I spent the first four years of my teaching career with zero instruments for my high school general music class. We had nothing, and I was told there was no budget for my class. I tried to make the best of it by gathering all of the "leftovers" [...]
If you’ve read this blog before, you know that I’m a fan of Nate Holder’s work. In 2020, I reviewed his book, Why is my piano Black and White? Since the release of that work, he has written many other books and has even adapted Where are all [...]
Ah, rep selection. Some music teachers become giddy at the thought of programming a concert or selecting new repertoire each season. Still, there are others of us that struggle when it comes to rep selection and can feel paralyzed at the number of choices in our midst. So [...]
A Music Teacher’s Guide to Soundtrap Like all good broke college students, I have a very old laptop - almost 7 years old in fact. It’s very possible that my MacBook Pro has been running on the same software update for as long as I’ve been able [...]
I've never had a "traditional" view of my orchestra classroom. Perhaps this is due in part to the fact that I am a non-traditional orchestral director. While that may be a story for another time, it's important to note that I have always strived to make my music [...]
My first teaching video was inspired by a group of fourth grade flute players and their enthusiastic eagerness to learn how to play ‘Firework” by Katy Perry. As one might expect, once I taught the tune to my Monday 9:00am flute group, word spread quickly and the demand [...]
The current pandemic has thrust the global population into a period of uncertainty unrivaled in recent history. Music students at universities around the world are being forced to abandon the structure that has helped to frame their success and are now required to adapt their habits to fit [...]
Are you a songwriter? Do you want to be a songwriter? I've thought a lot about songwriting this past year. Last spring, I taught a course at Temple University for undergraduate music education majors called collaboration and creativity. One of the assignments was to write a song. For [...]
Background This past year, I spent a lot of my time investigating and researching student perceptions of composition projects that they were completing in their band class. This research was for my master’s field project but the entire process was incredibly enlightening and informative. The research showed [...]
Concert season- it’s one of the most exciting, nerve wracking, busy, and fun parts of our jobs as music educators. It never falls at a good time of the year and is guaranteed to be at least a little stressful. In every year of my career so [...]