Article Summaries

Bringing General Music Techniques to the Instrumental Class
Vernon Burnsed and Pamela Fiocca
Music Educators Journal 1990; 76; 45
This article talks about using general music techniques when teaching your students in band. One technique they give is to use the Kodaly rhythm syllables with echoing to help students learn new and difficult rhythms in a piece. It also mentions that hand signs and solfege syllables are beneficial in the beginning instrumental classroom; they can help develop a sense of aural perception and greatly help with sight reading as well.

Teaching Ensembles to Compose and Improvise: Here are some practical ideas for incorporating the creative activities of composing and improvising into instrumental ensemble rehearsals
Maud Hickey
Music Educators Journal 1997; 83; 17
As the title tells, this article focuses on how to teach your ensembles (both beginning and more experienced) to compose. The easiest way to begin is when students are learning new notes, give them only a few notes (maybe 1, 3, 5) and have them write a piece with pre-drawn measures; then have them all play their pieces together. The same can be repeated with new rhythms that students are learning too. For more experience band members, the article mentions having them look at pieces they are working on, and finding patterns and tools that composers are using in them to help them gain ideas. This article also talks about taking an entire semester and working on an original piece composed from themes and ideas from the students. The students would then get the opportunity to play and premiere their piece for the audience either at the end of the semester or during the next semester. One other thing that this article mentions is that improvisation can be used every day in the instrumental classroom, even during scale warm-ups.

Team Teaching in the Secondary Instrumental Music Classroom
Craig Brenan and Randy Witte
Music Educators Journal 2003; 89; 31
This article dealt more with teaching at the same time as another teacher in the classroom. It mentions that in this situation more children with get closer attention. This is huge especially when the students are just learning to play their instruments. It talks about how to effectively split the workload, and what must be decided upon if sharing the room with another teacher.