Once the students have mastered the blues and minor pentatonic scales as discussed in the previous post Teaching Jazz Improvisation: What Notes Do I Play? Teach the students to perform as a group ten 2-measure blues riffs, which the entire ensemble learns to perform together as a part of a warm-up.
The middle school/junior high school years provide an excellent opportunity to begin to introduce kids to jazz performance and improvisation. Most middle school and junior high level jazz ensemble music arrangements involve only a few chord changes making it an excellent time forstudents to practice the art of improvisation. Here are a few jazz improvisational exercises that are not usually taught and sometimes forgotten.
Music and English language arts have three fundamental learning processes in common. First, music and language learning are auditory and involve the ability to hear and manipulate sounds (Butzlaff, 2000; Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber, 2014). Second, music and literacy uses a system of written symbols as a means to communicate information to others (Hall & Robinson, 2012). Finally, music and literacy involve encoding and decoding systems used to process and construct meaning (Hall & Robinson, 2012; Hansen et al., 2014; Jancke, 2012; Rautenberg, 2013; Tierney & Kraus, 2013). In today's post, I’m sharing four benefits of music instruction for English Language Learning (ELL).
Today, I'm writing about two of my favorite music documentaries my middle school music students enjoyed watching during African American History Month. The two movies are Keep on Keeping’ On and Thunder Soul. These films provide a great platform for meaningful discussions in the instrumental music class.
In all corners of our country, marching band is part of the high school performing experience. Students marching this fall have already gathered at area schools to meet with their instructors and fellow participants. They have begun the journey of learning to perform marching shows for the upcoming competition season. In view of the pending marching band competition season, today's post discusses how to get the most out of your marching band adjudication tapes.
Collaborate with peers from your subject and grade level to develop a list of learning priorities for the school year. Consider learning priorities in light of, content standards (state and national) and review the established curriculum expectations. Due to the fact, there is usually more content than can reasonably be addressed within the school year, teachers are obliged to make choices. In the end, create a list of learning priorities of what your students should know, understand and be able to do by the post-test date. Remember your final results will be based-on moving individual students (not a class at a specific level) to another point as measured by the post-assessment tool you chose or developed.
