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.

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.

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.

The integration of music technology into popular music ensembles: Perspectives of modern band teachers

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Powell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Technology ◽  
Student Agency ◽  
Music Ensembles ◽  
School Music ◽  
K 12

The increased presence of technology into music education classrooms has coincided to some extent with the increased presence of popular music into school music spaces, especially in the United States. This study examined the integration of music technologies into K-12 (ages 5‐18) popular music programmes in New York City (NYC). One hundred sixty-eight music teachers responded to a survey, all of whom had previously participated in a modern band workshop as part of the Amp Up NYC initiative. Results of the study found that many of the challenges of incorporating music technology into modern bands, including lack of access to technology or faulty hardware, are not unique to popular music ensembles. Some of the successes mentioned by the teachers, including songwriting, beat-making and increased student agency, provide a glimpse into the benefits that integrating music technology into modern band classrooms can offer.

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.

Statewide Public School Music Competitions/Festivals in Kansas and Oklahoma: The Beginnings of the School Music Contest Movement in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
George H. McDow ◽  
Daniel L. Stiffler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public School ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
School Students ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
University Of Oklahoma ◽  
School Music

Music competitions have an ancient history dating back some two thousand years. In the United States, early music contests mimicked the German Saengerfests and Welsh Eistoddfods; however, some of the earliest continuously running music competitions held in America are the state contests for secondary school students. This article identifies for the first time Kansas and Oklahoma as holding the two earliest state school music competitions and corrects some long-standing erroneous information. It studies these two state events through historical analysis of primary sources and triangulates the data with secondary sources. Frank Beach at Kansas State Normal School in Emporia and Fredrik Holmberg at the University of Oklahoma were found to be the two initiators. These two state music contests were influenced by several things including the state track and field meets, previous music contests, the western pioneering spirit, European music systems, and the music specialties of the founders. In the end both contests were seen as promoting the cause of public school music by increasing both the quality and numbers of music education programs and as leading to the exponential growth of state music competitions throughout the United States.

Swiss-German Music Books in the Mason-McConathy Collection: Accounts from Europe to the United States

2000 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-38
Author(s):  
Sondra Wieland Howe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Music Education ◽  
School System ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
Cultural Center ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Music Books

This article describes an examination of the Swiss-German music books in the Luther Whiting Mason—Osbourne McConathy Collection, undertaken to learn about music education in nineteenth-century Switzerland and its influence on American music education. Pfeiffer and Nägeli introduced Pestalozzi's ideas to Swiss schools, teaching the elements of music separately and introducing sounds before symbols. Swiss educators in the mid-1800s published numerous songbooks and teachers' manuals for an expanding school system. Foreign travelers praised the teaching of Schäublin in Basel. In Zurich, a cultural center with choruses for men and women, music directors continued to produce materials for schools and community choruses in the 1800s. Because travelers like Luther Whiting Mason purchased these books, Swiss ideas on music education spread to other European countries and the United States.

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.

Why 1955? Explaining the advent of rock music

Popular Music ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Road ◽  
Elvis Presley ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
Frank Sinatra

At the time, 1929, 1939, 1945 and 1968 all seemed important turning points in the track of our civilisation. By contrast, as anyone alive at the time will attest, 1955 seemed like an unexceptional year in the United States at least. Right in the middle of the ‘middle-of-the-road’ years of the Eisenhower presidency, 1955 hardly seemed like the year for a major aesthetic revolution. Yet it was in the brief span between 1954 and 1956 that the rock aesthetic displaced the jazz-based aesthetic in American popular music. Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, Patty Page, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Kay Starr, Les Paul, Eddie Fisher, Jo Stafford, Frankie Lane, Johnnie Ray and Doris Day gave way on the popular music charts to Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, The Platters, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Carl Perkins and the growing legion of rockers.

Songwriting with digital audio workstations in an online community

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Clauhs
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
File Sharing ◽  
Digital Audio ◽  
Google Docs ◽  
Music Production ◽  
School Music ◽  
High School Music

Digital audio workstations and online file-sharing technology may be combined to create opportunities for collaborations among many groups, including performing ensembles, music technology classes, professional songwriters and preservice music teachers. This article presents a model for a digitally mediated online collaboration that focuses on popular music songwriting activities in school and higher education settings. Using an example from a high school music production class that collaborated with an undergraduate music education course through Google Docs and a file-sharing platform, the author outlines steps towards facilitating partnerships that focus on creating music in an online community. Such collaborations may help remove barriers between our classrooms and our communities as music teachers leverage technology to develop relationships with creators and performers of popular music everywhere.

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