Over the years I have taught in many different places and in many different types of situations, both at the high school and university levels.
Create and Edit Music with MakeMusic Cloud’s Notation Tool, Compose
While MakeMusic Cloud includes an unrivaled online repertoire library, there may be times when you wish to augment this library with music you’ve created.
Motivating the Individual in the Ensemble Classroom
Finding ways to motivate the students in our large ensembles is among our most important challenges. To provide you with strategies to do so, this post draws from material originally presented at the 2017 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic.
Programming Women Composers
If you spend any time on the internet, you are most likely aware of the current calls to program more music by women and people of color.
Building a Positive Culture in Your Music Program
Developing a positive culture starts from the top. We must motivate our students to work hard for us by working hard for them.
Finding Ways to Help Every Student
During my last year of teaching I decided to take on directing the fifth- and sixth-grade after-school jazz band on top of my regular high school teaching schedule.
Tips For Your Jazz Band Guitarist
With very little background in playing guitar, and no background in jazz guitar pedagogy, many band directors find themselves at a loss on how to help their jazz band guitarist.
Instrumental Teachers in General Music: Teaching Outside Your Comfort Zone?
Let’s set the stage: you have an instrumental performance degree and a teaching degree in band or orchestra. After graduation, you find yourself working as a long-term substitute teaching band or orchestra.
Copyright and Your Marching Band
When planning a marching band show, one of the first decisions to make is whether to go with a stock arrangement, write a custom show, or hire someone to do so for you.
Improving Brass Tone Production
As the school year is now in full swing, let’s turn our thoughts to brass tone production. No doubt, your students are all playing a lot right now and are probably working the muscles more than ever before.