Mitch vs. Tuesday. Season 3, Episode 4

The week started off with an epic battle, the likes of which mankind has never seen and will likely never see again.  In one corner:

Me: the hero of our story.
In the other corner:

So, here is how it went down.  For Learning Theory in Music, I had to create a video of myself teaching in the style of Music Learning Theory and upload it for review by noon on Tuesday.  I did my recording early Tuesday morning and had all the shots in the can by 10am.  The video recording went fine and I was feeling pretty good.  And then, Tuesday starting winning.  First of all, I shot 6 video segments that had to be combined into one video file.  So, I imported them all into a single Windows Movie Maker file.  It took almost an hour and a half for Movie Maker to process the video clips and compile them into one file.  Then, I had to export the new file, which took another hour.  Are you doing the math?  It is now 12:30ish and the video is not yet uploaded.  Yes, 30 minutes late.  Then, I went to upload the file for my teacher to view.  That took another hour!  Yes, because of technology issues, I turned in something an hour and a half late, which I had completed on time.

It didn't stop there either.  I had to run home after the video fiasco.  Some of you may know that I have had an urban garden project this summer.  I was growing kirby cucumbers, eggplant, serrano chilis, tomatoes, basil, lemon basil, and cilantro in a small planter out front of my house.  Well, I got home today and someone had come by the house and stole my last tomato and picked my chili pepper plant clean.  This guy was furious!  Tuesday scored another point.

Fuming, I headed to school.  I had conducting class that evening and had to print out two scores for class.  I had tons of time to do my printing.  I went up to the Pet Shop, where I have access to a printer.  I set myself up and started printing my scores.  8 pages came out and then a printing error appeared.  I cleared the print queue and tried again.  This time, only 3 pages appeared.  Dammit!  I gave it one more shot: no pages.  Tuesday was starting to pull away on the scoreboard.  But, never fear!  There is a printer in my office.  I had never used it, but I was hoping I could plug it into my computer and it would automatically install the driver and be good to go.  I plugged it in, no such luck.  So, I tried to download the driver automatically.  There was no driver available for my operating system.  At this point, I had had enough.  I threw in the towel, conceded the match, and let Tuesday win.


On Friday, I hosted my first Instrument Repair Workshop.  For the first week, I had a pretty good turn out.  12 students showed up.  We talked about how to assess the condition of an instrument to determine what work needs to be done, whether it can be done in-house, or whether it needs to be sent to the shop.  I got some really great feedback and I am excited for next week, when we will dive into real repairs.  I know the students are super excited to start repairing things too!

The big issue of the week comes from Learning Theory in Music.  It stems from Gordon's belief in the importance of music aptitude testing and the necessity of tailoring the music learning experience of each student to their measured music aptitude.  Essentially, students who have been determined to have low music aptitude only get the music making opportunities deemed, "easy."  The students deemed to have high music aptitude get the "easy," "medium," and "hard" music making opportunities.  Gordon posited that music aptitude is set at birth and he devised a test to measure musical aptitude.

So, here is my position.  I will concede that each of us is different, which makes it plausible that some of our brains are likely more predisposed to learning music than others, in the same way that someone 7 feet tall is more predisposed to playing basketball than I am.  That being said, we know far too little about the brain, let along how it learns, let along how it learns music to be able to definitively say that someone is going to be more apt to learn music than another person.  Also, I have read a decent amount of research that points to the conclusion that when teachers are given an indication of a students aptitude (whether measured aptitude or fabricated aptitude levels), the perceived aptitude level becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Essentially, students achieve to the level set by the teacher's expectations, not to the level predicted by aptitude testing.  There is also research that points to the conclusion that students will rise to the level of rigor of the learning experience.  I believe that all students may not achieve the same level of performance.  But, that all learners will learn best by being presented with the most rigorous, yet achievable educational goals possible.  Even if we could know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, someone's musical aptitude,  as a teacher, I wouldn't want to know.  The belief that all my students are all capable of making amazing music is the force that drives me to challenge my students to achieve their absolute best, not their predicted, probable, safe level of achievement.  Discuss amongst yourselves.


In other news, the Temple University football team earned another win, bringing their record to an undefeated 2-0.

After week 2, ESPN has put Temple in the top 25, tied with Wisconsin for #25.  Hey-o!

Well, that is it for this week.  Until we meet again,

Future Dr. Mitch, out!

Sucks to be Penn State. Season 3, Episode 3

I am going to start off with the big news from the weekend.  As you know, I decided to work with the Temple University Diamond Marching Band this semester.  As it happens, this past weekend was my first live college football game since I graduated undergrad back in 2005.  And, boy was it a doozy!  Temple went into the game a 7 point underdog.  As the marching band marched through the sea of Penn State fans in the tailgate, they sure made us feel like the underdog.  Most of the crowd was well-spirited.  Though there were a few choice fans that made giant asses of themselves by yelling insults and taunts at the band.  To the band's credit, everyone handled it perfectly well.  The first quarter was all Penn State, scoring 10 unanswered points against a Temple squad that looked like they forgot there was a football game that day.  And then Temple decided to bring it.  And bring it they did.  The rest of the game was all Temple, resulting in a 27-10 Temple victory!

What's more is that one of the Temple touchdowns came right through the side of the endzone where we were standing.  That's right, folks if you were watching ESPN on Saturday with a magnifying glass trained on the lower left hand screen of your TV, you saw me cheering on the team as we crushed Penn State.

...wait, you weren't watching with your TV zoomed in enough to see me?  Let me help you out.

You still don't see me?  Maybe this will help.

Anyway, the Temple band's approach to playing in the stands is very different from my experience at the University of Maryland.  At Maryland, we had flip folders, filled with stand tunes, in the stands.  This allowed the band to play a large repertoire of music in the stands.  Tunes were called up a few plays ahead of time so the band could be ready to play when the opportunity arose.  Temple, on the other hand, has a smaller selection of stand tunes, but they are all memorized.  The smaller selection, though necessitating the repetition of tunes during a single game, allows the student body to get to know the tunes and become participants in the music making experience.  Because the music is memorized, they need less time to get ready and can call up tunes in the moment in direct response to the action on the field.  I am not sure which I like better.  Both have their merits and their shortcomings.  But, it was an interesting comparative experience.

Speaking of interesting experiences: I have been spending a lot of time in the copy room at school making music copies for Night Owls.  And because I have been parked in such a high traffic area, I have gotten to overhear some very interesting conversations.  My favorite from this past week was between two dance teachers.  It was unclear whether they were actual dance professors or TAs.  Regardless, the one teacher was complaining about her students, saying that she couldn't stand her classes.  They didn't pay attention, they were always on their cell phones, they came late to class, etc.  It reminded me of a conversation we had back in Teaching Music in Higher Education about how many college professors are not trained teachers.  And I think it is a crying shame because of situations like this.  This particular "teacher" was struggling with a disconnect with her students.  She couldn't figure out how to teach the material in a way that would connect her interest in it to her student's perspective on it.  I wish universities had systems in place to identify and aid ineffective teachers and give them the support and training they need to do their work.

In conducting class, this week, Dr. T. said something that made me harken back to a conversation I had with a music teacher colleague a few years ago.  She said that conductors often talk too much and that it is a sign that the conductor does not have the gestural language to say what needs to be said without using words.  I think this is true to a point, but not completely.  For me, the truth of this statement occurs when the conductor is having an artistic "conversation" with the ensemble in real time.  Gestures can be used to show shape, direction, tone, tempo, style, and more.  It can be used in creative interchanges.  But, the statement does not hold true for me when the conversation needs to be one regarding music literacy (mastery over the declarative and procedural knowledge necessary for the participation in a musical paradigm).  In this case, the conversation must be driven by explanations, models, metaphors, and other teaching tools.  It is the same issue I have when folks posit that music classes need no curriculum other than the literature being prepared for a concert.  That is all well and good if your students are receiving literacy curriculum elsewhere.  But, in the case of so many music educators out there, our curriculum must be a hybrid of creativity and conceptual mastery.  If you want to hear more on this topic, come to my session at the NAfME conference this October!

Conducting class was a very eye-opening experience this past week.  Remember how I was telling you about Dr. T.'s dissatisfaction with undergraduate conducting courses?  Well, she was totally right.  Everything (well, really almost everything) I "know" about conducting needs a paradigm shift.  My conducting plane is too high.  My grip in the baton is wrong.  The way I form my left hand is distracting.  My pattern (I was apparently taught "focal point" conducting) is not the standard one.  Gaaah!  Why am I just finding these things out now!  Well, better late than never.  I will be putting in some solid conducting practice over the course of this semester.

We have been working on independence of hands - that is to say, making the left and the right hand do completely unrelated things at the same time.  Think patting your head with one hand while rubbing your stomach with the other, but a million times more difficult.  Many of you know that when I was a youngster, I had to be in "special gym."  Yes, folks. That is the class for kids who are too uncoordinated to do real gym in school.  Well, this week felt like a return to special gym.  My lack of coordination was in full effect.  Crap.

Research was fun this past week.  In pairs, we presented to each other on various research paradigms.  My partner and I had Quantitative Experimental Research.  And our presentation went over pretty well.  A number of my classmates remarked how much they liked our presentation.  I like to think that my disdain of reading from the powerpoint, use of color, and liberal employment of clipart makes my presentation style unique and entertaining.  Plus, we gave out candy.  I have a habit of making up words, which can sometimes be an endearing and fun quality and at other times be a little embarrassing.  During discussion in Research class, I used the word, "ideosyncraticies."  Yes, I made up a word because I couldn't think of the word, "idiosyncrasies."  And Dr. C. totally called me out on it.

I am still working out my feelings on the Gordon Music Learning Theory.  More to come on that later.

Notable quotes from the week:
Dr. B.  "Remember that every time you perform, it is someone's first time seeing you."
Dr. T. "What feels good for you is not always what is best for your musicians."

Well, folks.  I think that is it for this edition.  Until next week,

Future Dr. Mitch, out!

P.S.  You can leave comments below!  Or on Facebook.

The Bacon Lollipop... Season 3, Episode 2

I am going to jump right into our top story for the week.  You remember Dum-Dums?  You know, the lollipops of our past that got phased out by other pops featuring fun things hidden inside them, like Tootsie-Pops and Blow-Pops.  Come on, you remember!  These guys:



Yeah, now you've got it!  Well, then, you might also remember that in each bag is a special, mystery lollipop variety which could taste like one of three exciting flavors.  Great!  I am glad you are with me on this one.

Last week, you might recall, I spent some time manning a table to recruit new members for the Night Owls Campus/ Community Band.  We had a bowl of candy on the table, which I had stocked with Airheads, Lifesavers, and - you guessed it - Dum-Dums.  Well, there was some left-over candy from last week and I decided to sample a piece this week.  But, just any piece of candy wouldn't do.  No, I needed to try the mystery flavor of Dum-Dums.  The possibilities were:






Yup, you read that right: bacon, buttered popcorn, and pizza.  And, as luck would have it, I landed a bacon lollipop.  I wanted to believe that having the ability to distill the flavor of bacon into a lollipop would be the crowning achievement of humankind, a feat that once achieved would render the rest of our existence pointless because it would be all downhill from there.  Only three words can truly encapsulate my bacon lollipop experience:




Worst...    Lollipop...    Ever.

On Monday, I met with Dr. C. about some things in our near future.  She told me that in October, we will be hosting some visitors from Italy.  They are leaders of the community band movement over there and they will be coming to see what we are doing with the Night Owls band as well as the work of other community bands and school bands in the Philadelphia area.  Dr. C. told me that we will be hosting a conference entitled Musica Per La Vita (Music For Life) to coincide with their visit.  She has invited a number of community band leaders from across the country to sit on panels and lead discussions about the American community band movement.  And I have been appointed Conference Assistant.  It is going to be (and already has been) a ton of work.  But, it will be an invaluable learning experience for me to see what goes into planning and running a conference.  She is also letting me sit on one of the panels as a presenter due to my work with both the Category 5 Wind Ensemble and the Night Owls.  CV stuffer!

My classes this semester are going to be pretty awesome.  My first class is a research class.  Dr. C. is teaching that class and has structured it such that each week will guide us through the process of designing a research project and, by the end of the class, we will each have a viable research project with IRB protocols ready for investigation, should we choose to take it that next step.  I have elected to use the topic I came up with last semester (I can't give you the actual topic because of intellectual property protection).  I tried to design the project on my own over the summer, but I had trouble navigating the process.  This class will really help me examine all the facets and put together a really nice project worth investigating.

Conducting class is going to be great.  This week Dr. T. started off by detailing some of the deficiencies of undergraduate conducting instruction.  And all of it applied to my experience.  I had some great instruction in conducting patterns, but not much in independence of hands or artistry in conducting.  Everything I "know" about conducting artfully I pretty much figured out on my own.  I am super excited to get some actual instruction in conducting and growing and developing my skills on the podium.

Learning Theory in Music is going to be an interesting class.  The class is about Gordon's Music Learning Theory.  Honestly, I don't know a whole lot about it, but have some negative bias toward it.  I am not sure where it comes from.  Maybe one of my undergraduate professors was not a Gordon fan and I assumed that stance on the theory.  But, as an educated adult, I have come to realize that I don't truly know enough about Music Learning Theory (MLT) to have an opinion, positive or negative, about it.  So, I am making a conscious decision to go into this learning experience with an open mind and giving myself the opportunity to form an informed opinion on MLT.  Also, if there is anywhere in the world to learn MLT, it is here, at Temple University, where Gordon was a professor and to study it with Dr. R., who was one of Gordon's doctoral students at Temple.  I will keep you all posted about what I learn!

Well, it is time for me to take my leave.  Until next week, 

Future Dr. Mitch, out!