any note-reading or whatever to kids for half an hour, then not seeing them again for another seven days.

This means that each student has a grand total of no more than 108 hours of music education from the time they enter kindergarten until they finish fifth grade. Of course, that is assuming there are no assemblies, TAKS prep classes, holidays (can you imagine the kids who have music on Monday?), special programs, etc.

I am amazed at the work some of the music teachers do with recorders and note-reading and all that. But the system is weakened tremendously because of scheduling and priorities.

[Joel] Band sound starts with a fundamental understanding of great tone-production on the individual instruments. But I think beyond that, kids can be taught to have adequate sound and still have a great band sound.

[Nancy] Been thinking about this idea, a lot. You know how, when kids first get their hands on the horn, they want to “play something”–and how their teachers want to get right down to “this is a quarter rest?” You might teach them a little lamb-tune (around here, it was “Let’s go Blue”) but then you feel pushed to start reading. Maybe that early play time, that experience of just enjoying having the horn in your hands and music coming out, gets short shrift.

I have heard orchestra teachers moaning about having a class with mixed rank beginners and kids with Suzuki experience who “think they can play” but can’t read. I have even heard of schools where the orchestra teacher discourages families from enrolling their kids in Suzuki groups or lessons because it just messes them up, down the road. Shouldn’t the auditory and kinesthetic learning about how to play an instrument logically come first?

Just asking. Not making a pronouncement.