Teaching the Core Arts Standards in Modern Band

2021 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-33
Author(s):  
Matthew Clauhs ◽  
Bryan Powell
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Performance Standards ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Programs ◽  
The Core ◽  
Grade Levels ◽  
Band Class ◽  
National Coalition ◽  
New Framework

The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards released standards for music education in 2014. These standards are guided by artistic processes and measured by performance standards specific to content areas and grade levels. As school districts in the United States adopt the Core Arts Standards for their music programs, it is imperative that modern band teachers demonstrate how their curriculum aligns with this new framework. Modern band is one approach to popular music education that is particularly well suited to address this new framework; the emphases of songwriting, improvising, critical listening, and group work in a learner-centered modern band class/ensemble are associated with a wide variety of standards. This article explores connections between popular music pedagogies and each of the processes in the Core Arts Standards and examines which standards may be most appropriate for modern band contexts.

Popular music education and American democracy: Why I coined the term ‘modern band’ and the road ahead

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave Wish
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
School Teacher ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Core ◽  
School Music

In this article, the author, the founder and CEO of Little Kids Rock, describes how his early work as an elementary school teacher providing an extracurricular guitar club, evolved into him founding a music education non-profit organization. By inventing the term ‘modern band’ and joining nationwide leading efforts for systemic change in US American music education, the author tries to place popular music conceptually and pedagogically at the core of school music programmes. The author briefly describes the causes of the exclusion of popular music from school music programmes before arguing that modern band can help to democratize school music education by making it culturally relevant, student-centred and inclusive. The article concludes with the author’s hopes for the future of music education in the United States.

Modern Band: A Review of Literature

2021 ◽  
pp. 875512332098852
Author(s):  
Bryan Powell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Programs ◽  
Future Research ◽  
School Music ◽  
K 12

The recent increase in popular music education in K–12 school music programs is in part due to the expansion of modern band programming throughout the United States. Modern band is a term used to describe school music ensembles that include popular music instruments and focus on performing music that is meaningful to the students while incorporating songwriting. The purpose of this literature review was to examine relevant research related to modern band music programs in the United States and provide implications for music teaching and learning. Music researchers and professionals have recently addressed specific issues related to increasing the diversity of school music programs, addressing elements of culturally responsive curricula, and positively affecting the social and emotional development of students through modern band. Throughout this literature review, I provide implications for music teachers and discuss areas for future research.

Progressive Trends in Curricular Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin D. Moore ◽  
Juan Agudelo ◽  
Katie Chapman ◽  
Carlos Dávalos ◽  
Hannah Durham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Music Programs ◽  
Curricular Change ◽  
Curricular Reform ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Courses ◽  
Entrepreneurial Training ◽  
International Exchanges

This chapter investigates the general curricular requirements of two of the most popular music degrees undertaken by undergraduates—performance and music education—in order to consider how current coursework could be reconfigured into a more student-driven, inclusive framework that reflects the dynamics and needs of modern musical careers. In looking at the core courses as well as the upper-division, more specialized courses in each particular major, we address questions such as how to streamline core courses, how to allow students to have more active roles their degree trajectories without increasing the time it takes to graduate, and how to use the current degree models as jumping-off points for curricular reform. Specifically, the chapter examines representative music programs that have already successfully implemented curricula in entrepreneurial training, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and international exchanges, among other areas.

Diversifying Musical Experiences in Schools and Music Teacher Preparation Programs

2019 ◽  
pp. 891-901
Author(s):  
Robert H. Woody ◽  
Mark C. Adams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Large Ensembles ◽  
Classical Traditions

This chapter discusses the innate differences between vernacular music-making cultures and those oriented in Western classical traditions, and suggests students in traditional school music education programs in the United States are not typically afforded opportunities to learn skills used in vernacular and popular music-making cultures. The chapter emphasizes a need to diversify music-making experiences in schools and describes how vernacular musicianship may benefit students’ musical development. It suggests that, in order for substantive change to occur in music education in the United States, teachers will need to advance beyond simply considering how to integrate popular music into their traditional large ensembles—and how preservice music teacher education programs may be the key to help better prepare teachers to be more versatile and philosophically open to teaching a more musically diverse experience in their future classrooms.

Exploring Diverse Voices in the Classroom

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-99
Author(s):  
Chiao-Wei Liu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Population ◽  
Music Programs ◽  
Ethnic Stereotypes ◽  
Diverse Student ◽  
Diverse Student Population ◽  
Racial Ethnic

With the increasing diverse student population in the United States, schools across the country face the challenge of addressing cultural diversity in the classroom. While this topic is not new in the field of music education, researchers argue that voices of minoritized groups remain absent in most music programs. Even if different music cultures are introduced, they often reinforce existing racial/ethnic stereotypes. In this column, I would like to share one concept that I found helpful in addressing diversity in the classroom. Through my own work, I learned that the music with which students engage outside the classroom affords rich potential to discuss issues related to diversity. Inviting students to bring in music that matters to them helps them develop their own voices and to recognize and respect different voices, through which we acknowledge the complexity and multiplicity of how diversity plays out in human experiences.

Measuring pre-service music teachers’ creative identities: a cross-cultural comparison of the United States and Singapore

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (02) ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
Clint Randles ◽  
Leonard Tan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Creative Identity ◽  
Service Music

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to examine and compare the creative musical identities of pre-service music education students in the United States and Singapore. The Creative Identity in Music (CIM) measure was utilized with both US and Singapore pre-service music teacher populations (n = 274). Items of the CIM relate to music-making activities often associated with creativity in music education in the literature, including composition, improvisation and popular music performance. Results suggest, similar to findings of previous research, that while both populations are similar in their degree of creative music-making self-efficacy and are similarly willing to allow for creativity in the classroom, Singaporean pre-service music teachers value the areas of creative identity and the use of popular music listening/performing within the learning environment to a significantly greater extent (p < 0.0001) than their US counterparts.

Examination of Relationships between Participation in School Music Programs of Differing Quality and Standardized Test Results

2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Johnson ◽  
Jenny E. Memmott
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Programs ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
School Music ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Choral Programs

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between participation in contrasting school music programs and standardized test scores. Relationships between elementary (third- or fourth-grade) students' academic achievement at comparable schools, but with contrasting music programs as to instructional quality, were investigated. Relationships also were examined between middle school (eighth-or ninth-grade) students' academic achievement and their participation in school music programs that also differed in quality. Participants (N = 4,739) were students in elementary (n = 1,119) and middle schools (n = 3,620) from the South, East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast of the United States. All scores were standardized for comparison purposes. Analysis of elementary school data indicated that students in exemplary music education programs scored higher on both English and mathematics standardized tests than their counterparts who did not have this high-quality instruction; however, the effect sizes were slight. Analysis of middle school data indicated that for both English and math, students in both exceptional music programs and deficient instrumental programs scored better than those in no music classes or deficient choral programs; however, the effect sizes were not large.

Philosophy of Assessment in Popular Music Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 345-363
Author(s):  
Bryan Powell ◽  
Gareth Dylan Smith
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Music Programs ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Inclusive Approach

With the expanding landscape of and proliferation of activity related to popular music education, philosophies underpinning and informing the assessment of students participating in popular music programs have come to the forefront of discussion. This chapter discusses the relationships among music education, higher education, and popular music as commoditized product(s), as well as the context for and a set of (sub)cultural practices, and looks through the lens(es) of authenticity before exploring canon and repertoire in popular music education. It highlights examples of assessment practices in particular popular music education contexts and the ideologies and philosophies that consciously or unconsciously undergird these. The chapter then presents a model of assessment derived from working in an innovative way—called “negotiated assessment” (Kleiman, 2009, p. 2)—with undergraduate arts students across disciplines. The chapter proposes this as one possible broad, inclusive approach to establishing a philosophy of assessment for popular music education.

Why Isn’t Music Education in the United States More Twenty-First-Century PC?

2017 ◽  
pp. 648-654
Author(s):  
Barbara Freedman
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Music Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Technology ◽  
First Century ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Economic Class ◽  
The Core ◽  
Technological Competence ◽  
Musical Cultures

This chapter addresses three themes in the Core Perspectives. First, it argues that preservice teachers should be trained in music technology and technology pedagogy as one would train preservice teachers on brass, woodwinds, percussion, or piano. Second, she suggests that in-service teachers are the experts in their classrooms, regardless of their preexisting competence with any individual subdomain—brass, percussion, or, in this case, technology. Just as experienced band teachers have no problem asking their advanced trumpet player students to help the beginning trumpet player students, teachers can similarly capitalize on students with technological competence. Third, the chapter argues that the U.S. music education system, K-university, is implicitly skewed toward middle to upper economic class culture and, by nature, disinherits those who seek to engage in other musical cultures. Technology, she suggests, is an excellent way to better meet the needs of all students.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document