In the course of reading the Teacher’s Manual for my review of the Music and Keyboard in the Classroom curriculum, these are some quotes that I found particularly helpful and/or thought-provoking:

“To further shape a music curriculum it is essential to know what we believe, as educators. Otherwise we will be irresolute in the delivery of our curriculum.” (Pg. 9)

“Performing is essential as the primary mode of musical involvement for all students including general music students.” (Pg. 9)

“In the arts, production should lie at the centre of any artistic experience: “verbal knowledge (or “talk” about music) is “an ancillary form of knowledge, not to be taken as a substitute for ‘thinking’ and ‘problem solving’ in the medium itself” (Elliott p. 42, Music Matters).” (Pg. 12)

“It pays to remember that the primary function of evaluation is not to determine grades but to provide accurate constructive feedback to students.” (Pg. 19)

“Music starts as sounds in the head, not signs on paper. But teachers and musicians who have gone through life recreating from notation and devoid of musical creative experiences perpetuate the myth of notational supremacy.” (Pg. 31-32)

“We are all born with wonderful imaginations. Indeed, a child’s playtime largely exists in an imaginary world. Kids love to play, to make up stories and sing their own songs. Unfortunately, much of this creative tendency gets lost when children are required to conform to school bureaucracy. It gets sacrificed for more ‘academic’ pursuits like language, maths and science and gets relegated and related to a faculty with the lowest status in the educational system. However, many self-made successful people were not necessarily successful in the school system. This is because they had their own ideas and wanted to try things their way. New inventions and the solving of problems are dependent on creative thinkers. We need to encourage creativity in our
educational systems.” (Pg. 32)

“With ensemble activities, the students actually need one another’s knowledge and skills. Not all school group work demands this.” (Pg. 34)

Today I am pleased to welcome Michael Griffin, author of the Music and Keyboard in the Classroom curriculum, to Music Matters Blog for an exclusive interview.

Music Matters Blog (MMB): What prompted you to write your own classroom curriculum for your music classes? Why did you choose to emphasize keyboard studies?

Michael Griffin (MG): For many years, I was teaching occasional lessons in a keyboard lab as part of a wider curriculum, and whilst each lesson I designed had a structure and purpose, I recognized the need for an over-arching curriculum design. It also occurred to me that I needed a differentiated curriculum to allow all students to work comfortably at their own rate. To my surprise, and despite a world-wide search, I could not find any suitable resources or models, so I decided to write my own.
The emphasis on keyboard studies was the natural result of witnessing so many general music kids respond and engage enthusiastically to learning through keyboards. Keyboards are a fantastic value for money these days, and I have tried to share many creative lesson ideas through my books. In my background, I studied classical piano at university for 4-years, and now play professionally in a jazz trio. Also, I have been a keen student of educational pedagogy, so all in all I felt I had something to offer the educational community.

MMB: I love your student teacher idea! Will you explain to my readers how it works and the benefits you have experienced in your classroom as a result of implementing it?MG:Thank you –I have to say that despite the simplicity of this idea, it has proven to be a fantastic motivator in my classrooms, yet somewhat surprisingly it is unique! Everyone who learns about this gets very excited about implementing it. I explain it fully in the teacher manual, but in a nutshell, this is how it works:
The first premise is that students need to learn self-evaluation. Hence after each exercise, there is a place for students to place their signature indicating that they believe they have played the exercise correctly. They are then free to move on to the next exercise. In the meantime, the teacher will also assess the student and sign off if appropriate. As you can imagine, there can be quite a disparity between student evaluation and teacher evaluation. This is where some wonderful learning opportunities arise as the teacher helps the student to discover necessary improvements in order to complete the task correctly. At the beginning of this expectation, I find many students reticent to evaluate themselves. They are more comfortable in the teacher evaluating every step of their progress. Maybe they are used to this, but we must try and lead them into these higher-learning processes. With practice and effort, they can all do this.
The second premise is that students enjoy learning and sharing knowledge with their peers, so I actively encourage this. I tell the students that I am not the only teacher in the classroom, and that if they can play an exercise particularly well, I may grant them ‘teacher status’ for that particular exercise. This allows them to do what I do: find students who have signed off on an exercise and are ready for a ‘teacher’ evaluation. I then observe their interactions with their peers and in a sense teach them how to teach. They love this aspect of the course and it excites me to see them respecting each other on these new levels. My students know that ‘teacher status’ can be revoked if abused, but I have only ever had to do this once!

MMB: Could you see your curriculum being successfully implemented by an independent music teacher who wanted to offer a group keyboard class for Middle School students?

MG: This course was designed with classes of middle school students in mind, and I have enjoyed teaching classes of up to 24 students in my keyboard lab, with one student to a keyboard. However, I have had independent music teachers buy the books and the feedback has been very positive. I know that some teachers have found the improvisation and aural exercises in Book 2 a useful model to copy. Also, I have an adult education version and I recently delivered this to a group of 10 parents from my school. They were inspired by their students learning my student course to take up keyboard themselves and they loved it! I see this as a springboard to learning with an independent teacher, not as an end in itself. The thing about adult learning is that many like to learn in groups, as long as they can work at their own rate. One of my prime aims with adults is to give them confidence in their ability to learn new skills. After the course, I encourage these adult learners to continue their learning and I have found that now they have dipped their toe in the water, many seek the private tuition model.

MMB: How well do you think a student would transition from this class-based approach into a private piano study setting? Do you think that delaying the introduction of the left hand and hands-together playing is an obstacle to the student’s progress if they desire to go further in their piano studies?

MG: Each year I do some action research to ascertain the success or otherwise of my courses. From recent data 72 % of my students (I presently teach almost 200 students this course) indicated an increased interest in music directly attributable to taking my course. 45% said they would consider private piano lessons in the future. These figures please me very much as I like to encourage all students to explore their musicality on an instrument that suits them, and with a teacher they can connect with.

As for your 2nd question, Music and Keyboard in the Classroom is first and foremost a general music curriculum as distinct from a keyboard skill development program. Students learn musicianship through practical keyboard activity. I delay the introduction of the left hand and hands together playing so as to focus on some very basic musical rudiments with a minimum of technical restrictions. There are many excellent beginner books; mine was not designed to compete with them.

MMB: In the Teacher’s Guide (pg. 39), you state that you spend about 20 minutes in another room before moving over to the keyboard lab. You mention that, “This time is spent doing the associated theory and listening exercises within Music and Keyboard in the Classroom, practising aural skills through the pieces and setting goals for their practical work.” I’m curious to know more about the goals that you have the students set for their practical work. Can you elaborate?

MG: My intention here is to encourage students to plan their learning and practicing session. Students will goal set for the lesson by looking ahead at what difficulties they expect to encounter, and how best to overcome them. We talk about chunking, practice tempo and things like that. Also, each lesson has some associated theory questions pertinent to that lesson. I might do some extra exercises on the board. As you said in your review, my books use many well known classical melodies so I often find examples on YouTube to help bring the music alive for the students and play them on the interactive whiteboard. I also use some of the exercises for sight-seeing and rhythmic reading. In other words, I try to integrate the exercises as fully as possible. So this is how the first 20 minutes or so is spent. Bear in mind, my lessons are for 1 hour, and for kids this age, that’s a bit long to spend at a keyboard in one session.

MMB: What are your future plans for the development of this curriculum (subsequent books, web resources, etc.)?

MG: Firstly, I wish to continue to add interesting and relevant support to my web resources page. I have started a 3rd student book which should be finished by the end of this year. I will also be presenting a paper ‘Creating Emotional Intelligence Opportunities through the Keyboard Laboratory’ at the ISME conference in Bologna, Italy in July this year. (By the way, this conference is a must for world-wide music educators; go to www.isme.org for more details).

My books are being well received in a number of countries now, possibly because the content is relevant to the music education aims of many countries, but due to my full-time commitments as a school teacher, and my part-time work as a musician, time is becoming more difficult to find to promote my materials. Therefore, I presently have a couple of publishers considering my work. But as for now, I still receive orders by email, and (for international customers) am selling the books in PDF format only.

MMB: Will you share a little bit about some of your other music work – your choral arrangements, etc?

MG: Choral music is another passion of mine. When I worked in Australia I was very fortunate to conduct some fine student choirs and I have made available many of the recordings on my website for free download. Hopefully, this is a useful resource of repertoire for high school and college choral directors. I’ve also uploaded about 50 YouTube videos of choir performances. I have done some choral arranging, but not as much as I would like due to time constraints.

One other area of interest is the use of background music in educational and other commercial environments. I did a Masters degree on this topic a couple of years back, and have given some seminars to various groups on the psychology and implementation for background music structures. For example, I have a presentation called Study, Stress and Music for senior students where I present and discuss with students how the music they listen to whilst studying can positively or negatively affect their learning. It’s a fascinating subject and I really enjoy learning about it. I think schools could implement music in a very positive manner through the entire school environment. Recently I’ve been interviewed in a few industry magazines on the same ideas, but applied to marketing and retail industries such as how to select appropriate music for various commercial scenarios etc. My Masters dissertation Background Music and the Learning Environment can be downloaded freely from my Background Music website page.

MMB: Any other comments you would like to share?

MG: I just wish to thank you Natalie for giving me the opportunity to discuss my ideas on your blog. It’s great meeting people like you who share the same passion for spreading the wonders of music education around the world. If your readers would like to discuss these issues further, they may email me. I am also available for school consultations and conference presentations.

MMB: Thank you so much, Mr. Griffin! It’s been a pleasure to review your materials and conduct this interview!

It took me a while to get through it, but wow was it a lot of fun reviewing this Music and Keyboard in the Classroom curriculum by Michael Griffin. Even though I am an independent music teacher and this curriculum is designed to be used in a Middle School general music class, I found myself getting so excited about it that now I want to start a Middle School music class just so I can use it!

I started out by reviewing books one and two of the curriculum, The Fundamentals and Getting Creative, respectively, and then sat down to read through the 50-page Teacher’s Guide that accompanies the curriculum. I quickly realized that I had done things backwards and should have read the Teacher’s Guide first. What a treasure trove of philosophical nuggets and practical gems! It was both inspiring and full of helpful ideas that could easily be adopted by any music teacher.

Mr. Griffin’s approach is based on the philosophy that students should be actively involved in the music-making process, rather than just listening to music or learning musical facts. Through this curriculum, students are introduced to music by learning to play the keyboard. Rhythm, notation, music history, and more are taught as part of the process of learning to play fun, familiar songs on the keyboard – something that is sure to motivate and appeal to any Middle School student!

Here are some of the specific things I really like about the curriculum:
• Students are instructed to draw a keyboard diagram in the first lesson (Now why haven’t I ever thought of having students do that?!). These can then be referenced and used for the duration of the year.

• After each piece there is a place on the page for both the student and teacher to sign and date, affirming that, “This piece has been played successfully.” Mr. Griffin especially encourages teachers to require their students to sign before asking the teacher whether they can pass the piece. This challenges the students to take responsibility for their own progress and also frees them up to move on to the next lesson without having to wait for the availability of the teacher.

• Good questions at the conclusion of most lessons gauge the students’ comprehension of the concepts. I really like that these questions are not mindless, but force the student to think and/or find additional information on their own. (i.e. Find a definition for a musical scale.)

• Specific listening assignments are scattered throughout the lessons.

• A few Research Projects are assigned and the students are given very thought-provoking questions to help them conduct their research.

• A Student Reflections page in the back of the book gives students a place to record positive or frustrating moments in their keyboard studies.

• I loved the inclusion of lots of familiar Classical tunes that students will be familiar with and will be motivated to learn.

Book One covers a lot of the fundamentals of music and then Book Two builds on those and delves more into creative assignments, including transposition, form, dynamics, playing in a round, minor keys, using extended fingerings, learning accidentals, and improvisation. Here are a few things related to Book Two that I really like:

• Creative and helpful learning strategies are laid out step-by-step for the student.

• Specific guidelines are given for improvisation activities that still leave the students plenty of room for experimentation and individuality.

• For one of the activities, students are placed in a group and instructed to create a two-minute story (they may select from a list of possible story themes) and support it with special effects from the keyboard.

• I absolutely love the student teacher idea! (Read more about this in the forthcoming interview with Michael Griffin.)

Mr. Griffin has also started a page on his website with additional resources that correspond to the lessons in the curriculum. This will be extremely helpful to teachers as they develop their lesson plans! If you are interested in purchasing the Music and Keyboard in the Classroom curriculum and Teacher Guide, please contact Mr. Griffin by e-mail.

Pricing Info:
Book 1 The Fundamentals $19.99
Book 2 Getting Creative $19.99
Teacher’s Manual $34.99 (compulsory purchase with other books as it explains the pedagogy)
Payment may be made by credit card or via PayPal.

Join us tomorrow for an exclusive interview with Music and Keyboard in the Classroom author, Michael Griffin!

The Van Cliburn Foundation is giving everyone the opportunity to cast a vote in this piano competition! The winner of this YouTube contest will receive automatic entry in the sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs. Here’s how to cast your vote:

1. Sign the Guestbook to receive a ballot by e-mail.

2. Watch the videos that have been posted by competitors. There are 33 pianists, each with a video 5-10 minutes in length.

3. Cast an e-ballot for your favorite pianist any time between May 1-May 15.

Have fun listening to some great pianists!

Is everyone else equally crazy this time of year?! We just finished our Music Progressions evaluations this weekend - hooray! (So that’s my excuse for a dearth of posts this week.) I told my students I would even give them one week off of playing scales as a reward for all their hard work. They were thrilled! Now I’ve been thinking through some new things I want to try next year. I think I’m finally ready to take the plunge and offer an “official” computer lab in my studio. We do various technology-related things throughout the year, like recording CDs, participating in the Clavinova Festival (another one of my students just won a new Clavinova this month! That makes three from my studio now. If you have a Clavinova Festival in your area, I highly recommend it!), notating compositions in Finale, etc., but I’ve never offered a full-blown computer lab.

So, I’ve been exploring the Music Learning Community website more indepth and considering whether I should develop my computer lab around it to start with. I’ve heard wonderful reviews of it from lots of teachers and I know my students love the free games they play on it. The site offers “more than 450 web-based, fully interactive, multimedia learning games for music students — beginners through Level 4.” Pretty impressive!

Anyway, I’m putting this on my list of things to explore and figure out this summer. If any of you offer a computer lab or use Music Learning Community in your studio I’d love to know how it works for you and if you have any tips for someone just starting out.

When I taught Character First! Education classes in some of our local elementary schools, there was a Kindergarten teacher who had moved her piano into her classroom. All throughout the day she would take a seat at the piano and play little songs to help reinforce various grammatical rules, spelling, math facts, etc. The students loved it and the songs were such an effective way to help them retain information like this. I got a copy of the book she compiled with her songs and look forward to using it someday when I have children of my own that I am teaching.

I was thrilled to discover that there is an entire website full of Songs for Teaching! There are songs for a whole variety of subjects and lots of songs within each subject. To be honest, I didn’t care for some of the music (a few of the ones I listened to were more like a rap song and didn’t have much of a melody), but I think it would be easy enough to sing the lyrics to a different tune. Plus, I’ve only scratched the surface of the hundreds of songs available! They even have some music-related ones that might come in handy.

Megan has set up a wonderful Web Assignments page on her website where she posts a new web assignment for her students each week. The page is set up like a traditional blog, so you can subscribe to the RSS feed or, better yet, have your students subscribe to the RSS feed and complete the web assignments as part of their weekly lesson assignment!

Trent of The Simple Dollar Blog has an excellent post, outlining Ten Killer Tactics for Developing a New Skill. I know many teachers want to develop skills related to other areas of interest, but find themselves so busy with the responsibilities of the many hats that they wear that it’s hard to know how to go about it. Here are the ten tactics he recommends:

1. Clearly identify the skills you actually want to build.

2. Set aside time every day - or on an extremely regular schedule - to focus specifically on building those skills.

3. Develop a game plan for building a specific skill.

4. Invest in top-quality resources for learning.

5. Set a clear goal that you want to reach.

6. Use something in the “real world” to work on as you learn.

7. Gather support for this skill growth.

8. Share the progress you’re making along the way.

9. Capitalize on your newly-found skill by applying it to a project that you can share with others.

10. Get started. Now. Not later.

Trent explains each of these tactics further in his post and then gives some excellent, practical examples of how he’s developing new skills in his own life (including learning to play the piano!).

Stay tuned later this month for my announcement about a new project I’m working on that goes along with this idea…

Check out this new Technique Achievement Poster that D’Net designed! This would be a great alternative to placing individual Scale Charts in each student’s assignment book. I think it would be especially motivating to see the progress posted on the studio wall!

In my Get Organized! and Storing Music posts, I alluded to a system I use to help stay organized when teaching lessons to 30+ students each week. It’s nothing fancy, but it helps me keep track of what materials need to go to what student and keeps my most frequently used teaching tools readily available. Here’s a snapshot of my weekly lesson organizer:

I have a hanging file for each day of the week that I teach. If I get a new book for a student, I just drop it in the file for the appropriate day. If a student accidentally forgets a book in the studio, I drop it in their lesson day file. Same goes for worksheets I want to remember to give to a specific student.

Here’s a closer look at some of the other items I keep in the organizer:

This handy notepad is where I keep track of all the music I need to look for or purchase the next time I make a trip to the music store.

I love these music flashcards! The ones I use the most are the notes on the staff. I like that each card has the full staff, regardless of whether the note is in the treble or bass clef. And I really like the second and third sections on each card that contain short patterns incorporating the specific note so that students can practice identifying and playing the note in a context similar to what they would find in a piece of music.

A collection of dice and pawns that can be used for various games at the keyboard. Very handy!

An assortment of magnets that I use with a magnetic white board. I use these for melodic dictation or I draw a quick staff on the board and use the magnets for note or interval identification.

The white board and markers get used every day in my studio! I can’t imagine functioning without them. Whether it’s something simple like writing out the Major scale pattern or practicing drawing treble clefs to fine-tuning notation skills or writing answers for listening activities, this board is well-used (obviously, since it’s falling apart!). Using a white board and markers provides an easy way to incorporate activities that address all three major learning styles - aural, visual and kinesthetic.

I’d love to know if you have tips for staying organized in your studio! I’m constantly looking for ways to run things more efficiently and love to know what’s working well for other teachers!