There have been some wonderful ideas submitted to this site and the "old" site in the past four years. Enjoy, and keep 'em coming! To submit ideas, click here.

: Your Suggestions for teaching band, voice,and strings! Please submit them, and new categories will be added!

Suggestions for Teaching Secondary

This one is for instrumentalists, but could be adapted. After doing some warm-ups and echo playing with students, ask a student to play a short 2 bar melody. (Provide parameters as required - beginning students could use the first three notes of the scale, or notes from the pentatonic scales, etc.) Then ask another student to play the same melody, followed by their own variation on that melody. Continue in this manner for as long as you like.

A variation on this is to have students try to playback the original melody on the first try - this makes ear training more like a game! You can even have teams and award points, if you like.

Variation Composition I teach a course called "Become a Composer" in our music technology lab. One of the activities we do is to compose variations on "Twinkle Little Star." We listen to the Mozart variations and discuss some of the techniques we can use to create variations. Students then work with a notation program (Musicator) to create their own variation. They are given an outline of the melody - the first part (the A section) has every second note missing. The B section has only the first note in every bar. Students are encouraged to follow the original form by copying and pasting the A section after the B. Students fill in the missing notes, using different rhythms and notes than the original. We continue the fun by exporting the melody to Band in a Box. We use BIAB to create a harmonization/accompaniment and then bring it back to Musicator for further editing and printing. Students are always excited to hear & see their own music!

Multi-media Composer Project Try getting students to make their own multi-media project using PowerPoint 97, or some other presentation software. Students can select some music from a CD, and as the music plays they can point out various interesting aspects of the music. You can extend the project by including sections on the composer, information about the work, historical info, etc. Do this in conjunction with your history and language teachers and you can have a really great project!

An idea for teaching music in an urban setting from "Public",a student at Cleveland State University: As part of our education program, we have to spend several hours teaching in an urban setting. I was extremely nervous about this because all my previous experience had been in schools that had big red bows tied around them, and consequently, not a great deal of discipline problems. I am happy to say that my lessons were a success, in particular the one I am about to share. I have past experience in dance and used that to my advantage. I choreographed a dance routine to a very current hip-hop song that I knew they would be familiar with. On the day of the lesson, I had a student direct the other students to the auditorium where the music was already blasting away. I invited them on stage, taught them the dance, then had them sit in the auditorium seats. At this point, we analyzed the dance moves with corresponding rhythms. Many of the students who were barely familiar with rhythms suddenly understood them and their relation to each other.

From Karen Stafford: An idea I picked up while doing some substitute teaching: a choral director I subbed for had her choir members give each other shoulder and back rubs as part of their warm-up sessions to relieve any tension. Kids might feel silly for a while, but after a few times, they'll come to appreciate it.

To get students to sing with more of an open mouth, slit a tennis ball, throw on a couple of goofy eyes, then during rehearsal, squeeze the ball so that the slit opens up like a mouth. You'll have a funny and effective visual reminder. I saw this at a Missouri Music Educator's Convention, and the presenter even had her tennis ball handy during performances to squeeze secretively so only her kids could see.

Suggestions for teaching piano:

Mary Jane Cope, M.M., N.C.T.M. University of California, Santa Cruz

I love Nancy Faber's technique tips in the Adventure Series Technique books; they are so creative, and work well with young students. Check them out! For example, she suggests developing a good hand position by making a loose fist, then letting the hand open gently like a blooming flower! Arms are heavy wet ropes!

I had a student not long ago who really resisted counting out loud. So I invited him to SHOUT the counts all week, which he did with gusto (much to the chagrin of his family!).

Diane Hidy suggests using post-it notes to isolate problem spots in music. This really works wonderfully with all ages, including college students! And my young ones love vibrantly colored ones, of course! They can be placed around as few as two notes, and moved about to include more of the phrase. They also double as bookmarks!

To encourage good posture, I present each student with an imaginary balloon bouquet which is attached to the top of his/her head. They are to imagine the balloons gently coaxing the head up toward the ceiling and thus encouraging the spine to straighten without stiffening. Make-believe balloons can also be attached to the wrist, the bridge, etc.