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Mustech.net and the DigitalMusicEducator.wordpress.com have started a campaign to have 100 Music Educators blogging about music, education, and technology by January of 2009. We are inviting you to join our campaign and become an active blogger! This truly is the ground-floor of what IS the next wave of educational communication and thought/idea sharing for our fields (and every other one!).

There are a number of reasons that an educator will blog:

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Since there was so much interest in my post about August Rush, I decided to interview two of my best students in the “Alternative Music” class using Pod-o-Matic, the same service that Joe and Darren use for their excellent podcast.  I hope that you enjoy the podcast as much as I enjoyed making it- a truly remarkable, real “moment” with my students.  The podcast also features the song that they are working on as a project in the class.  If you are so inclined, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode, their music, or the idea in general of a class of this sort.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking the link below:

http://nphsperformingarts.podOmatic.com

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Our we wasting a time with music advocacy and the current state of music education?  I posted a comment on Travis Weller’s site:  Composing Like Mad on his article entitled “At 3:15 p.m., class is just beginning…” .  Jim Plamondon makes the argument and comments that “people increasingly see music education as a bad investment, relatively speaking… and they might be right”.   He further states (within the context of his comment) that “the effort currently being expended on music education advocacy is wasted…”

In fairness to Jim, he has been working on a new type of keyboard that allows you to enter music notes in pattern based way that allows for an easier transfer of
“finger memory” to different keys when running scales and playing chords (not unlike guitarists and the patterns on strings) and offers his own solutions as to how to get a better “return on our investment” as educators.   I have to read more about what he is trying to accomplish before I can comment on his device and solution with any type of well-thought meaning.

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On Monday we took the Grove City College Marching Wolverine Band to one of the many festivals that we attend each year.  This was not a festival that we have attended in the past.  Typically, the band heads south from GCC and attends many of the bigger Pittsburgh area festivals and marching shows.  On Monday, we headed east to the Allegheny-Clarion Valley school district.

It was great to arrive at Allegheny-Clarion High school and see the rural school setting.  It’s nestled in a valley between and among the many hills of the area.   The football field laid un-surrounded by fences, open and directly in front of the school.   As a matter of fact there weren’t any bleachers.  But, there were hundreds of people who brought their lawn chairs and sprawled out over every inch of the low rise hill on the home side of the field.

There were a number of high school bands at the festival that ranged in size from just over twenty to a little less than a hundred.  They were smaller sized bands most likely due to the location and population of their school districts.  They played their hearts out and did a fine job that night.

When our band played, “we brought the house down”.   It was great to be appreciated that night by all that were involved and attending the show but, the thing that impressed me most was afterward, when we began to receive emails about our performance. These came not only from the host of the show but also from the people in attendance…the emails arrived that very night. 

It was extremely encouraging to receive such an onslaught of emails.  I’m not sure who or what caused this to happen, but we’ve never had such a “day after response” of feedback.  This made me think a little bit more about how much great events like this are “taken for granted” and can be quickly forgotten and under-appreciated the moment they are finished…

When you stop to think about the magnitude of what must be accomplished to have a band festival -the logistics are staggering.  By the time the host gets the facility scheduled and staffed on the day of the event, has the ticket and concession stand stocked and operating, deploys the traffic control measures, sets up the sound system, procures the seating assignments, prepares the award ceremonies, readies the restrooms and discovers  the ”nack” of being a meteorologist, they might have al little time to prepare their own band!  This list doesn’t even account for the amount of prepartions that the attending directors and band members must make in order to even be at the event (think about the time it takes to simply coordinate and acquire the 20+ buses that will be converging at the event). 

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