Third-Stream Music Education

I recently responded to a call for assistance (read: ammunition in rhetoric) from a colleague who was actually asked to justify having any concerts at all. His new campus administrator wanted to take all after-school Band performances off the school calendar.

We do three major formal concerts per year, plus as many small performance opportunities as we can scare up. Concerts are critical because they (1) are required assessments under every major music standards currently published; (2) are the culminating event of any Band season; (3) form both summative assessment as the capstone of the previous curricular unit as well as formative assessment as the launching pad for learner reflection and goalsetting for the subsequent curricular unit; (4) are the reason students sign up for Band; (5) are the reason parents rent the horns, buy the reeds, pay for the lessons and listen to the horrendous first year of at-home practicing; (6) are the music department’s (and the school’s) number one publicity and recruiting strategy; (7) enhance the school’s community nature and warm the school’s atmosphere; (8) are fun. I cannot name a single research study that attempts to explain WHY we do concerts, because every study I have ever read (in music education AND in educational administration journals) begins with the paradigm that concerts are a self-evident part of any music program. We can quibble about how long a concert should last, how much classical vs. pop music should be programmed, or in what grade level students should transition from recorders to orchestral wind instruments, but we cannot really find any support in either research nor anecdotal literature for arguing against concerts as an integral part of the curricular and extracurricular music program.

What else would YOU say to this administrator?

Here’s a can of worms:

The day after the big concert…..to party or not to party? Call it a bribe, call it unhealthy, call it what you will. Opponents insist that giving the students candy or other treats is not good educational practice. Supporters hold that goodies are a reward for a job well done when presented after a job and under the condition that the job was done well. Where do you stand on the treats debate?

For my part, I used to be a stick in the mud, following the principal’s/superintendent’s instruction that “every minute of class time must count towards meeting standards”. This seemed right to me, as I planned and focused on how to conduct, sectional, instruct and cajole my students to sweepstakes ratings. The day after the concert, even while critiquing last night’s performance, was the first day of rehearsal for the next show. I used to be much less smooth on the day after the concert: beating kids over the head with the critique process and then passing out the first piece of the next set of repertoire. However, as I grow into this profession, I find myself much more interested in whether the students feel good about being in Band. It can’t always “be fun”, but if I can just keep them in there long enough to feel the glory of the audience applause, then I know they will stick with it longer. I have come to see the benefit of letting the Band members feel as if they are not focused, as if learning has been paused for one period. Therefore, after the long, uphill fight to concert readiness, I now take a whole day “off”: watch movies, eat candy, have a party in class.

Except that even while we blow off learning for the day, the movies are of their own performance and then of professional ensembles, and the party is themed around excellence in music. And the sweets are diabetic-friendly. Party on, Wayne!

Your academic standards (objectives, benchmarks, goals, curriculum) most likely calls for students to demonstrate some level of proficiency in describing, analyzing and evaluating music and musical performances. This is a very important standard in a young person’s growth as an artist and as a member of civilized society. The cocktail party, for example, is founded on the principle of intelligent discussion between worldly people. And considering how many business deals in the world are made or lost at cocktail parties, I consider constructive musical critiques to be part of the holistic education our schools strives to provide.

However, adolescents often focus on negativity, and often approach the “conversational tone” of a diplomatic critique a little too conversationally. The paragraph below is real feedback to a real student following a real self-evaluation of a real playing quiz.

Dear (Student): The self-evaluations on this blog are intended to be academic in nature. As such, the success of your blog would be augmented by retaining words of an academic character during the thesis and conclusion statements of each blog entry, for example “poor”, “mediocre” and “need to improve”, while simultaneously excluding words of a vulgar and unconstructive nature, for example “sucks”, “blows”, and all references to bathrooms. Furthermore, you can improve your overall critique by focusing on specific elements of music such as intonation, rhythmic accuracy and timbre rather than broad generalizations. In the future, please compose your self-evaluations in a more productive, academic tone. Thank you.

A colleague at a nearby international school sent out a request for assistance composing a proposal to purchase a piano. He works at a for-profit school, where the goal of upper administration is to cut costs and maximize profits. His school and its sister campuses, in a half-dozen countries, are known for their shiny new buildings and their flashy marketing brochures but a lack of deep commitment to student learning. His predicament, however, is not unique to for-profit schools. Certainly every music, art and drama teacher in North America can empathize with the predicament. This month in California, faculty and parents are writing similar letters, but instead of purchasing pianos are clamoring just to keep their teachers.

Here is the meager advice I was able to give him. The first paragraph is for his written proposal. The second paragraph is not intended to be written in the formal proposal!

Because for your accompanying and for students who are pianists in their own right, the weighted touch and dynamic sensitivity of an acoustic piano is impossible to duplicate through electronic means, no matter how sophisticated. Because your curriculum standard–which have been approved by the higher ups–specify that students must learn to identify, describe and produce good tone quality. Because there are properties of sound, such as sympathetic vibration and ‘beats’ during the tuning process, that cannot be replicated with synthesized sounds, no matter how sophisticated.

Because if you want students to make music, then let’s make music; they bought the P.E. department real basketballs and baskets, not plastic balls and plastic children’s hoops from the Wal-mart toy section. When your boss and your boss’s boss sit at folding card tables instead of proper office furniture and build their budget spreadsheets on electric typewriters rather than computers, then you’ll be happy to just go ahead and save the money for that electric piano.

First, read this post on Edutopia about recent gains in Arts Education funding.

On one hand, I can recognize what a Herculean feat it must be to give every student on every campus in a large district (with a large portion of “inner-city” campuses) forty-five minutes of music and art per week. To have been a leader in this transformation, to look back on the amount of politicking and consensus building and fundraising and budgeting and politicking, must induce a healthy sense of pride of accomplishment. Congratulations to the leaders who took on that task, and hooray for a step in the right direction.

On the other hand, what does it say about our broken system that 45 minutes per week of music and art (or, to be exact, 45 minutes of “Musicandart”) is considered a victory? Forty-five minutes once per week is not enough to build vocabulary in any subject, much less usable performance skills. What if we gave students 45 minutes of exposure to reading once per week? What kind of reading skills, much less love of books and reading for pleasure, could we expect from them? If we gave students 45 minutes of math per week, would we ever have another engineer or architect graduate from our schools? What’s more, to think that “Musicandart” gives either half of that time to music per week and half that time to visual art per week or, worse, one music class every other week is simply laughable. Research in music education, skills acquisition, expertise theory, etc. all points to the fact that frequency of practice is an immutable component in the acquisition of new skills.

Kudos to Dallas ISD, Big Thought, and the Wallace Foundation for winning an important game. Now let’s focus on our strategy for the rest of the games of the season.

Here’ a question that begs for feedback:

Let’s pretend for a moment that we are all teaching for process and not strictly product, that we are teaching concepts and not memorization, and that we are teaching for mastery and not merely for ‘no mistakes this time’. Let’s also pretend for a moment that we all teach and assess (again, for mastery) music theory, analysis and history during our performance ensemble classes.

If students will be required to understand and to perform music, and (here’s the assumption that may sink this hypothesis) if they must understand a concept before they can perform it reliably, then is it advisable—nay, even mandatory—that we assess a concept in writing before we assess it on the instrument? Should we strive to precede, or at least connect at the hip, every playing quiz with a written (or at least verbal) task?

Tenet One: Our very first learning objective in Beginning Band is for students to make a characteristic sound. In fact, tone quality remains the first criterion on most judging rubrics right through high school. Really, what kind of classical musician would you be without the ability to make a beautiful sound? The need for good tone quality even affects other elements of music: “only play the fortissimo as loud as you can control the tone”, “don’t play the staccato so short that we miss the tone”, “your high range is not how high you can squeak out a sound, but how high you can control, sustain and repeat”, and “play that _____ a little slower, Billy, quality is more important than quantity” are always good advice.

Tenet Two: As interpreters of music, it is our job as professional musicians to bring each work to the audience in such a way as the composer intended for it to sound. That is, we strive for authentic interpretation. As educators, part of our task is to teach young musicians how to interpret each piece authentically. But we cannot simply teach each piece–we must give our students a wide range of tools to do so in a wide range of musical literature. Another way to say this is that we must give students the vocabulary to make all the sounds required in different works and syntax to combine them in meaningful ways in new situations. We must not train our students (like circus monkeys) to play this piece or that piece, but rather educate them to apply musical wisdom to new situations without prompting.

Query: Are there any situations in which authentic performance could be in opposition to tone quality? Are there any situations in which you would actually give your students permission to sacrifice timbre? Jazz music is a good example…while jazz players have a different concept of tone from symphonic players (even different mouthpieces and reeds!), there is still an enormous disparity between jazz musicians in what constitutes acceptable tone. Many jazz musicians of renown have been musically illiterate, and some have produced tones that would peel paint of walls. Should we teach students to make those sounds in the pursuit of authenticity? What if I program a Rebirth Brass Band chart for my Jazz Ensemble? The characteristic second-line sound is gritty and in-your-face. What about a Rolling Stones or Hendrix rock chart for my Concert Band? Do I simulate a little bit of distortion by tacitly allowing the trombones to play a bit blatty? Even back “at home” in traditional “classical” wind band repertoire, surely experienced conductor and performer Percy Grainger knew what would happen to timbre when he marked multiple “f”’s in Lincolnshire Posy. How do you teach tone quality? How do you teach articulation and dynamics? Are there any situations in which you would sacrifice a little tone quality?

“Joey” is a sixth grade beginning trumpet player. Bless his parent’ hearts.

I gave Joey a high five in the hallway today. He was there, I was there, I thought it was the thing to do. “What was that for?” he asked.

“What was what for?”

“The high five. Why do I get a high five? Did I do something good?”

“Because you’re Joey, that’s why” I improvised. “You’re Joey, and Joey means high fives. It’s intrinsic. It’s built in. Joey, high fives. High fives, Joey.”

He walked away with a smile and felt important. I walked away with a smile and felt like a good teacher.

P.S.: Let’s see if he doesn’t practice tonight and let’s see if he doesn’t sound great tomorrow.

The official list of the 100 Music Education Bloggers Campaign has been published. Many excellent resource lists are on the list, as are many writers with deep insight into the music education field. Cruise over to www.mustech.net for all the gory details. Special thanks to Dr. Joseph Pisano for leading the charge to connect music educators all over the world!

1. http://www.mustech.net
Dr. Joseph M. Pisano - MusTech.net

2. http://digitalmusiceducator.wordpress.com
Owen Bradley - The Digital Music Educator

3. http://etobiasblog.musiced.net
Evan Tobias - Catalysts & Connections

4. http://musiced.about.com/
Espie Estrella - About Music Education

5. http://jamesfrankel.musiced.net/
Dr. James Frankel - Music Technology in Education

6. http://weblog.siba.fi/msalavuo
Dr. Miikka Salavuo - Music Education, Technology & Social Media

7. http://pwhitfield.edublogs.org
Pete Whitfield - e-Learning for Music

8. http://www.musicedmagic.com
Chad Criswell - Music Ed. Magic

9. http://jsavage.org.uk/
Dr. Jonathan Savage - Jonathan Savage

10. http://musictechforme.com/
V. Keith Mason - Music Tech. for Me

11. http://tjweller.wordpress.com
Travis J. Weller - Composing Like Mad

12. http://mystro2b.edublogs.org/
Ken Pendergrass - Music is Not for Insects

13. http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/
Joel - So You Want to Teach

14. http://stengel99.wordpress.com/
Steve Engel - Music Ed. Lounge

15. http://fsharpbflat.wordpress.com/
Linda Granite - Bb, F#

16. http://doublebassblog.org
Jason Heath - Double Bass Blog

17. http://musicisfree.ning.com/
Robert Brannan - The Music is Free

18. http://dvzmix.wordpress.com/
Deborah Valdivia-Zwolinski - DVZ’s Mix

19. http://choirteachers.blogspot.com/
Kyle Gardner - Choir Teachers

20. http://www.pauldraper.org
Paul Draper - Draper’s Blogspot

21. http://johnwilborn.wordpress.com
John Wilborn - John Wilborn’s Weblog

22. http://iknowithink.blogspot.com
Leo Park - I Know…I Think

23. http://gluedtothestring.blogspot.com
Stan Haskins - Glued to the String

24. http://musicedtech.wordpress.com
Barbara Freedman - Music Ed. Tech.

25. http://tomrudolph.berkleemusicblogs.com
Dr. Tom Rudolph - Make the Most of Notation Software

26. http://teachingthewirechoir.com/
Dale Lewis - Teaching the “Wire Choir”

27. http://docandry.edublogs.org
Dr. Kevin Andry - Dr. Andry’s Band Blog

28. http://sperham.wordpress.com
Steffany Perham - Perham’s Prattlings

29. http://alexruthmann.com
Alex Ruthmann - Alex Ruthmann’s Blog

30. http://www.beatechie.com/
Carol Broos - Be A Techie

31. http://musicanthology.org
Geejay Arrioloa and Jeffrey Langlois - Music Anthology

32. http://southiowamusiced.blogspot.com/
Michael Compton - Southern Iowa Music Education Network

33. http://qachsband.edublogs.org/
Eric Wright - QACHS’s Band Blog

34. http://alleyjazz13.wordpress.com/
Alison Hulihan - Marching Music

35. http://rogerwhaley.blogspot.com
Roger Whaley - The BandEd ToolShed

36. http://mgrondin.edublogs.org
Martha Grondin - Artful, Tuneful, Beatful

37. http://percussioneducationonline.com
Kevin Tuck - Percussion Education Online

38. http://www.musicteachersblog.com
Janice Tuck - The Music Teacher’s Blog

39. http://bnceducation.blogspot.com
Steve Raybould, Kriston Feldpausch - Band and Chorus PMS/PJHS

40. http://musicedshare.wordpress.com
Kyle Krstolic - Music Education Share

41. http://musicedforall.blogspot.com
Dan Leeman - Music Education for All

42. http://amymburns.musiced.net
Amy Burns - Elementary Music/Music Technology

43. http://www.music.erinnwrobel.com
Erinn Wrobel - Notes From The Mitten

44. http://dougbutchy.wordpress.com
Doug Butchy - Confessions of a Band Director

45. http://studiobeemusic.com/mutech
Rich Blenkinsopp - Studiobee Music

46. http://musicmiddleschoolandweb20.blogspot.com/
Susan Hurst - Music, Middle School and Web 2.0

47. http://www.kirki.co.uk
Dr. Phil Kirkman - Music Education and Technology Blog

48. http://tufsdblogs.org/winze
Ann Winze - WI Orchestra

49. http://thirddivision.org
David DeVoto - Third Division

50. http://collaborativepiano.blogspot.com
Dr. Chris Foley - The Collaborative Piano Blog

51. http://bandguys.wordpress.com
Matthew Pelandina and Mike Lewis - The BandGuys’ blog

52. http://tanbur.wordpress.com
David French - The Music Education Blogspot

53. http://musicteachers911.blogspot.com
Larry Marra - Music Teachers 911

54. http://www.pianoteacherblog.com
Rebecca Brown - Piano Teacher’s Retreat

55. http://wordtogo.wordpress.com
Steve Mugglin - Creativity and Songwriting in Music Education

56. http://totalmusiceducation.blogspot.com
Greg Albing - Total Music Education

57. http://teachingmusicbs.com
Ben Baker - Teaching Music

58. http://susanadavis.blogspot.com/
Susan Davis - Music Technology Musings

59. http://www.howtopractise.com (yes it’s letter “s”; it’s spelt in British spelling)
Mike Saville - How To Practise

60. http://www.free2create.com/blog
Valerie Kampmeier - Free 2 Create

61. http://musicmattersblog.com
Natalie Wickham - Music Matters Blog

62. http://theresawhite.edublogs.org
Theresa White - Education In Music

63. http://africlassical.blogspot.com
William Zick - Africlassical

64. http://discoverlearnplay.blogspot.com
Eugene Cantera - Discover, Learn, Play (MusickED.com’s Blog)

65. http://mstrismusic.com
Ms. Tris - MsTrisMusic.com

66. http://www.learn-theory-music.com/learn-theory-music-blog.html
Julian Partridge - Learn Theory Music Blog

67. http://www.guitarticles.net
Tennyson Williams - Guitar Articles.Net

68. http://creativekidmusic.wordpress.com
Dan Thompson - Creative Kid Music

69. http://educacionmusical.blogspot.com
Oscar - Educacion Musical (Our first ME Blog in Spanish!)

70. http://rizzrazz.vox.com/
Dr. Eric Rasmussen - Rizz’s Blog

71. http://reband.wordpress.com
Mr. ReBand

72. http://www.techtempo.com
Brenda Muench - Tech. Tempo

73. http://www.thomasjwestmusic.com/blog.htm
Thomas J. West

74. http://musictech4ed.edublogs.org
Andrew Spang - MusicTech4Ed

75. http://www.pedaplus.com/
Jon Ensminger - Pedaplus

76. http://techtoysandtunes.blogspot.com
Richard McCready - Tech Toys and Tunes

77. http://downpressup.wordpress.com
Derek - Downpressup

78. http://listenlearnmusic.com
Rachel Rambach - Listen and Learn

79. http://jazzworks.wordpress.com
Allan Perkins - Jazz Works

80. http://msgallant.edublogs.org
Alexandra Gallant - The Misadventures of a First Year Music Teacher

81. http://www.acousticpath.com/blog
Cameron Grant - Acoustic Path

82. http://musicteachercafe.viviti.com/
Scott Ashby - Music Teacher’s Cafe

83. http://www.frogstoryrecords.com/player_journal.html
Stever Carter - Frog Story Records/Player’s Journal

84. http://thirdstream.musiced.net
Cary Stewart - Third-Stream Music Education

85. http://michiganstatepianopedagogy.blogspot.com
Derek Polischuk - Michigan State Piano Pedagogy

86. http://fromthevoiceof.blogspot.com
Elizabeth McDonald - From the Voice of…

87. http://urbanmusiceducation.org
Sarah Johnston - Urban Music Education

88. http://musiced.jasoncrews.net/
Jason Crews - Music Education Resource Blog

89. http://www.classicalguitarblog.net
Christopher - Classical Guitar Blog

90. http://willie42.globalteacher.org.au/
Andrew - Split Three Ways

91. http://mjsheetmusictips.blogspot.com/
Marilyn Johnson - MJ’s Music Teaching Tips

92. http://www.musicteachershelper.com/blog/
Brandon Pearce - Music Teacher’s Helper Blog

93. http://jeane-metroyo.blogspot.com
Jeane Goforth - Scrollworks and Metropolitian Youth Orchestras

94. http://www.oparp.blogspot.com
Dr. Robert Phillips - The Opinionated Arpgeggist

95. http://www.wikyblog.com/CynthiaWunsch
Cynthia Wunsch - The Unlikely Entrepreneur (Click the “Blog” tab)

96. http://mineoladrama.blogspot.com
Joe Owens - MHS Theater

97. http://andyzweibel.com
Andy Zweibel - Music Musings and Other Randoms…

98. http://musicschoolsbc.blogspot.com/
Stephen Robb - Music Schools BC

99. http://paulbailey.us
Paul Bailey - Paul Bailey’s Blog

100. http://edubuzz.org/blogs/alancoady/
Alan Coady - Alan Coady’s Musical Blog

Programming a thematic concert for your ensemble is a quick, easy way to emphasize the bigger, overriding concepts of music for your students while giving a boost of catchiness to your concert publicity. Programming according to a theme could be geographical, historical, or musically theoretical. Planning an entire concert according to a theme does not have to be restrictive, as themes could be completely abstract….and really, three pieces out of five are enough to support your theme. Just think up a catchy title for your musical evening, have a poster contest among your students, and get back to studying those scores. Try these easy (and possibly educational) themes for your Spring Concert:

Time periods: Renaissance, Romantic or Contemporary
all music from one time period, and/or a work based on a period theme. Better yet, teach your ensemble (and your audience) what is it as well as what it isn’t by playing the original and the adaptation back to back.

Journey Through Time
Play one piece from each of the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Twentieth Century.

Trinity or Attack of the Killer Threes or Triple Play
one work has three flats, one work has three movements, one work has three beats to the measure, one work is a triple-concerto.

Choose a country
Spain, Ireland, Greece, Russia, and Mexico all have significant bodies of literature for American wind band composed about them or from their folk songs. (I can’t say enough about Anne McGinty’s Greek Folk Trilogy or about Brian Balmages Images of Ireland for young band). The continent of Africa has been a subject of fascination for composers, even if it is not a country. I hope to see more works drawing on cultures of the Middle East, the Far East and authentic (artistic) uses of Latin American themes in the next ten years.

Antithesis or Opposing Forces
Include something antiphonic or polychoral, such as from Renaissance Set 1 collection edited by Mark Scatterday; a work for soloist and band; a work that features your percussion section; pair up one work featuring Baroque basso continuo with another work built on a jazz walking bass line; play a superhero movie theme such as Batman, Spiderman, or Superman; and for the grand finale, “bring balance to the force” with Convergence by Roland Barrett.

Life Cycles or Rebirth or Renaissance or New Beginnings
Include the version of Arirang, the famous Korean folk melody which translates as ‘new beginnings’, which best fits your ensemble’s needs, or even perform two contrasting settings of the theme; include the version of Stravinsky’s “Finale” from The Firebird which best fits your band; include a piece from the Renaissance; and for advanced bands, do yourself a favor and check out Steven Reinecke’s Rise of the Firebird.
Antiphony Concert Poster