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.

The Virtual Podium is Hosting the Music Education Carnival this Month!

I'm proud to present the February 2011 edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival here at The Virtual Podium!

It's exciting to be hosting this months Music Education Blog Carnival on my blog. It's such a big deal I even rolled out a new header for everyone! We are now accepting submissions for the upcoming Music Education Blog Carnival. With so many professional development things happening the upcoming weeks, this is the perfect time to get involved and keep it going right into February.

Please click here to be automatically sent to our Music Education Carnival submission page.

Who came up with this great idea?
The Music Education Blog Carnival was created and is maintained by Dr. Joseph Pisano of
MusTech.net and Joel of SoYouWantToTeach.com in order to promote the great works being done
by Music Education Bloggers across the Internet and to provide useful Music Education related
information into the Internet “mainstream” quickly.

The Music Education Blog Carnival is published on the 1st of every month and is a recognized
member of the communities of blogs as indexed by BlogCarnival.com. All writings submitted to the
Music Education Blog Carnival are examined to ensure that they are valid, interesting, and related
to the topic of Music Education.

What is a Blog Carnival?
A Blog Carnival is way to extend and/or create a community of bloggers (and readers) that have
great things to say about a particular topic… in our case, Music Education. I know it's been help to this very blog.
A Blog Carnival functions as a mini-magazine or an online journal that is focused around a particular topic and is created by experts in the online community that submit their entries for inclusion. All entries are reviewed, each month, by the host to make sure that they are well-written, timely, topic-related, and of interest to the Blog Carnival’s readership.

Can I participate in this Carnival?
Anyone that has an online article or post, new or old, that has something positive to contribute to the topic of Music Education. Again, anyone may submit topic-related articles to the carnival; however, not all submissions may be included in the monthly edition.

How do I submit my article/blog post?
The online process is actually very easy. The Blog Carnival is being organized by http://blogcarnival.com and you can find the direct Music Education Submittal Page by following this link, http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_4443.html

When can I submit?
Anytime you're feeling it! Just head to the Music Education Submittal page!

I look forward to reading your submissions, share this with friends/colleagues, and feel to check out the rest of my blog.

Are We Successful Teachers?

Last week's #MusEdChat on Twitter focused on what makes a music teacher successful. We discovered the answer is varied depending on the perspective of parents, students, administrators, and ourselves. I always love these chats and I can't wait for the next one. They always make me think a little deeper. It's not talk about philosophy instead of just pedagogy. Honestly, I think more deeply about pedagogy most of the time.

Anyway, we tweeted about all these different groups. We talked of how sometimes parents just want it to be fun for their kids. I spoke about the idea of teaching parents during the school concert. An Informance instead of a Performance if you will. Teachers all view their own success very differently, some more noble than others. I wish I was more noble actually...and then bringing up administrators always starts an uproar.

The most important group for me is the students. Sure, I want to myself and my peers to view me as successful. I want the administrators and parents to respect what I do. However, if they students don't see me as successful, what kind of leader or teacher am I? I'm not a clown to entertain them, but I am there to be a counselor, their musicality leader, an explorer, a knowledge giver as well as seeker, and many other things.

Since I let me former students find me on Facebook, I put up a post asking what makes a successful teacher? I was impressed that a few took the time to tell me. Even more impressed that one(who is a history ed major now) sent me a paper he wrote for class. So here are some response excerpts below. What do your kids think?


"I feel a music teacher should be judged on his musicianship and how he uses it to improve his students' musicianship. The teachers who go out of their way and use their time to help a student in need or a student who just wants to be the best is always a teacher I would choose. Also I feel that teacher should push his students to their greatest potential and not give up on any student because he, the teacher, doesn't feel the student has the capablilties to improve or expand. Lastly and most importantly: I feel a music teacher should have a great love for all musics and children or teens (whatever age group) he is working with and should accept any student, no matter their skill level, who comes to him with an intrest in music and accept that student with open arms."


"Have fun and being able to connect with the students and just lay back and have a blast playing!"


"Discipline is extremely important because you also earn respect from your students. And strong leadership skills will tell students that you are the one in charge-not them."


"I think its a combination of two things, character and wisdom. Students won't respect a teacher unless they see something there to respect, if you know your stuff and your able to portray that knowledge in an interesting way I think you've got it made. I know that if I have a professor that is more knowedgeable about music than I could ever hope to be and that professor can show that through his conducting, his assistance with different instruments, personal accounts, and on a one on one basis that is the best teacher I can get. And I would hope that, at least on a collegiate level, that respect would counter the need for discipline."


"talking and getting to know your students. that way you know and understand what drives them to work hard and improve."


"...seemingly in constant motion with one thing or another going. ..Very early on in my education, I was inspired by my teachers. I admired their work ethic and their ability to make me enjoy learning. That was quite an accomplishment with my case, for I was not too interested in learning at that time. "

I hope those first couple of classes of mine, the grads of 08-10 continue to think as well as post goofy videos on FB. :)

Long Time, No See

Hello Blogosphere, it's been awhile.

I always get myself excited to blog and then life gets in this way. Now I feel like I have reason to blog, that's not just purely for my own archives. I've locked on to to Twitter and it's given me an instant connection to around 80 educator all over the globe. I'm serious this time(and with summer coming up it should be easier) to any of you who find this I'm looking forward to reading comments and adding your blogs to my reader.

So here's the reasons I've been so absent. I will go into more detail when break starts, especially about future plans as they unfold.

In the next few days I will finish my year at Schuyler-Industry. I know it was a short-lived, but I learned a lot about myself and where I want to go. I think I did a fair job of helping some young musicians attain some lofty goals as well(middle schoolers knowing all 12 major scales in a little rural school!) I'm not sad to be going just because things are looking so bright.

I'm leaving to attend Wright State University to earn my Master of Music degree in Wind Conducting with Dr. David Booth. While I'm there I get to earn my assistantship(full tuition and stipend) by serving as Athletic Band Director, teaching a jazz history course, and being the assistant conductor for the Wind Symphony and Chamber Winds. In addition to that I emailed some area band directors about helping with marching band and the response was great. A few schools were interested in my help, but I never would imagined getting a spot on my "Dream Team". I get to help at Centerville High School with the CHS Jazz Band. Earning a conducting degree in a great midwest town while staffing with one of the best marching bands in the country. Oh I'm all smiles here!

I also spent the last 6 weeks working as the Music Director for Community Players production of "The Producers" by Mel Brooks. As you know musicals take a ton of time, to make matters worse the show went up in a town 93 miles from where I work. I know, it was not the best judgement to take on the show, but they needed someone and I got to work with some of my good friends in Bloomington/Normal. Not to mention my lovely fiancee was a featured dancer and I got to watch her on the monitor every night. It was a hit, I've never heard so many good things about the orchestra. Since we were hidden in the back and piped through the speakers some patrons thought we were a CD. I take it as a compliment to the pit!

Tonight is #musedchat and I have a class coming up. Today we are playing "May Madness" we have a scale challenge bracket and we're going head to head to see who's the scale master today!

Aggregators?

I'm trying to figure out RSS feeds. I started reading about them this morning because I'm currently trying to follow too many things! I know I'm really late to the game here so if anyone has advice please post in the comments or find me, KFreesen on Twitter.

I read about web-based vs. app based and went the web route because I'm on different machines all the time. School, home, etc...but I also wanted something I could get on my smartphone. I ended up going with Bloglines service. It says I can get it mobile and that I can link news, blogs, whatever so I'm going to spend the next half an hour playing with it.

I think the button below will create a feed to this blog...Like I said just playing with it today as school days wind down with many trips and parties.

Twitter

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question.

If any of you out there have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Send me a comment about it. I'm thinking about joining, but I don't need another reason to be obsessed with my Blackberry!

I want to hear about if it's a valuable thing for an educator.

Oh and can you have to accounts, like a band account for your group so you can instantly communicate with parents and students and a personal account?

Any help is appreciated keep pushing through. I know most of us are almost to the end of the year!