School music programs getting axed. What now?
The economy is taking its toll and some schools are cutting music programs. Some parents get music lessons for their children. What percentage? Maybe 10%?
Of the remaining 90%, who has children who would have excelled in music, but no longer have a program offered in their school? And many of these children already have disadvantages from being in inadequately funded schools.
Here's where I ask you for your ideas. What would you want from an online music service? Think of the 2-way interaction: forums for your questions; a wiki for collaborating on the content you want; video and audio content; live chat/video; tons of possibilities.
Is this something to consider in the new technological age we're in?
I'd love your thoughts.
Comments
http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/
However, this activity is just to help students learn to read music and help them gain speed naming their notes (in hopefully a fun interactive way). Sites 5-9 and 12 are games for the practice. The other sites explain how reading music works. Students have access to this at home from my music website
http://mail.ccsd.k12.co.us/~gwaldman2@cherrycreekschools.org
I don't envision my trackstar tracks taking the place of the music my students and I create together in class. I can see creating a wiki but talking about music is such a small part of most music classes (at least in grades K-12). I think trying to meet the National Music Standards through an online delivery method would be a pretty tall order. Maybe I can't see the possibilities or my thinking is too narrow at this point. Share more of what you're envisioning, please?
With school districts and state health dept. going somewhat overboard about H1N1 (Swine) Flu, our staff was asked this week to create lessons that will be ready to be posted online in the event that our school has to close for 1-2 weeks. In addition to my students continuing to gather information for their Romantic Composer Comic Life project (4th & 5th grade), practicing their note naming, singing their concert songs at home either accapella or with the podcast section of my website, or practicing their recorders, I haven't come up with other activities for them to do musically online. Your thoughts?
Here is my rebuttal. Online interaction is now almost as good as live with the new technology. Live video chat is becoming more and more standard to web users. I agree that something would be missing, but it's pretty close now. You're right though, not the same.
This is controversial, but I have proof in this statement: I don't believe naming notes, lines and spaces is a good way to teach music reading. The very first day of reading, I have first graders read several tonal or rhythm patterns in major and minor or duple and triple. They bring understanding to what they see, not decipher the code. See my earlier blog: Music Learning-something to consider
I'm interested in helping babies through to pre-teens to be able to create, improvise, and compose music in a non-traditional sequence that yields extraordinary results. Could you read in three major keys the first day you read music? Or in two meters, using 16th, 8th notes and quarter combinations? Well, I have first graders who can—some of which were from musically deprived beginnings. By 2nd grade, they're able to do dictation. We once did a day devoted to a mixolydian melody!
I'm really happy that more music educators are reaching children on-line. I'm glad to see more moving that direction. You're among a small percentage.
Still, I'm concerned that we're only using new "techniques" and not reconsidering the old-school "methods" that only reach a small portion of the musical public we educate.
Ok, so let's keep this dialogue moving.
I'm impressed with what you're doing with your students. I am open to new methods to teach music. I vacillate between whether or not it is important to teach note naming early and follow traditional methods. My own children are Suzuki string students (violin and cello), and my husband was a Suzuki kid (he's 4th chair violin in the Colorado Symphony). My children's music reading is strong but they played first for quite a time before note reading was introduced.
As far as online music learning, I'm thinking it would be very hard for my son's cello teacher to help him get his hand in the right position if she wasn't standing next to him repositioning his fingers and making him feel the right shape of his hand.
(By the way, my students follow notation long before we talk about note naming.)
Gwen