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Aug. 13 2020

NAfME NEWS

State Advocacy Leadership Forces: A new state trend

By Matt Barusch, NAfME State Advocacy Engagement Manager

I have worked with many states throughout the past year, and I’ve seen all of them do incredible work. At some point, most MEAs have asked this question: “What can we do to make our members and our association proactive advocates instead of reactive advocates?” A recent trend to establish more proactive advocacy is the creation of state-based Advocacy Leadership Forces.

More than half of the 2021 GRAMMY Music Educator Award™ quarterfinalists are NAfME members

NAfME

The Recording Academy™ and GRAMMY Museum^® announced 216 quarterfinalists for the 2021 GRAMMY Music Educator Award™, and of that number, 118 are currently members of NAfME. In all, nearly 2,000 initial nominations of teachers from 199 cities were submitted. In addition to the quarterfinalists, 91 legacy applicants from 2020 will also be eligible to win the award this year. Learn which quarterfinalists are NAfME members.

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NAfME Local Advocacy Action Plan

NAfME

The NAfME Local Advocacy Action Plan offers a 10-step blueprint for creating effective advocacy initiatives. This customizable resource is intended to aid music educators and music education supporters as they seek to improve the overall condition of a music program. It offers an outline for music educators to develop a plan to provide students with high-quality music education resources.

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Call for nominations: Society for Research in Music Education Executive Committee

NAfME

The Society for Research in Music Education (SRME) is seeking nominations for vacancies on the Executive Committee of SRME. The deadline for SRME Executive Committee nominations is October 1, 2020.

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PRODUCT SHOWCASE

Private Lessons and Music Theory Online

Looking for affordable ways to keep your music students active during online learning? Sparks Creative offers private and group instrumental lessons, three different music theory courses (including AP Music Theory), and outreach activities including virtual presentations and teacher resources! All instruction is 100% online. Email or visit us @SparksCreativeInc.

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Learn about NAfME Societies and Councils

NAfME

From research and teacher education to leadership opportunities and best practices in your specific teaching area, NAfME Societies and Councils are here to help you move ahead in your music education career. NAfME Societies and Councils provide expert, committed, representative leadership for all key areas of music education.

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NAfME Collegiate members: Renew your membership now

NAfME

All NAfME collegiate memberships expired on June 30. Be sure to renew your membership right away to maintain access to NAfME benefits and resources, including online archives to five academic journals, advocacy resources, and discount registration rates to NAfME conferences. Seniors, maintain a current collegiate membership, and you could renew next year as a first-year teacher at half the full-active membership rate.

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SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT

Discounts on books for NAfME members

NAfME

NAfME books, published by Rowman & Littlefield, cover a wide range of topics: national standards, curriculum and assessment, special needs, multicultural music and curriculum, band, chorus, general music, jazz, early childhood, history, philosophy, and symposium proceedings. NAfME members receive a 25% discount when you provide your membership information.

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On-demand NAfME Academy^® webinars and journal articles for free professional development

NAfME

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, necessitating many Music Education Associations (MEAs) cancel conferences, the following professional development resources have been made available for free: five free NAfME Academy^® webinars; live Professional Learning Community webinars; and Music Educators Journal articles with successful completion of a brief quiz.

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WHAT'S NEW

Social and emotional learning and visual and performing arts

By NAfME member Edward Varner

Visual and performing arts (VPA) naturally align with established Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) goals, and arts teachers are uniquely positioned to help their students become more socially and emotionally competent while simultaneously developing the skills outlined in the VPA curriculum. Standard VPA program activities help students to better understand concepts of dedication and self-confidence.

Advising students on majoring in music

By NAfME member Lori Schwartz Reichl

As a parent and music educator, I now realize the significance of advising students and their families on options beyond high school, specifically when contemplating music as a major. This counsel should include a positive attitude and prevalent information regarding current professional trends, collegiate requirements, and preparatory practices. An overview of assorted programs, institutions, scholarships, and funding is ideal, too. A diverse perspective of the options available to a potential music major is essential to the decision-making process.

PRODUCT SHOWCASE

CREATING MUSIC

Students from any grade level or age group can enjoy making music on any size digital keyboards regardless of class schedules or facilities. A short excerpt on chording is presented from the book. Numerous examples of specific activities that can enhance general music and instrumental instruction are included. Learn more

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Earn Your Master's in Music Education

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The Musician of the Month project

By NAfME member Adam M. McLean

Whether we teach general music or performing ensembles, elementary or secondary school, vocal or instrumental music, music listening is an important part of our curricula. Music listening has many clear benefits, such as hearing musical concepts in action, developing aural acuity, emotionally connecting with powerful music, and building aspirations for future music-making. It is this last aspect that has interested me most in planning my listening selections.

Lessons from the pandemic

By NAfME member Brendan Finucane

The transition to distance learning necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic has up-ended music education. There is a widespread feeling that “all bets are off.” Curricula are in flux; there are both frustrating impossibilities, and new possibilities. Adaptive experimentation by teachers has led to a profusion of recommended new approaches and tools. Much is exciting and new, but much is unclear. What should guide our approach to September?

Making music education future-ready

Music Educators Journal, June 2020 (login required)

The arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020 has served to highlight the wide range of inequities across America’s schools. We see with sudden clarity the ways in which students from various social, economic, and cultural backgrounds experience differing degrees of access to technology, material resources, and parental availability and assistance to support their learning. The challenges faced by students with disabilities, English-language learners grappling with safety information and school materials in a second language, and students who rely on school-based mental health services, food, or other social services have also been magnified. In the face of these dark circumstances, many in our profession have exhibited a remarkable flexibility and adaptability. (To read the full article, NAfME members log in here.)

SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT

Project Stomp: Using graphic notation for effective multimodal collaborative learning

General Music Today, April 2020 (login required)

A mode is a socially and culturally shaped resource for making meaning. Examples of modes include written and oral language, visuals, audio, and gestures. In music learning, multiple modes may be used to help students develop greater musical understanding and achievement. This article details the three steps utilized in Project Stomp, a systematic pedagogical course of study that utilized multiple representational modes to engage a diverse group of secondary students in a composition- and performance-based module of study. (To read the full article, NAfME members log in here.)

Bard Conservatory Dual-Degree (BA/BM) Program

Guided by the principle that musicians should be broadly educated to achieve their greatest potential, Bard Conservatory combines rigorous conservatory training with a comprehensive liberal arts program.

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FOCUS ON COMPOSITION

A composition project for performing ensembles

By NAfME member Matthew Witt

How do you teach music composition to your performing ensembles? When everyone is focused on your ensemble’s performances, how do you make time to teach composition to each individual student? I have developed a project-based approach to fulfill this need. The project requires a fair amount of preparation ahead of time, but the invested time will serve you and your students well.

The next generation of music education in Chaska, Minnesota

By NAfME member Eric Songer

My project is to take existing music elective courses and overhaul them into courses where students perform in popular music settings such as hip hop and electronica, compose music, learn music theory and produce and record music. Through these courses, students will learn long-held music standards such as performance, listening and evaluation skills and music history.

Teaching and assessing basic musicianship with composition

By NAfME member Matt Doiron

In her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Dr. Betty Edwards defines drawing as a perceptual challenge, not a technical one, telling her readers “learning to draw is learning to see.” I would suggest that learning to compose is also a perceptual challenge, one that involves learning to hear with greater depth and recognition. Re-focusing my teaching in this direction has not only had a profound impact on my students but also on my own musicianship.

7 steps to creating an original song with your choral ensemble

By NAfME member Michele Kaschub

Creating opportunities for students to participate in composition activities as part of their choral ensemble experience: grants them access to new perspectives; furthers the growth of their overall musicianship; contributes to their understanding of artistic interpretation; and allows them to explore their creative voice in settings where they feel safe and where they find personal meaning. One way to create these opportunities is by engaging your full chorus in the creation of an original song.

Cloud-based pop music compositions open doors for students and teachers

By NAfME member Matt Warren

The rationale for teaching popular music is pretty simple; we want to prepare students for the musical world in which they are living, and popular music is the large majority of students’ musical vernacular. Composing with popular music allows students to go beyond passive listening through ear buds and become more expressive. Using popular music as a starting point is in many ways an easier transition to teaching students this skill of composing.

Informed musical understanding through composition

By NAfME member Ruth Debrot

Although music educators expect students in choral ensembles to be able to read and perform the music of others, we do not typically encourage students to compose and perform original music. Yet, as humans, every culture in the world demonstrates an innate impulse to use the language of music to express original thoughts, feelings, and ideas. In the context of 21st Century learning, students should be able to create and share music that reflects their personal interests and empowers them to become life-long musickers.

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