Soundscapes engender historical, cultural, social, and aesthetic meanings through acoustical qualities that reflect a community's lived experiences. In this article, we propose music lesson ideas that help students appreciate and embrace their sociocultural heritage--by creating, performing, and listening to soundscapes that are representative of…

Music education is being explored by researchers as a means of improving hearing acuity for children with hearing loss, particularly those with cochlear implants. Music educators are uniquely positioned to contribute to this important endeavor. This article describes normal and impaired hearing and how music perception is affected for students…

For many novice music teachers, creating and implementing effective music lessons can be a tedious process. Moreover, preparing a music lesson is quite different from lesson planning in other areas, creating a disconnect that music educators may feel when trying to make music lessons fit a classroom lesson-plan model. However, most music teachers…

This article offers information that will allow music educators to incorporate North Indian classical vocal music into a multicultural music education curriculum. Obstacles to teaching North Indian classical vocal music are acknowledged, including lack of familiarity with the cultural/structural elements and challenges in teaching ear training and…

Among the elements required to develop a comprehensive understanding of music is students' ability to perceive, recognize, and label the harmonies they hear. Harmonic dictation is among the strategies that teachers have traditionally chosen to help students develop harmonic awareness. However, the highly idiosyncratic ways that students approach…

Self-analysis is a basic component of artistic development. For the singer, self-analysis is equally important, but the steps for improvement may be less visible. As Richard Alderson has noted, a singer "hears his voice from the inside through the bony structure of the head rather than outside through the eardrum. We as singers are doomed to a…

Learning to sing well is usually a long, complicated process for both the teacher and student. In December 1977 (AA 527 824), eight prominent voice teachers gave their opinions on voice teaching methods. In this, the second in the three-part series, the eight panelists offer their views on interpretation, vowel sounds, range, breathing, "belting",…

Discusses that Gestalt principles are especially well suited to teaching music. Identifies the laws of proximity, similarity, common direction, and simplicity in the notation system. Suggests that music teachers use these principles by following a logical progression to teach students to improve musical skills, solve problems, and think in…

Article focused on what music is and how sound materials are put together and manipulated to produce expressive forms of music. (Author/RK)

In this article, the author discovers an approach to teach her budding instrumentalists using an approach that is centered on the early development of aural skills and on research that links ways of learning music to those of learning language. This approach is based on her experience in adapting Gordon's Music Learning Theory, although many of…

Conveys the importance of student teaching for developing and further exploring preconceived beliefs about classroom management. Recognizes role identity and the cooperating teacher as having the most impact on student teachers. Stresses that when placing the student teacher with a cooperating teacher, the university should attempt to match their…