Field Notes on Music Teaching & Learning

Welcome to another episode of the Field Notes on Music Teaching & Learning podcast. Today’s episode is part 3 of a series I’ve been working on this spring all about how to plan and organize a musical informance. I first mentioned the idea of a musical informance in Ep. 068. An informance is basically an informal performance or an informational performance where you share insight into the music...

The birds are chirping, the first Spring flowers are popping up in the front yard, and Rory, my dog, insists on laying in the middle of the daffodil bed whenever the sun is out. These are my seasonal cues that it's time to start planning for our annual end-of-year studio recital. As the title of this episode suggests, I usually spend 3-4 months planning all the details of this event, helping my st...

I did a poll on Instagram recently to see if any of my music teacher friends had ever hosted a musical informance. A few said "yes," a few said "no," but a surprising number of respondents chose the third option: "What's an informance?" An informance is basically an informal performance or as Eastman professor Dave Headlam describes, "A performance for the information age." (source: Oxford Handboo...

This year, Rochester, NY is in the path of the total solar eclipse. There are lots of special events happening in town—the orchestra is performing a special concert, the science museum is hosting a festival, and the schools are giving everyone the day off to experience this historical event. As I looked ahead at this year, I thought it might be fun to plan a special event of our own to mark this o...

"It feels almost like if we don't document it, did it happen? And I need proof that it did." I was listening to an interview with Erin Napier of Home Town on Southern Living's Biscuits and Jam podcast recently and this statement stayed with me. "A major part of my personality is documenting," she said, and I nodded to myself. In this episode, I'm sharing what I've learned about the art and practic...

Do you improvise with your students? If you have a classical background like I do, you may not consider yourself an improviser, but researchers and educators Christopher Azzara and Richard Grunow remind us that "we are [all] born improvisers, as evidenced by our behavior in early childhood." ( source ) In their series, Developing Musicianship Through Improvisation , they define improvisation as "t...

I received an email from a listener recently, a piano teacher in North Carolina. She had purchased a set of my tonal pattern cards and was looking for ideas and suggestions for how to incorporate them into her teaching this year. This prompted me to sit down and think through the importance of building a musical vocabulary (rhythm and tonal), how we learn to read music, and creative ways to engage...

Last week, I posted a reel on Instagram of my annual planning process for my studio. At the end of the summer, I pull out all my books, curriculum charts, and other planning notes and spend several hours making repertoire plans for each of my students. There are lots of ways to go about this—it takes time to try things and hone in on a process that makes sense to you, helps you feel organized and...

"I found this piece that I'd like to learn," one of my high school students said to me in a lesson earlier this summer. He carefully laid out the pages of the score of Alexander Scriabin's Prelude in C Major, Op. 11, No. 1 that he'd downloaded from IMSLP. "I have a question about it, though," he said turning toward the score. "How do you count this?" He pointed at the first line written in flowing...

You know those moments when something just *clicks*? When something suddenly makes sense to you that was confusing before or you make a new connection or you realize you're able to do something you didn't know you could do. Sometimes we call these a-ha moments or breakthroughs. These are some of my favorite things to observe in my studio: when a student recognizes a new musical concept, makes a ne...

Summer is a great time to rest, recharge, and work on professional development. This is often when we as music educators attend conferences and workshops, participate in training and certification programs, take summer classes at a local university, and catch up on all the reading we intended to do during the year. If you've been listening for a while, you know I've shared several book and reading...

"What just happened?" I asked a 4th-grade student one Friday afternoon. "I made a mistake," she said, looking down at her hands still resting on the keys. We talked about that for a minute—how sometimes mistakes happen innocently. Sometimes, a mistake is a way of getting our attention, a way for the body to say to the brain, "Wait! I don't really know this yet." We listened for mistakes and inhere...

We've been working a lot on rhythm in the studio this spring. I've always made an effort to incorporate a rhythm activity into each lesson, but I've found myself being more intentional about this in recent months and becoming more aware of how I teach rhythm and how students develop these skills. In this episode, I'll share seven ways I'm practicing rhythm in the studio with students from 1st thro...

"Do you know 'Brave' by Sara Bareilles?" I asked 10-year-old Anthony in a piano lesson one week. "Yeah," he said. "Well, I read recently that 'Brave' and [Katy Perry's] 'Roar' have a lot of things in common. What do you think?" "Huh. I've never really thought about it!" he said. We listened to both songs a few times and made a list of musical characteristics on the whiteboard....

I was talking with one of my high school students a few weeks ago about music by women composers. We were studying "Canoeing" by Amy Beach in the Celebration Series Level 7 Piano Repertoire book, the third piece in her Op. 119 collection, From Six to Twelve for Piano written in 1927. We listened to a recording of the piece and played through the score. We discussed how the rippling eighth notes be...

It was 1997. My piano teacher had just shown us a picture of Belle, Bonne, Sage , a rondeau about love written in the shape of a heart by 15th-century French composer, Baude Cordier. This signaled the beginning of the annual studio-wide Valentine composition project. Every year around this time, my piano teacher invited us to write our own piece of music, a "musical Valentine," as she called it. T...

What does the beginning of a New Year signify for you? What kind of season do you find yourself in these days? I recognized recently that I am in a season of learning. Of course, I am still actively teaching five days a week, but at the same time, I'm reflecting, jotting down stories and realizations at the end of the teaching day—things I'd like to do differently next time or things I didn't plan...

As teachers, we spend so much of our time focusing on what our students are learning and discovering. Are they progressing? Are we challenging them enough? Too much? How have they grown in their musicianship this year? What should we focus on in the next few months? Our students deserve this kind of reflection and planning to guide their learning and promote their continued skill development. But...

Researchers suggest that twenty to thirty percent of teachers in America have moderately high to high levels of burnout ( source ). Maybe you know the feeling: Tired, mentally and emotionally. Distracted and uninspired. Going through the motions. Trouble making decisions. These are warning signs. Why does this happen? Why do we get burnt out and is there anything we can do about it? Today, I'm sha...

There's been a lot of talk in recent years about creative teaching strategies and being a creative teacher. But what does that really mean? What does it look like in practice? In our world today, creative teaching seems to mean having an arsenal of note-naming worksheets, interactive Google Slide activities, and dice board games to reinforce every new skill or concept. Some of these tools are grea...

I have a new 1st-grade student this fall, a younger sibling of another student. Their temperaments and personalities could not be more different and I feel like I'm still learning how best to relate to the younger brother in lessons. Aaron is very smart and artistic but also has a rebellious streak. Sometimes he'll come into his lesson and say he doesn't want to play the piano or he'll resist revi...

It's back-to-school season, which means cups of hot tea in the mornings, new music to learn and explore, a new teaching schedule, and a few new organizational tools and strategies to test out, per usual. Of course, there are certain parts of my routine that I enjoy coming back to—things I look forward to picking up again—but there are always a few things I’m ready to change or alter in my teaching...

I first heard about this book from one of my grad school professors. We were sitting around a long table one snowy January evening at our annual dinner for current and prospective doctoral students. I asked my professor about books he was reading lately and he named several including Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Carol Dweck's Mindset . It's been on my list since then (let's just say it's been a...

This summer, I've been teaching buddy lessons to two rising 1st graders. One started lessons with me in January and the other just started last month. They are both using the method book, Piano Safari Friends , which I have really enjoyed teaching this year. Both students have had 30-minute lessons with me almost weekly this summer and since I was able to schedule them back to back, I'm doing 25 m...

Do you pre-plan lessons in your studio? The truth is, I haven't always done this. As a young teacher, I loved planning and sequencing activities for every individual lesson, but it was challenging to predict what we'd realistically get through and so much was dependent on a student's preparation and practicing during the week. Would they be ready to begin this new piece or would we need to spend a...