The F-flat Books Blog is a community-run blog exploring a variety of topics in music teaching and learning.
Browse posts by category or check out the most recent posts below.
Music Service Learning Update: Week 3
Kindergarten Home-School Help - written by Lea Wehnau This week, we are featuring a project for the younger students! This project called “Kindergarten Home-School Help” was requested by a mother named Ms. Rippley. Ms. Rippley reached out to MSL because she has a kindergarten-aged son at home and she wanted to continue his arts education until the school could supply lessons and activities. She didn’t know what music lessons fit in the kindergartener’s curriculum and needed help developing music lessons that were practical for her to implement at [...]
May we remember
We texted, we called, we made jokes, we became angry and defiant, and then we paused and realized it wasn’t a game. It was real. The classroom and traditional education as we knew it, was stopping - at least in person. We were stepping into a pandemic and this was no snow day. We were angry, in denial, and ran forward and backwards through the stages of grief. In the panic of it all, some jumped in and blindly grabbed at the onslaught of free online technology to [...]
Music Service Learning Update: Week 2
Elementary Honors Choir Alternative - written by Theresa Sharp Like so many of us, Aubree Windish, a student teaching supervisor at West Chester University, had to face events being cancelled this past month. She was supposed to guest conduct the PMEA District 4 Fifth Grade Chorus Fest. This is an event that students had been preparing for and looking forward to for a while. Before it was officially cancelled, Aubree sought out ideas to provide students with an experience that would still be valuable to them through music-making. [...]
We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails
Since our schools closed their doors almost five weeks ago, I have been flooded with so many emotions. For a while, I could not really determine what these emotions were. I just knew each day felt different. After reflecting, I began to realize that what I was feeling was a sense of loss. A sense of grief. I missed my students. I missed making music together. I missed connecting. They say that grief comes in stages and I believe this to be true, but I hadn’t truly acknowledged [...]
Making YouTube teaching videos: Three steps to success
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 was made at every lesson throughout the week. My solution was to hurriedly record myself teaching it once, and post it for the students to learn on their own. In a few weeks’ time, the effect that these videos had [...]
Music Service Learning Update: Week 1
F-flat Books has partnered with #musicservicelearning, an organization led by Dr. Marci Major and aimed at providing valuable learning experiences for music education majors while helping others affected by COVID-19. Each week, MSL students will share completed and ongoing projects from around the world. Masterclass Project - written by Lea Wehnau The Music Service Learning project has created many music education resources for teachers and parents to use. The most recent of these projects is the Masterclass Project. For this project, West Chester University music majors create videos [...]
Remote Music Teaching: Teaching students with special needs
First of all, I am going to ask us all to take a breath. Yes, seriously. Take a deep breath. Doesn’t that feel better? As of late, I find myself doing most of my work while holding my breath all the time. I do this as I am typing IEP input, creating an activity for my students, and otherwise navigating life in our current situation. I find myself being so busy trying to replicate my classroom online that I forget to eat for hours. Luckily, I have an [...]
Routines and Boundaries: Managing anxiety during crisis
I am a music education college professor who teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. I also keep a foot in the schools by teaching one day a week at a PreK–6 Montessori school. What you are about to read is my specific response to the crisis in which we find ourselves. I know that everyone is different and that what worked for me may not work for others. I am also in a situation where I do not have to worry about childcare or other family members. I [...]
Getting Started with Seesaw for General Music Education
The guiding principle of the Kodaly philosophy is that only the best is good enough for a child. When virtual learning becomes the best delivery method for instruction, educators look for innovative ways to maintain quality music education. We land on our feet, and re-imagine some aspects of active, engaged, and contextual musical learning. The seesaw app is one of the best resources I have found that meets our specific needs for active, contextual, and engaging musicing. It's a digital learning portfolio that allows students to document [...]
On friday: Reflections during COVID-19
On Friday, March 13th I spent my last day in public spaces. It’s funny to look back. I knew that there would be a couple of weeks in isolation, and I even looked forward to the change of pace! However, I never imagined that we would be facing some undefined amount of time with so many added stresses. I think for each person the added stresses look different. At first I tried taking the “I should be grateful approach” to my situation, but after listening to the Brené [...]
Remote music teaching: How I’m surviving COVID-19
This has been an interesting year for me. I just started at a new school this year with the goal of establishing a performing arts program. Prior to this year, they really had nothing...one ‘music’ class was offered that was just basically a hodgepodge of students that had varying interests in music. Some students wanted it to be a choir class, some played instruments and were hoping for it to be band class, some played string instruments, some were just in the class because it was the only [...]
Remote music teaching: An honest review of Moosiko and SmartMusic
Like many other music teachers, I am in the strange position of being a (sudden) virtual teacher. On March 12th, 2020, the governor for our state of Pennsylvania held a press conference in which he announced the immediate shutdown of all schools in Montgomery County, the county in which I teach. On March 13th, I started scrambling. I sent out a message on a large Facebook forum inviting members to share their emails with me for a large resource roundup. At the time, I was hoping to help [...]