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All my students learn to read music, count rhythms and play to a metronome. Once those basic skills are well established, they learn chords, theory, scales, how to play music from lead sheets, jazz/pop, in addition to standard classical instruction. I encourage them to study all types of music from classical and jazz to pop and world music, and many of them do. I also teach many instruments and encourage them to try more than one! Many of my students play 2 or more instruments. I teach fundamentals well. I believe that it doesn’t matter what instrument you learn, or what styles of music you end up learning... reading music is the most important skill and should be taught from the beginning. All of my students start by learning to read music; learning each piece by reading it, never by rote. My system is very easy for the students to deal with, because I break every task down into small chunks in logical order. I rarely...

Against my better judgment, I’m jumping into the fray regarding methods used in the teaching of sight singing. Normally I try to stay away from such conflicts, but I can only take so much disparagement of my beloved Movable Do system.  The last straw is the discovery of this web site, which contains misleading information designed to promote the sale of a book.
(Warning: This post is intended for musicianship and theory nerds. If you are not in that category, your eyes will glaze over shortly.)
What are we arguing about?
The age-old argument is this: Do we teach students to sight sing using an absolute system (Fixed Do) or a relative one (MovableDo)?
Using the Fixed Do system, the syllable do corresponds directly to the note name “C”, such that Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti(Si)-Do is a C major scale. Re is D, So is G, etc. Teachers who use this system value pitch memory as a way of learning how to read.  Over time the student should learn from this what each note feels like and sounds like.
The Movable Do system emphasizes each note’s function in the given key. Do is always scale degree 1. So is always scale degree 5, etc., no matter what the key. Here what’s important is knowing what each note’s role is in whatever key you’re in. People with perfect pitch have a hard time with this.
I won’t be coy about my own preference. In a classroom musicianship setting, the movable Movable Do system has the most pedagogical value. We have an excellent fixed system in the English language for expressing absolute pitches. It’s called “letter names”. The Fixed Do system is nothing other than what’s used in certain European countries as an equivalent to our letter names. Over time, using it may teach students by rote how to sing the notes, but it will not teach them intervals. It will not teach them anything about harmony or functionality, to say nothing of voice leading. There are times where musicianship and theory students need to be able to sing and identify specific notes, and in those cases our English-language letter names are at their disposal.
What about scale degree numbers?
Good question. Yes, scale degree numbers accomplish the teaching of intervals and functionality very well. Thumbs up on numbers. Up to a point. What happens when you’re working in a minor key? What happens when it goes chromatic?  Sing me a German augmented 6th chord, please, using numbers.  You can sing “6-1-2-4″, but that comes nowhere near expressing what’s happening in this chord.  At best you can sing “lowered 6 – 1 – raised 2 – raised 4″, but that is...

Social and academic pressure can make college a stressful time. Add long hours in the practice room, a rigorous rehearsal schedule, constant critiquing, and intense competition into the mix, and the life of a college student-singer can be even more challenging. You can find balance and maintain your emotional sanity amidst the craziness. Wilma Wever shares several terrific strategies that will help.By Wilma WeverYou’re off to college. Now real life can begin! Your dreams are approaching reality. You did a fine audition and have been accepted to a great school. Everything is going your way. You’ll make new friends, hang out with other passionate musicians, and learn many new skills, which will make you a prominent singer. You are ready to conquer the world!You might also get a little anxious, however, now that you are leaving the safety of your home and your school community. What if you don’t fit in? What if the students or faculty don’t like you? What if everybody else is a much better singer? What if you have trouble with diction or can’t get the French pronunciation correct? They might think you are stupid. Maybe you have to memorize music in a very short amount of time and that is not your strength. What if you miss your family and friends at home? What if . . . what if . . . what if?Now that you are on your way to the next phase of your life, you feel a certain level of stress, a mixture of excitement and fear. The unknown can be scary—but as we all know, stress and worry does not help anybody. Nevertheless, going to college will require a lot more from you than high school did. It will bring you many new challenges, and you are the only one to decide how to handle them. Besides dealing with a whole new curriculum, you’re probably going to leave home and take care of yourself, which might include shopping, making food, doing laundry, etc. On top of that, you might have to find a part-time job to help pay for your education—and you might have to commute, which can be exhausting and time consuming.What can you do to make your new life a successful balancing act? How can you blend practicing, classes, homework, rehearsals, and your social life, while, most importantly, maintaining your health and an overall feeling of happiness?Ask yourself, what is my goal? What do I want to achieve in college? What do I want to achieve this year, this month, this week, this day? If you don’t know where you want to go, you won’t know how to get there. Most people want to sing at the Met—the trick is, how do you plan to get there? It’s a journey and you have to outline it carefully.Gary Blair, author of What Are Your Goals, writes, “You need to be fearless, daring, and have a courageous spirit, nerves of steel, and a massive dose of self-confidence” (Gary Ryan Blair, Big BANG, A Formula on How to Create Monumental, Quantum-Leap Performance in Life and/or Career, Internet Marketing News Watch, [accessed Jan. 6, 2007]). Compile a list of your self-assessments, discover your strengths and weaknesses, and decide what you need to work on to get to your destination.Before you get overwhelmed and stressed out about the amount of work you have to do, make a weekly schedule. Start by writing down your classes, practice times, and rehearsals, and then add the average number of hours you spend sleeping, commuting, cooking, eating, shopping, doing laundry, etc. That way you’ll know how much time you have left for homework, memorizing music, research, going to the gym and any other activity you like or need to do on a regular basis.Be sure to schedule some “catch-up” time to avoid getting behind, in case you have a “low energy” day or lose time because of unexpected situations....

I have been teaching cello in the Los Angeles area for over 40 years. My experience includes  teaching in both the public and private schools, as...

When I was a young violin student my teacher would arrive at my house empty-handed.  He never picked up an instrument to show me how something might be played, and I never had the chance to play duets with him, or hear what the accompaniment might be on a piece we were learning.  He occasionally said something like, "That's out of tune," but I was left to figure out for myself where the center of the pitch actually resided. 
As I talk with my fellow string-playing professionals there is almost a unanimous concurrence with this experience.  We all slogged through, frustrated and unhappy, trying to pluck some semblance of good intonation out of the ether. 
Now, as  teacher myself, I find it absolutely necessary to play right alongside my students.  If they're out of tune with me they immediately hear it and can correct it.  They have something against which to compare their own pitch, and it saves a great deal of lesson...

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With over 2o years of teaching, performing and recording experiences, Bob is most notable for his technological contributions to the music industry as the inventor of the “Riff-O-Matic” and the “Dragonfly” personal practice amp. They are both available to help students master music like pros. Bob specializes in training the individual to develop as a professional in half the time, using his unique proprietary, teaching methodologies. Many of Bob’s students have achieved success in the music...

In my over 40 years of teaching private music lessons, one of the most frustrating things for me as a teacher is to go thrugh the painful process of dealing with students (and their parents) who have been forced into taking lessons from me.
Recently I had a pair of sisters enrolled where the parents literally had to DRAG one of the daughters from their minivan into my studio, screaming and yelling that she didn't want to take guitar lessons.
The first lesson was "really fun" to say the least.  One sister...

Teaching Beginning Banjo Students by Pete Wernick Banjo teachers, lend me your ears! Are we doing all we can for our students? The ideas which follow may not be typical, but they’re based on experience, and they work. This article will try to convey both my method for teaching beginning banjo players and the reasons for what I do, and what I don’t do. In sum: Focus your teaching directly on the skills that will enable your students, as soon as possible, to play simple and enjoyable music with other people. And as soon as they’re ready, help your students get together with others to make music. . A hard fact: Most people who try to learn bluegrass-style banjo give up at some point, whether after a few months or a few years. I feel this would happen far less if teachers and instructional materials would help students, from the first lesson, to play simple music with others.
It’s sad and frustrating to see how many teachers and teaching methods set students up for failure, when there are great possibilities for launching musicians. The biggest problem is that they focus primarily on having the student try to memorize note-for-note banjo solos, usually instrumentals. Most new players find even the simplest solos too hard, and play them very slowly and haltingly. Even those who learn to pick smoothly often have persistent rhythm problems because they never have to play in "real time". This often goes on for months or even years, wearing down the student’s optimism as they struggle to learn a repertoire that amounts to only a few minutes of music. I suggest they focus instead on skills such as simple right hand rhythm patterns, making easy chords, and learning to follow simple chord progressions in real time. Once a person can do that, making music with other people, or even a play-along recording, becomes possible. The rewards are endless. The repertoire of 3-chord songs is humongous. Songbooks and word sheets, or just watching others’ chords in a jam situation, make hours of music possible. Frustration is at a minimum. Also, this type of learning is more fundamental than soloing, providing a solid foundation which will serve the student well when it’s time to start learning solos. Since starting to teach banjo back in 1964, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t. At over 80 week-long instructional camps since 1980, plus many weekend clinics and workshops, I’ve encountered students of all kinds. Many of them had taken banjo lessons, some for years. A great many own one or more (usually many more) teaching methods. The most frustrated students are usually those who, despite learning tabs or other note-for-note arrangements, still don’t or can’t play with other people. The ones who have the most fun are those who can and do play comfortably with others. If you actually facilitate your students’ jamming with one another, or with the students of a fellow teacher, you will create an unbeatable motivational situation. Any student who learns to jam is unlikely to ever quit playing. Being able to jam leads to motivation to go beyond the basics, and it engenders an optimism in the student that in time, many things are possible. Motivation is number one Without motivation we have nothing. It’s the difference between the person who practices and makes progress, versus the one who never seems to "have enough time", and who keeps coming back without having practiced (you know, the one who eventually drops out). I assume every student begins with a motivational head start: Maybe he/she just likes the sound of a banjo, or likes bluegrass music itself. Maybe he/she happens to have a banjo and feels an urge to try to play it. We can add to that initial motivation, or we can squander it by needlessly trying the student’s patience. If we help them develop some momentum, they’re hooked. If we don’t, there’s a good chance that sooner or later they will quit. What’s rewarding for a beginning student? A few favorites:

Learning something that sounds good, with minimal effort.
Having a sense of progress ("Hey, I can do it!")
Having others witness and congratulate the progress.

Additional motivational fuel:

Sensing what fun it will be to get better.
Anticipating how easy it will be to improve.

Yes, it needs to be easy, that’s kind of obvious. All those "________ For Idiots" and "________ For Dummies" books remind us that many people lack confidence in their learning abilities and want clear assurances that learning will be made easy for them. Reasonable enough. I’m the same way. What’s wrong with something being easy? If it’s too easy, just move ahead to the next thing. But if something is too hard, frustration is the result, and there’s a temptation to just give up.. So to summarize: To keep motivation high, maximize:

Fun
Progress
A vision of increasing amounts of fun based on progress
Social benefits of progress.

Minimize:

Frustration
A sense that it’s "too hard for me". ("Maybe I'm not good enough.")

What else dictates what we should teach our students? The importance of the social situation A great many beginning players make music exclusively by themselves. Often the only person who hears them is their teacher, or a family member. This is not natural! One thing that’s great about bluegrass and banjo music is that so much of it can be reduced to a form simple enough for almost anyone to do it, and do it successfully with others. I use the expression, "The first rung of the ladder is very close to the ground." Once a person can successfully combine with others in the making of simple music, a commitment develops. The fun and the feeling of success in that experience builds a desire to improve, to practice. How to gear your teaching to the social situation It helps to imagine a situation where a person can play banjo in a group doing something that’s ultra-easy. A few basics:

Electronic tuner
Key of G. Female singers may prefer C or D, but it means either playing F or retuning the 5th string.
Start with two chord songs, using just G and D7 (a 2-finger chord), or C and G (key of C)
Easiest right hand (simple strum, then later a TITM roll)
Easiest left hand (simple chord forms near the nut, no F chord or F-shape chords at first)
Familiar songs (preferably ones that the student actually likes).
Easy-going tempos.
Somebody to...

 
Edwin Gordon (his site http://www.giml.org/) is my cornerstone, as I teach musical literacy to children.  And my article today is mostly to do with these three points:
1.      Gordon’s research proved that if children begin music as an infant, EVERY child can become musically literate. (simple chart below).  I think the first three years are best/ideal, as brain formed at age 3, but children in my studio and others “catch up” adequately, when they enter later.  But those starting as infants clearly have a more effortless, deeper tool box, at 9.  What they already know makes them available for more new information.
2.      Musical literacy is learned at the same time language literacy is, and in the same steps, from ear to eye.  Historically, music was mostly visual.  Playing "by ear" can be taught to children easily, and even to adults.  Not just a magic skill.
3.      All that is required for a child to become musically literate by age 9 is family input and some training. Birth-9, music is no respecter of persons.  Again, literacy is mostly taught, and the ear should be the focus for a child for the first years anyway.  Think language literacy and when student's eyes kick in.
Literacy is simply to "read and write meaningfully", whether language or music.  Knowing a word in Spanish (memorized) does not mean a person knows what it means.  A child can memorize visually the notes on a staff but never be able to sing them.   
 From my own life, I can say that reading musical notation was all I ever learned, in traditional piano lessons started at age 7.  (some piano teachers add by-ear, just my experience)  My parents were told to have me start “when I knew how to read.”  Many still believe that, but I passionately believe that by age 7, your child or student can be 2 years from musical literacy.  Then he/she is ready to make any musical choice for their future, such as instrument, voice, composition, arranging.
Though I had fabulous opportunities to play the piano, I could never read the unfamiliar hymns in church.  I would sweat, since everyone assumed that the one playing the fancy offertory must know everything about music.  I would just stand and sing nothing or even move my lips silently.  Those were the days.  Ear...

This article was published in the Summer 2004 issue of MET magazine.  http://metmagazine.com/mag/elementary/
 
Like their colleagues who teach the secondary grades, elementary-school teachers who properly integrate music technology into their curriculum are likely to reap the rewards in the form of increased student interest and achievement. However, they must often apply the technology in ways that are different than what middle- and high school teachers do in order to reach their younger students. For example, while children of all ages can benefit from project-based learning, the approach must be customized to be appropriate for students in each age group.
Generally, older students seem able to learn software in greater depth than can the younger children. At the elementary level, therefore, many teachers use a variety of tools and don't get into the programs as deeply as secondary-school teachers might. Even within the elementary grades, some teachers find that fourth and fifth graders learn keyboard and general music skills more rapidly than do third-grade students. With younger students, you have to pay more attention to the scaffolding (the process of supporting the students until they are able to work independently) and guided practice of the simple basics than you do for older children, so that the younger students don't get off-track. In an educational sense, scaffolding, in the form of coaching or modeling, supports students as they develop new skills and understand new concepts.
LEARNING THEORY
 
According to Jean Piaget, elementary school students are concrete sensory learners. Kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade learners fall into the preoperational stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development. After age seven, the preoperational stage of intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. That is why, at the elementary level, it is necessary to rigorously incorporate the use of technology with the whole experience of learning music.
Elementary students are still in the process of building systems. With their general-classroom teachers, they work on developing a sound-symbol relationship with the alphabet and words, and in music class they work on a sound-symbol relationship with musical notes and phrases. In both cases, students need to use a multistep process in order to learn which symbols go with particular sounds, how to form symbols, and so on. High school students are working at the macrocosmic level, while elementary students are at the microcosmic.
High school students already have a system in place for a sound-symbol relationship. Middle school and high school students are formal operational thinkers, thinking about thinking. Possibilities become more important than reality. High school students can see more patterns and make more connections than younger children, and can think abstractly. They can construct a whole experience from the parts, and can keep several opposing ideas in their minds simultaneously.
Older students can, for example, use the computer without the presence of traditional mechanical musical instruments. Elementary students, on the other hand, need to connect the traditional instrument and voice to their experience with the computer. They need to understand that the physical experience of making music is represented by the computer playing back the music they have created. One way to accomplish this is to have kindergarten through second grade use glockenspiels (see Fig. 1 and Web example 1 ), third graders use song flutes, fourth graders use recorders, and fifth graders use keyboards. It is helpful to keep in mind the Chinese proverb, “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.”
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
 
Project-based learning (PBL) is a great way to incorporate technology with the whole experience of making music, helping us achieve several objectives at once. PBL emphasizes long-term, interdisciplinary learning activities that incorporate practical skills and address real-world concerns.
Projects of this sort are fun to design — the process is similar in some ways to that of composing music — and you can incorporate the topics that children are working on in their regular classroom. Your goal is to create a number of occurrences or activities with several elements that will be performed and will cause a change in the people involved.
STANDARDS-BASED INSTRUCTION
 
Many districts have their own music standards based on the MENC National Standards and the state framework. (For more on the MENC standards, see “Music Technology and the National Standards, Part 2” on p. 10.) It is also a good idea to design instruction that leads to the attainment of the student and teacher National Education Technology Standards from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE NETS) and your own district technology standards. If you plan lessons around the McGraw-Hill Share the Music curriculum or something similar, you can include technology projects based on those lessons to achieve the standards.
However, if you are able to design parts of your own curriculum, you might want to consider backward-mapping from the standards to actual lesson plans, which is one of the latest models for designing instruction. Backward mapping involves designing the assessment first and then planning the learning activities. (For an example, see www.calstate.edu/CAPP/projects/Module_2.pdf.) The MENC also provides an online resource that can help with assessments (see the sidebar “Web Contacts”).
AN EXAMPLE VIDEO PROJECT
 
One project that has been very successful and popular with my students over the past few years involves creating streaming performance videos and original music compositions for publication on the school's Web site. In this project, students make a sustained effort, working alone and in collaboration, to create a composition that is displayed on the Web. Technology is interwoven with the whole music-making experience, an important consideration for the elementary student. In this case, students use a computer to create a streaming video of their glockenspiel performances, as well as an interactive file of their composition, created with Finale NotePad.
Our goals include working on MENC National Standards 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 (performing on instruments, composing, reading notes, listening, and evaluating music and music performances, respectively). Students practice their ISTE technology-standard skills by communicating their thoughts and feelings using input and output devices, taking advantage of technology resources such as the online software, and sharing files. Working collaboratively and responsibly, students are also able to effectively communicate about technology through developmentally appropriate, accurate terminology.
BEFORE WE BEGIN
 
Before we get started with this project, let's recognize that many teachers do not yet have the resources to publish pages to the Internet. Furthermore, video is more difficult to produce and post than audio, and the quality of streaming video (and sometimes audio) over the Internet depends on the speed of one's Internet connection. In addition, as we will discuss shortly, permission release forms are always needed before posting student work or images, and you might also need to consider privacy and security issues. If any of these considerations are problematic for you, don't give up on the project. Instead, use your creativity to design a variation that works for you and your program.
Teachers who lack access to a school Web site are not necessarily left out in the cold. Web-hosting services such as http://myhosting.com are available for as little as $9.95 a month, allowing you to have your own Web site relatively inexpensively.
Finally, teachers should always monitor any student who is using the Internet. Good Web-monitoring practices will quickly become second nature, as with other important everyday safety precautions.
EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS
 
This project is most easily accomplished if you have your own classroom. If you are an itinerant teacher, some aspects might be a bit inconvenient, but the project can still be practical and worthwhile.
You will need some low-tech materials: pencils, erasers, and composition-paper templates for everyone in the class. Using a different template for each grade level helps achieve the necessary benchmarks. For instance, in second grade the template can be big enough to allow the children to write their own words. In third grade, I like students to compose a song flute duet, and in fifth grade, we use a template for a 12-bar keyboard blues. In my classroom, the children store their work in a folder, including reference materials with the names of the music symbols we have covered and the symbols' relationships to their instruments.
You will need a sufficient supply of glockenspiels with mallets, song flutes, recorders, or small keyboards. It might also be helpful to have some music stands. Students can work in pairs or teams, if necessary, to stretch your limited supply of instruments.
These days, some districts (at least in California, where I teach) require four computers in the classroom in order to qualify for grants. If possible, I recommend having four desktop computers, complete with USB ports, sound card, speakers,...