MS Band Director

For music educators - By music educators

How to support creation of new music in the classroom?

Hi gang-
I need your help. I work for the American Composers Forum, a nonprofit composer service organization. Our main mission it to support composers and their music. My role in the organization is to provide professional development for teachers interested in incorporating composition in the classrom and for composers interested in working as teaching artists in the classroom. Here's where you come in:

What do you need (or what might ACF provide) to assist you in facilitating the creation of new music with your students? What already exists that you are using? What are the barriers to incorporating student created works (besides the obvious time and money constraints)?

Would a website focused solely on composition and sample lesson plans be helpful? Would a roster of composers to work in the classroom be beneficial? Would webinars or workshops in your area help?

The sky is the limit! Let me know what you need and I'll see if we can find funding to make it happen.

Thanks for your time!

Carey

Tags: ACF, composers, composition, creation, development, music, new, professional

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Permalink Reply by Russ Weaver on December 3, 2009 at 8:58pm

Carey,
After viewing all of the videos that you uploaded to MSBandDirector.com, it would be nice if other schools could ichat (Skype, teleconference) with, and look in on ACF clinicians working with clients as they premier their pieces or look in on them as they simply work with all-county or all-State type groups. I believe members might love to do that as part of regular classwork.
As for events, I know we are always looking to bring in guest conductors/composers to our All-County event each year here in Osceola, but the travel and per diem is usually keeps us to folks within our State. Any chance of using those Grant monies to supplement districts in the way of, say, matching grants? Or perhaps a 3 way arrangement with the companies that might sponsor them (Yamaha, Conn-Selmer, etc.)?
Help with making these type of arrangements would be key for districts like the one I teach in, to secure composers from ACF to become "artists' in residence" for a week or so. And to have them conduct the All-County groups, like ours, across the Nation.
You can see video of our All-County event by searching Star Spangled Banner on the network. 18 bands, massed numbers and amazing rehearsals. Photos are available on the Osceola County Band Directors group.

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Permalink Reply by Pamela A Rezach on November 30, 2010 at 12:50am

As an extra curricular project, I instruct a composer class (before and after school) for my 6th, 7th, and 8th grade band students. They compose melodies - for their own instruments - based upon the playing ability of fifth grade level band students. [We did this one day a week for a three month time period.] Although the project was very successful last year, it would have been very helpful if I would have had guidelines (possibly a step by step plan) concerning how to teach the students to listen for "order" in the music they compose. So often, the musical phrases they created sounded like "a bunch of notes" that had no beginning, middle, or end. What made it hard was they used the correct notes for fifth graders, they used the correct rhythms, but the “organization” of the notes was not “fluid.” They had a hard time understanding how they could use "the right stuff" and still need to improve what they had done. Of course, I was able to help them improve their work, but I found it hard to explain to them - on their level - why the phrasing they created needed adjusting. Any suggestions would be a great help! Note: When the project was finished, we compiled their solo compositions and provided a book of solos for the school system’s fifth grade band students. This project was a “big hit” for the student composers and the fifth grade band students. We will do it again this year.