A Diva Learns a Few Lessons

               The scariest part of music, to me anyways, has always been theory and composition; it’s like music’s version of math, and I was never very good at math. Whenever I’ve taken a theory or technology class in college that requires an original work, it causes me immediate panic. Watching the week 2 video, I’m beginning to understand why that is; I had no exposure to composing, and very little experience with theory, prior to my undergrad degree. Although my high school offered a music theory class, it was very basic (learning how to read music, etc.) and I already could do that due to my years in band, orchestra and chorus. However, there were no music technology classes offered and no advanced music courses offered. I think if I had more exposure to it when I was younger, it would have been less terrifying as a young adult in college.

                Watching the Bay Shore example, all I could think was “Man, those kids are lucky!” In a time where music programs are continually being reduced or dropped completely due to budge shortages, these students have a full music program, including music technology. It also seemed to me that the teachers at the Bay Shore school see the importance of working together: the elementary music teachers understand that they are teaching the building blocks that the middle school teachers will build on, and then eventually the high school teachers. I wish more schools would look at that type of teamwork. When I was student teaching at the high school level, the kids coming into the 9^th grade classes were all at different levels because they had different elementary school teachers who all taught differently. When the music teachers are all on the same page, it really enhances the overall learning potential for their students.

                The other aspect that I thought was neat about Bay Shore was the way that the students could overlap their learning into other subjects. The one girl that spoke in the video was using her original composition from music technology in a video she produced for her multimedia class. I think this is an amazing way to incorporate the national standard that wants us to involve other subjects.

                Going into the rest of week 2, I am looking forward to learning about different notation programs and continuing to grow our PLN’s. I have very limited experience with notation programs (mostly with Finale and it was almost 10 years ago now) so I am looking forward to seeing how far they have come in the last 10 years.