moving forward with music.

I just wanted to let my happy blog visitors to know that the book is a go! Between comments I received via email, blog comments, Facebook, Twitter, publisher inquiries, and just the constant traffic that my blog receives for music appreciation material, I know this is the right thing to do.

I’m moving along very briskly (I’ve got a lot of material to draw from) and I’m looking to have the book out in both print and Kindle formats before December 2012 - just in time for those second semester Music Appreciation classes!

To make sure that you get updated on when the book comes out, signup for the email list. I promise I won’t sell your information or even harass you about anything else. I’ll just make you aware when the book is available.

Click here to signup for the email list!

Also, I’ve started to offer my services as a consultant to teachers and schools who are looking to design progressive music curricula for their school. I’ll write more about it as it takes more shape, but if you’re looking for some assistance, contact me here. 

If you like some of my ideas and want to help support me as I continue to write, think, and refine, then… you should consider getting the book when it comes out! 

Update (9/11/12):

After receiving a lot of feedback from a variety of places, I have already started writing the book. My goal is to have it available in paperback and Kindle versions by December 2012, just in time for those spring semester Music Appreciation courses! To get notified via email when the book is available, click HERE. (I promise I won’t spam you or anything crazy.)

Question:

If I wrote a book providing ideas and resources to teach a Music Appreciation course, would anybody care/plunk down $10-$20 bucks for it?

Let’s go back in time a little:

Two years ago:

I wrote a post with the title, “What Should We Teaching in a Music Appreciation Class?” It’s not a particularly well-written post, it’s long and short of specifics, but I think my passion for the topic comes through. 

Today:

That little post has EASILY become my most read article and the blog has been visited more this month than at any point in the previous two years (which is crazy to me since I’m way behind on updates). In fact, the Appreciation post has been accessed more times than my Identity post, my cartoon, or the front page of my blog! Additionally, I consistently receive emails from people who are looking for more specifics about some of the ideas I outlined in the post. 

Also, through my blog and my presentations, I have been approached by a major music education publisher about writing a book or two. That, of course, is very flattering!

So, after finishing my Master’s degree and having some time on my hands, here’s the question: 

If I wrote a book providing ideas and resources to teach a Music Appreciation course, would anybody care/plunk down $10-$20 bucks for it?

I’ve got a LOT to share, describe, and discuss in a book - ideas I haven’t written about on the blog. I feel that it would be a product that would be really useful and I’d love to share it, but time is always difficult to come by, right? (Even though I have more than maybe I’d like right now.) 

Additionally, in our current economic climate, many teachers find themselves looking for that other class they can teach that will engage their students. I believe that a modernized music appreciation course would be the way to go. 

Anyway, I’m throwing it out there. If you’d be interested (or know somebody who would be), just drop me a quick comment that says, “I would be interested!” If you have any more words of encouragement for me, I’ll gladly accept those as well.

(Click HERE and scroll down to the comments if you are seeing this on the main page.)

(I PROMISE PROMISE I have some fun posts coming up. I just need to get over my need to make “THE PERFECT POST”.)

Subtitle: And what does that mean for our profession?

As far as I’m concerned, no discussion about the role of technology in our modern music classrooms can be complete without a discussion about the types of music that are worth our attention. Should we only be teaching traditional band, choir, and orchestra literature to our students or is there a place for rock, hip-hop, or techno? It shouldn’t be a surprise to readers of my blog that I believe that we are doing a disservice both to our kids and to our profession by continually ignoring how powerful a study of any popular genre can be. (Refer to this post or this post to hear more about that. OR, if you will be at IMEA in Peoria, IL this year, come check out my clinic!).

With my interest in popular genres in the music classroom, I wanted to ask my undergraduate students in the Introduction to Music Education Technology classes that I teach about their favorite artists. What, exactly, is the music that excited our future music educators? In order to find that out, I asked each of them to simply “Name [their] five favorite musical artists.” I ended up with 103 responses because a few students couldn’t keep their number down to five. After collecting the responses, I categorized each response into one of three genres: classical, jazz, or other. Here is what I came up with:

When asked to name a favorite musical artist, only 28% of responses were in a genre that is traditionally taught in our public institutions (classical, jazz). That means that 72% of all responses were in genres that are not traditionally covered in a standard music curriculum (pop, rock, hip-hop, musical theater). If a school provides little-to-no exposure to jazz, the number of genres that aren’t taught in schools jumps to 85%.

(See below the break for more study results and a discussion of what this means.)

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“We cast this message into the cosmos… If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours… This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe.” - President Jimmy Carter’s message on the Voyager spacecraft.

What your students will learn about/investigate/create:

• The Golden Record that was placed on both Voyager Spacecrafts.
• The process and challenges of representing all of humanity through sound.
• A discussion of how best to transfer this information to beings in other galaxies.
• An opportunity to make their own “Golden Record” (of sorts).

I have felt particularly drawn towards the Voyager satellites ever since I was little. I remember a television special that was celebrating the fact that the satellites were leaving our solar system - making them 2 of only 4 man-made devices that have done so. I vividly recall feeling sad for the crafts - they must feel so alone floating through the universe! Despite being launched 5 years after the first of the Pioneer spacecraft, Voyager 1 is the furthest object away from Earth that has been made by a human. It will continue to hold that record until humans find a faster way to travel through space. Hearing that fact brings back my feelings of loneliness for Voyager. I definitely feel more sad for Voyager than excited about what it represents.

Since passing Pluto, our Voyager crafts are not headed anywhere specific. It will be a long time before anybody might come upon them.

“The record is constructed of gold-plated copper. There is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238 electroplated on the record’s cover. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.51 billion years. It is possible that a civilization that encounters the record will be able to use the ratio of remaining uranium to daughter elements to determine the age of the record.”

Apparently, in about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will be 1.6 light years away from ” AC+79 3888 in the Ophiuchus constellation” (Thanks, Wikipedia!). The spacecraft might last 1 BILLION years - a number well beyond our own planet’s lifetime. Think about that for a moment.

How is this related to music?

(See below the break for more info, including the audio from the record and a RadioLab episode!)

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UPDATE (9/12/12): New Book and Consulting!

Due to high demand, I am currently working on a new book about how to design and teach a modern and relevant music appreciation class. Click HERE and add your email so that you can be the first to know when the book is available. It should be out before the end of 2012! (I promise, no spam will be sent to you!)

Also, I have started to formalize the consulting I’ve been doing over the last couple of years. if you’re looking for a way to add interesting courses to your middle and high school offerings, please contact me HERE. I am available for curriculum writing, presentations, and anything else you or your district might need.

Note: The post below includes a little background story on how I got to some of the conclusions you will see on this blog. If you don’t care about the “how” (or don’t like stories), here are the main points that are outlined below:

1. It seems that most Music Appreciation classes are actually Music History classes.
2. Don’t call it Music Appreciation if you’re really going to teach Music History.
3. Music Appreciation should value the music that our students listen to.
4. Ditch the chronological teaching of music and focus on broader units.
5. By expanding the focus on music appreciation, we can make courses like these more interesting to our student populations which will help to grow our music programs.

Keep reading below the break…

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