MusTech.Net!

The following was a collaborative effort and appeared in the program of the 12th Annual Mercer Mustang Band Show on Saturday, September 8, 2007.  The article was written by Travis J. Weller (Band Director, Mercer High School) and Michelle Morris (Assistant Director, Mercer High School).

Travis and Michelle wrote about a number of extremely relevant and timely questions, especially with regard to arts in the schools.  I was literally taken aback when I saw something as bold and thought provoking as the contents of this article emblazoned on the front two pages of their band program for the show.

This was a great way to reach the hundreds if not 1000+ people that were at the show.  I was talking with Travis last year at a music conference about that very idea and it was great to see it in action.  I think there is a little room in every program that we put out for our programs for advocacy items like this (not everyone has to be as detailed as this! ). 

If you are looking for advocacy materials for music programs, look no farther than http://supportmusic.com and you can read our advocacy articles here at mustech.net!

PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ABOUT THIS WITH US AND TRAVIS BY COMMENTING ON THIS ARTICLE BELOW.

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As a teacher, it is part of my job to provide students with assignments that I feel will benefit them by providing them development of and practice with skills that they will need in the future.  I have one-such assignment in mind tonight, but the students will not be able to complete this by themselves – they need your help and your voices.  As you sit here tonight, I am presenting to you (the audience) a two-fold assignment.  First, I want you to decide if the students that you will see before you on the field tonight are successful.  I’m not just talking about every pitch being perfectly in tune and every person hitting their mark at precisely the right time (although these certainly can be markers of a successful marching band program).  What I am talking about is, are these students truly successful?  Are they successful in their schools, are they successful in their communities, are they successful as the future of America?  The second part of your assignment is to decide how important you think it is for schools to provide students the chance to be successful, both currently and in the future.

Many school administrators, pressured by state and federal mandates to produce improvement in test scores, have lost sight of the importance of the arts – particularly a music education program – within the total curriculum of a school.  Wanting their schools to produce higher scores, some community members have bought in to the belief that the arts should be pushed aside in order to provide more test-preparation instruction.  What these people have forgotten in the midst of this deluge of data, paperwork, and preparations for a particular mode of testing is that not every student is destined to become the next Shakespeare or Einstein.  While language and math skills are certainly important to the current and future well-being of every student in our society, they must not be looked at as being the only important skills that students must acquire.

Some students are born to be the next Picasso or the next Beethoven – no less famous or no less important than the next Shakespeare or Einstein, but requiring a different skill set.  We do these students a great disservice when we do not properly prepare them for their future.  Without the proper cultivation of these students’ submerged talents, the masterpieces of the future may never emerge.  These students may choose careers in a number of other fields and may do a great job at performing their job tasks – but if they are not performing in the job in which their talents could be used best if cultivated properly and in which they would enjoy their work the most (leading to enthusiasm in the workplace, excellent work ethic, compassion/empathy for co-workers, and a number of other positive workplace atmosphere qualities), are they really truly successful in their careers?  In other words, if they are only in a career because lacking a well-rounded education forced them to choose from a limited number of career possibilities, are they really benefiting society to the best of their abilities?

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MENC has posted this interesting idea/concept in the dusty hollows of their technology bulletin board/discussion forum:

Posted by MENC Staff on August 09, 2007 at 16:19:25:

Help Make Music Education Part of the National Debate
on the Future of America in ’08!

MENC is asking all 2008 presidential candidates to tell us what they would do to support music education if elected. The September 17 CNN/YouTube Republican debate gives you a unique opportunity to participate in this effort. Create a video asking the candidates how they would support school music — and you could see it broadcast and answered on live TV!

YouTube encourages original submissions! Use details from your own experience in the classroom or in training, from participating in the World’s Largest Concert, the National Anthem Project, or All-State Festivals, from the many studies about the benefits of music education (www.menc.org/facts) … or whatever creative idea you think will get the attention of moderator Anderson Cooper.

When you have posted your video, please contact HannahS@menc.org so that MENC can track and view your submission.

Please forward this message to colleagues, music students, your own kids! The more submissions, the more likely music education is to be addressed during the debate.

For more information including submission guidelines, visit http://www.youtube.com/debates . Entry deadline: September 16, 2007.

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AN URGENT CALL: HELP ME COMPLETE THIS LIST! 

Well, I have to tell you I honestly tried to put together this list but… we’re awful as music educators getting the word out about our blogs.   There are only 133 out of 70+million blogs in the world labeled as “music education” in Technorati.  Of those 133, about half of them are “fake” blogs or “splogs” and have nothing to do with music education. So, graciously, taking the the number “66″ for real “music education blogs”, we find that those listed on Technorati make up a mere .00000008% of the blogs in the world. Woot!

Interestingly enough, I started this topic with the idea of only considering Music Education blogs.  I couldn’t find enough relevant blogs within the results while searching for the term “Music Education” so I added “Music Technology” to the ”mix” and expanded the search.  I still couldn’t fill the list! 

Now… I know that there are a few good music education blogs that I have talked about on this site that I can not find listed with Technorati (maybe some of you don’t know about it?).  In order to find the top ranked music education blogs for this article,  I used the advance search function within Technorati and searched for they keywords: “music education”, “music technology, and music, education and technology.  The results of the searches and my “parsing” will be listed toward the end of this post.

Why use Technorati as a benchmark?

Technorati is an extremely important search engine and ranking system in the blog world.  It can be source of much targeted traffic to our blogs.  If you have a great music blog and it is not listed at Technorati, you are missing a whole lot of people and traffic to your blog.

In the defense of some really great “music technology” blogs that are found in Technorati but are blogs that I did not count toward this list -I can tell you that I didn’t count many of the “music technology” blogs because there are two types of thoughts that can be contrived when thinking about the term “music technology”…  I did not include “music technology” blogs that were specifically about gear, software, audio and related hardware in this list.  I included the “music technology” blogs that deal with using ”music technology” in education and in the classrooms, etc.

A plea for all of the music education and technology bloggers out there:

So, I’m making this plea again, if you have a blog (not a website) about music education or music technology and feel that your blog is active enough to be included in this list (which I’m going to update in about two months), please do the following things:

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Every year I have between five and eight trumpeters play for Baccalaureate and Commencement.  The trumpet fanfares add a regal mood and “air of importance” to the events that not only look and sound nice, but also is a visual boon for the music department. 

Many high schools and colleges have the traditional concert band or wind ensemble play for commencement.  Some areas may have an organ or even a CD (not anyone’s first choice) play.  Regardless of what you may do, it is a relatively easy thing to get a cohort of trumpet players together to do this and it adds a special flavor to the event(s).

My recipe for the trumpeters at our Commencement and Baccalaureate:

First, early on, I stress the importance to the undergraduates of performing for the seniors, creating a seriousness about the importance of the fanfare group.  I talk about how they will appreciate the fanfares when it’s their turn to “walk”.  I also have the advantage of talking about the time-honored tradition of this, as Dr. Edwin Arnold started this over thirty years ago at Grove City College!

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