The brainchild of Jose Antonio Abreu, El Sistema, a music education program for aspiring orchestra musicians launched in Venezuela for students of limited means and now spreading to other parts of the world, has become a subject of interest to music teachers and teacher educators in North America. This article examines a bit of the program's…

Many people divide musicians into two types: those who can read music and those who play by ear. Formal music education tends to place great emphasis on producing musically literate performers but devotes much less attention to teaching students to make music without notation. Some would suggest that playing by ear is a specialized skill that is…

The elementary music class is an ideal setting for building socioemotional skills in children. These skills can assist children in their early music learning through brain development, and they become increasingly important as students reach higher levels of musicianship. Socioemotional learning programs are currently being used to reduce at-risk…

Helping young musicians learn how to practice effectively is a challenge faced by all music educators. This article presents a system of individual music practice instruction that can be seamlessly integrated within large-ensemble rehearsals. Using a step-by-step approach, large-ensemble conductors can teach students to identify and isolate…

Teaching students to practice independently is an important part of a music teacher's work. Yet, many common techniques used to teach and enforce student practicing, such as practice charts and performance tests, can backfire, causing students to practice inefficiently or lose their love of music. In search of a method of teaching practicing that…

Skillful teachers have developed the ability to take learners from the first conception of a goal to its accomplishment in shorter and shorter periods of time, with fewer and fewer errors on the learners' part and with increasing satisfaction and diminishing frustration on the teacher's. This article deals with the extent to which teachers provide…

This article poses six functions of conducting as a new foundation for music educators. Two traditional functions focus on music: the mechanical precision function indicates beat, tempo, meter, rhythm, cues, entrances and cutoff releases, and the expressive function indicates dynamics and other expressive characteristics interpreted in a score.…

Ambitious ideals are seldom achieved completely. Realistically, the criterion of success is not so much full accomplishment as satisfactory progress. The author urges music educators to pause now and then to consider their status in this regard. Are they moving ahead to fulfillment of their hopes in ways adequate to their compelling vision? Events…

In times of difficulty, it is easy to see what many policymakers value. It would seem that many of them view the arts as a noncrucial element of a child's school curriculum. They want to cut music because they do not value music for its own sake, nor can they see how music could possibly help students in math, reading, or science. But what do the…

An examination of the 2005-2010 online archives of major American network news stations and newspapers reveals a troubling picture for music education. News stories frequently mention the disappearance of music education. When the media mention the existence of music education, they often promote it as a means of raising standardized test scores…

This article presents a creative rights pyramid that was developed as part of the author's efforts to: (1) teach about copyright and intellectual property; and (2) increase students' awareness of their own intellectual property in and outside the music classroom. The pyramid is based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food pyramid to suggest…

Practically all teenagers find pleasure in music, yet the majority are not involved in traditional school music ensembles. College requirements, the quest for high grade point averages, scheduling conflicts, uncooperative counselors, block schedules, students with too many competing interests, or the need to work may limit participation in music…

A variety of excellent method books aim to help student musicians develop skills in music reading and instrumental technique, but sometimes the best approach is not simply to move ahead line by line through the book. Rather, teachers will find it beneficial to consider apposite strategies to be used before, during, and after rehearsing a line so…

Brain research indicates that repetition is of vital importance in the learning process. Repetition is an especially useful tool in the area of music education. The success of repetition can be enhanced by accurate and timely feedback. From "simple repetition" to "repetition with the addition or subtraction of degrees of freedom," there are many…

This article outlines how to make music programs more inclusive and therefore enable music teachers to compete more effectively for enrollment. Fortunately, music affords teachers many compelling options to win the hearts and minds of students, and thereby to create a more musically literate and supportive public. The author suggests that music…