General music class is a space for students to engage in honest dialogue and reflection about the societal, cultural, and historical contexts of music, even when the subject matter is difficult. General music teachers can support students by opening "courageous conversations" about race, culture, and complex histories as they intersect…

Along with standards describing what music students should be able to do, the National Core Arts Standards developed Model Cornerstone Assessments suggesting how teachers can measure student learning for each artistic process. This article explores the Respond Model Cornerstone Assessment. This column explains the Model Cornerstone Assessment for…

Th? cr?ativity and g?n?ral cognitiv? d?v?lopm?nt of stud?nts ar? gr?atly aid?d by music ?ducation. In China, th? gov?rnm?nt has tak?n action to nationaliz? th? curriculum in r?cognition of th? valu? of music ?ducation and to ?nsur? that childr?n across th? country r?c?iv? consist?nt, ?xc?ll?nt music training. This study aim?d to ?xamin? th? impact…

National Core Arts Standards require students to use feedback from peers to refine both their performances and their compositions in the artistic processes of Create and Perform. When asked to give feedback to a peer, many students stop at comments like "It sounds good," and do not naturally give specific, meaningful feedback. Therefore,…

The improvement of music teacher education programs is inevitably tied to improvement of the quality of music instruction in schools. As such, one of the essential avenues for improving educational programs is conducting regular program evaluations. Given the ever-evolving national standards for school music, along with the changing socio-cultural…

This article presents an approach to music listening that creates spaces for critical literacy, inviting music educators to consider critical literacy practices when listening and responding to music. We begin with a discussion of critical literacy pedagogy in the context of music education followed by a sample flexible lesson plan that uses…

In recent history, the desire for an internationally competitive economy has driven education policy and reform. Creativity has become a signifier for innovative growth in global economies. As a result, creators of recent international education policies expect teachers to develop creative attributes in students. Tensions can exist when writers of…

In early childhood programs, music is an important part of the curriculum that provides children with learning opportunities that can enhance cognitive and social-emotional development as well as esthetic appreciation. Important skills for twenty-first century learning can also be supported by music experiences in early childhood education…

This article examines possibilities for addressing the need to relate learning in music to learning in other disciplines through developing a third space where students are invited to bring their own knowledge, imagination, and ideas to a music curriculum. The article explores the connections between third-space learning, composing, and arts…

Musical independence has always been an essential aim of musical instruction. But this objective can refer to everything from high levels of musical expertise to more student choice in the classroom. While most conceptualizations of musical independence emphasize the demonstration of knowledge and skills within particular music traditions, this…

Music teachers often include in their lessons activities that promote music literacy, such as manipulation of icons to show high versus low or long versus short, learning note names both melodically and rhythmically, and improvising on pitched and nonpitched instruments. Additionally, the National Standards for music education address literacy…

Young teachers often struggle with pacing and the ability to cover more than one or two songs and activities in a single 30-minute general music class. Included in this article are lesson activities that show it is not only possible to include many of the National Standards in a single lesson, but also possible to sing, play, and create in every…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the effect of ear playing instruction on adult amateur wind instrumentalists' musical self-efficacy. Ten volunteer members of a community band in a small town in Ohio completed the "Ear Playing Profile" both prior to and following an eight-week period of instruction in playing by ear…

Most teachers agree that a demonstration can be more effective than a verbal description. Math teachers model multiplication exercises, and physical education teachers model how to throw a ball. Likewise, music teachers model correct embouchure. Modeling can help students understand music concepts that are difficult to explain verbally, and visual…

Teaching musical vocabulary in a middle school general music class can often be challenging to the performance-based teacher. This article provides several teaching strategies for approaching words from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint. Based on a dialectical "this-with-that" approach by Estelle Jorgensen, this article argues that…