It's Really February?

Well the post below is the February Blog Carnival so I guess it must be true. I can't tell you how quickly January came and went. I really enjoyed the challenges of January after the LONG break. Wright State takes a break from Thanksgiving to New Years, so other than the basketball games I didn't have a whole lot going on. Then these three events hit!

Conducting the Fight Song after the Win over Butler

First the biggest weekend(so far) of college basketball where we played Valpo and Butler on our home court. Have I mentioned that I love being the Athletic Band Director for a Div I basketball team? How many grad students get that wonderful opportunity? Anyway we split the weekend losing to Valpo and beating Butler. The win against conference rivals, Butler was something I'll remember. We combined both bands and had almost 70 members all in uniform, playing and cheering all night. There were just 9,000 fans in attendance. The feeling of raising my hands for the Star Spangled Banner and having all those people come to their feet was amazing. The whole game was electric really, all the way down to the Vaughn Duggins buzzer beater and the crowd rushing the court. I hope an NCAA or NIT bid is on the way...I would love to take my band on that adventure. I have such a vision for where I can take this group in my two year appointment.

Dr. Booth, Myself, and Professor Ponto 

Then we had Tri-State Honor Band. I had been putting the details of the honor band in place since October, but this weekend it all came together. Professor Robert Ponto was in From Oregon to work with kids from Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio on our campus. I loved hanging with the guest conductor and organizing the event as well as playing for the HS kids in the Wind Symphony. Dr. Booth may call me a nerd, but I'm glad I'm detailed, the whole thing seemed to go off without a hitch. I'm working on making a handbook to TSHB to pass down after next year.

After TSHB 2011 was capped off by a 5AM drive with Ponto to the airport, I focused on IMEA. The return to Illinois to present a clinic with Keith Ozsvath was great. We spoke to a room of fellow music educators about how to use Twitter and Facebook to have your own 24/7 Professional Development. Not everyone got into it, remember that "acquaintance" lady? Overall, the reception was great and I need to start looking into what I am going to propose for next year. It's like an addiction, I just can't get enough time to praise the use of technology to make us better teachers. Of course the other side is I got to go to all kinds of clinics and learn for myself. I really loved two of the clinics that had demonstration bands, one about new approaches to ensemble tuning, and the other about teaching musicality and expression. Inspiring! Seeing friends with Jes was a lot fun and it makes me wonder where will land after these couple of years in Ohio. What should I propose for the session next year? Ideas?

In personal news. The wedding train is chugging along thanks to my diligent future wife. She cuts through her to do list like none other. We've done engagement photos, bought her band, ordered invitations in the last month. I'm sure there's more, but that's what comes to mind. Oh and I've got the website up and running.

It's all great and I've enjoyed taking a bit of time this evening to put it together. Next week is a conducting workshop with Dr. Stephen Davis from UMKC at Ball State with Dr. Thomas Caneva. Better get back to studying my Holst and Dello Joio scores! Have a great night and make sure to share your blogs with me. I'd love to read what's going on out there.

Music Education Blog Carnival- February 2011 Edition

Welcome to my first Music Education Blog Carnival

Following a month filled with activity in the field of music education. I got some great article submissions from teachers all over the world. Between hosting an honor band, filling in as the WSU Wind Symphony conductor, running my pep band, and presenting at IMEA I was engulfed in music this past month! I was glad to have @PisanoJM cheering me on and sending a lot of "Retweets" to help put this together.

Hopefully you'll find some new folks in here and maybe even a new blog to add to your RSS feed. I have also included their twitter usernames, get on twitter and join our conversation! Without further ado, please enjoy your Carnival!

Music Advocacy

Dr. Joseph Pisano(@PisanoJM), TI:ME 2011 Teacher of the Year, presents MMC Keynote: The New Relevance Of Music Educators posted at Music, Technology and Education: Mustech.net - Dr. Pisano's blog post includes his PowerPoint titled 21st Century Skills - The New Relevance of Music Educators from his recent presentation at the Michigan Music Conference."

David Ahrens(@MrAhrens) presents Music Life Lesson #5: Getting Along posted at Sound Education - Music teaches us more than how to play or sing. The life skills taught through music are invaluable. This is #5 in a series of posts by Mr. Ahrens about what else music teaches and his reflections on a #MusEdChat discussion on the topic.



Professional Development


Keith Ozsvath(@band_techie) presents Part I - IMEA Recap: Using Facebook for Professional Development posted at Teaching & Technology [in music]Keith and I presented a session on "24/7 Professional Development, Creating a PLN" at IMEA this past week. Here he has outlined the first part of our presentation, Parts 2 and 3 to follow!


Amy Cook presents When Does Technology Work for K12 Teachers? - posted at Information Technology DegreeThis article includes link to discussion about making technology "work" for teachers and dispelling myths about technology in a study done by Walden University.



Music Education


Yoon Soo Lim (@DoremiGirl) presents Visiting Artist Week: Learning from Other Teachers posted at sing imagination - What a great idea! This post explores what both students(and teacher) learned by bringing professional artists into school.

Nick Jaworski(@JaworskiMusic) presents Why is it that the music we prefer to listen to is so vastly different from the music we teach our students? | posted at Moving Forward With Music (Nick Jaworski) - "This article attempts to examine the discrepancy between the music that music education undergraduates listen to and the music that they are expected to teach when they get into the professional world. By trying to understand our future teachers' own tastes, maybe the profession can start to ask the necessary questions about what music should be taught within the classroom." - Nick Jaworski. Personally, I like the nerdy stuff I am "supposed" to teach...then again Celine Dion is ok too :)


Samuel Wright(@WrightStufMusic) presents Making Music Fun posted at Wright-Stuff Music - this is a collection of links for all things fun, musical, interactive and wizbang(his words, not mine) on the internet. It is technological, but also pedagogical and useful in performance. Great for early learning to junior high classes.


Elizabeth Heist(@Heistes) presents Dealing with Instrumentation in Ensembles posted at Music Education Highlights from an Undergrad - Miss Heist lists resources to help with instrumentation issues of school band programs. She is a student teacher, currently dealing with this issue in her co-op school's program.


Thomas J. West(@thomasjwest) presents Teaching Expressive Music Making - Beyond The Black Dots - Thomas J. West Music posted at Thomas J. West Music - Mr. West discusses music beyond the page. He says, "One of the most challenging things to do in teaching music is guiding students towards performing music expressively. Performing music is such an intricate and complex process, or is it? Basic music expression is really quite natural and fundamental to humans. As the guitar teacher at my school is fond of telling his students, "Music is about communication.""


Emily Farrell(@EmilyRFarrell) presents A Percussion Discussion posted at Waiting For a Story - A humorous and very honest look about the need to really teach percussion as a opposed to just letting them "Hit what they want. When they want. How they want."


Brandt Schneider(@BrandtSchnieder) presents Who is in your Top Ten? posted at Things To Come - "Is there agreement on what artists we should teach?" Probably not. Go weigh in on Mr. Schneider's post that was started by a NY times series.


@jmonteo presents Componiendo JUNTOS posted at Componiendo JUNTOS - "Composing together. A Spanish collaborative project to compose a song with all the schools who want to participate." Completely in Spanish.


Samuel Wright(@WrightStufMusic) presents Programmatic Learning ? Pictures @ an Exhibition posted at Wright-Stuff Music - This is a lesson you can take out of Mr. Wright's playbook. He says, "A small but useful AIR application to get students listening, comparing, score reading and analysing the music of Mussorgsky. Firstly as orchestrated by Ravel and then by Emerson Lake and Palmer."

I hope you enjoy your monthly ME Blog Carnival. From here I turn it over to the March Host, Miss Justine Dolorfino(@Justine_Robin). You can submit your blog article for her edition of Music Education Blog Carnival by using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Share

Next up on my blog will be some reflection articles about this past few weeks! Stay warm out there if you're being affected by these big storms across the US!