MASSACHUSETTS VOL. 69, NO. 4 SUMMER 2021 MUSIC EDUCATORS A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION JOURNAL

Looking Forward, Looking Back: Pandemic Reflections

Digital Badging Getting Back to “Normal” in the Chorus Room Making Ourselves Make Time for Music Three Things: Instrumental Reflections Creativity, Expression, Relationships, Community Emo Rap and Journaling What Will Stay After the Pandemic Is Over? ... and more!

MASSACHUSETTS SUMMER 2021 MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL

MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL EDITORIAL STAFF CONTENTS

Managing Editor Susan Gedutis Lindsay PO Box 920004 3 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 12 IN-OVATIONS 26 MUSIC PROGRAM LEADERS Needham, MA 02492 By Cecil Adderley 617.710.3915 Intermodal Arts 452 Days: [email protected] Processes: Lesson Learned from 4 FROM THE EDITOR Creativity and Expression the (Almost) Other Side Business Manager/ Noreen Diamond Burdett By Chris Martin Advertising 781.424.1306 Looking Back, in General Music [email protected] By Nicholas Patrick Quigley Looking Forward 28 TECHNOLOGY By Susan Gedutis Lindsay Editorial Board Tom Reynolds, Advocacy 15 INSTRUMENTAL Digital Badging in Faith M. Lueth, Choral 5 CONFERENCE Three Things… Music Education Jarritt Sheele, Culturally MMEA Conference Instrumental Reflections By Stephanie M. Riley Responsive Teaching 2022 Update on 2020-2021 Allyn Phelps, General Music By Noreen Diamond Burdett By Adam Gruschow 32 ETMNE Rhoda Bernard, Higher Education Relationships and 17 GENERAL MUSIC Tom Westmoreland, IN-ovations 6 CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING Community Makes Adam Grüschow, Instrumental Silent No More: Emo Rap and Vietnamese American for a Strong Music Andrew Goodrich, Adoptee Speaks Classroom Contemporary / Jazz Journaling: A New Foundation By Dr. Kính T. Vũ By Catherine Iatesta Anthony Beatrice, for Social-Emotional Large Municipalities Learning 20 GROWING MUSIC IN MASS 33 MMEA EXECUTIVE Dr. Tawnya Smith, Research By Meaghan O’Connor-Vince Growing Music BOARD AND STAFF and Music Teacher Education In MASS: Stephanie Riley, Technology 8 ADVOCACY 33 ADVERTISERS INDEX A 2021 Update A Credo of Please send all Susan Gedutis Lindsay 34 LARGE MUNICIPALITIES manuscripts to: [email protected] Artistic Intent 22 CONTEMPORARY / JAZZ By Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr. What Will Stay Manuscripts not included immediately Making Ourselves After the Pandemic will be kept on file for future use. Make Time for 9 CHORAL Is Over? Deadlines: July 15 for fall, Oct. 15 for winter, Making Music Voices from Large Jan. 8 for spring/conference, and Getting Back By Gareth Dylan Smith April 15 for summer to “Normal” in Municipalities: Boston, the Chorus Room: Haverhill, Worcester Please see the MMEJ page at massmea.org 23 MAJE By Anthony Beatrice for rate and spec information. Rehearsal Ideas MAJE Updates after the Pandemic The Massachusetts Music Educators Journal By Joseph Mulligan 36 DISTRICT UPDATES (ISSN 0147-2550) is issued quarterly to members By Carol Forward of the Massachusetts Music Educators Association, Inc. 24 RESEARCH AND MUSIC 38 LAST WORDS (MMEA is tax exempt, 51-0147238, under 501-C3). 11 HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHER EDUCATION Nonprofit postage paid at New Bedford, MA The Essence Universal Design Building Digital of Musical Line The annual subscription price of $4.00 for Pandemic is included in the membership dues. Bridges in Times Learning in Biking and Music The MMEJ is available to nonmembers of a Plague By David Dworkin for a subscription price of $10.00. Higher Education By Tina Nospal By Rhoda Bernard Send change of address promptly to: NAfME, 1806 Robert Fulton Dr., Reston, VA 22091

Copies returned due to change of address will not be reissued.

SUMMER 2021 | VOL. 69 NO. 4 MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL | 1 2 | MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL VOL. 69 NO. 4 | SUMMER 2021 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE BACK TO TOP

Time to reflect, recharge, rebuild, recruit, as well as reach out…and share resources! By Cecil Adderley, President, MMEA

It has been a pleasure to serve as the President of MMEA for the Moving forward, it is my hope that as an organization we will make even more of an past two years. Even with the challenges of COVID-19, many impact on arts education throughout the deep discussions, numerous changing regulations, expectations, Commonwealth, where music changes the and environments, it has been an honor to serve each member of lives of those in our classes and for those our organization. Representing the organization within the Com- who passively consume our art. Each of us through these experiences learns something monwealth, alongside other state representatives of NAfME, as well about music, but hopefully more about collaborating with the leaders affiliated with Arts for All (hosted ourselves. Through the arts, many of our by Arts Learning), has enabled the arts within our borders to stand communities may not see the rewards we do as this has been our career, and united on the need for continued arts education throughout Massa- they may only see themselves as “passing chusetts, even during the pandemic. As I pass the baton to our next through” for a specific moment in time. President Heather Côte, I believe that she will take the necessary As part of our need to reach out, we must continue to advocate for why what we do steps to move us in a direction with additional collaboration and matters. We must seek to communicate the growth. We were listening to you with the goal of representing you lifelong impact it has not only on those we in the manner you deserve and expect. teach, but the entire community in which we teach. Each meeting has offered opportunities rich and provide context as to how local As we plan to open our classroom in the for us to begin conversations, discussions, communities function, and what makes coming school term, please remember it and reflections on our past experiences each unique. will take all of us to move the arts forward. as an organization. We have reflected on For our music classrooms to thrive, During times like these, where we continue what we have traditionally offered to the advocacy will not be enough. We must to strive for excellence, we must also students of our members, as well as looked share our ideas, resources, and techniques practice empathy. Each of us is a learner/ closely at what would help us to better with others. Each of us must pledge to educator, and what we do, believe it or understand how we may engage those who embrace future educators and new teachers not, is hard work. Our communities have not traditionally participated. The in our organization. We must all provide believe the work we do as teachers is monthly virtual professional development these educators with support to succeed, honorable and deserves respect. However, opportunities have provided us a glimpse offer our assistance and encouragement, we collectively have to remind ourselves to of what we need to offer, and how we and remember that at one time, we were listen to each other, to actually hear what may explore new opportunities to reach at the same place in our careers as they our colleagues and community members every music educator and learner. We still are today. If we continue to work together say, feel, and think in relation to the have work to do. We need more of our and build an even better organization, we instructional processes provided in their members to assist us to keep all informed will be able to be the home communities. Real empathy helps of changes, concerns, and success. Through influential voice for all us to rebuild and recruit, which reinforces collaboration we can address the issues music educators across our strengths. This helps us to revise, that will make us more receptive, nimble, the Commonwealth of reshape, and reorganize after reflecting and and effective. All contributions help as we Massachusetts. • identifying the obstacles that impeded our work together as learners, arts educators, progress and growth. The conversations —Cecil Adderley, and administrators representing all of the are necessary, but with deep thought and MMEA President Commonwealth. Our collective efforts are discussion we begin to establish measurable goals helping us to grow.

SUMMER 2021 | VOL. 69 NO. 4 MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL | 3 FROM THE EDITOR BACK TO TOP

Looking Back, Looking Forward By Susan Gedutis Lindsay, MMEA Managing Editor

1, 3, and 5 swept over me in every lesson, I found myself closing my eyes and feeling it in my whole soul. Um… wow? Absence makes the heart grow very, very fond. Playing together. Singing together. Being together. As musicians, singers, and artists, that’s what we’re about, and thankfully, we’re almost back! It looks like we can look forward to things getting closer to normal next fall. In the meantime, this issue gives us some thoughts to mull over as we close the chapter on this year and plan ahead for next. Enjoy the rest of summer. May it give you the space and freedom from chaos that you need to rest, reflect, find meaning, and … when you’re ready … plan ahead to begin Rock-a-Bye Baby: South Elementary and Manomet Elementary Spring Concert 2021 New Ways to Perform... Outdoors. The pandemic forced us to think differently and try anew. new ways of doing things. It seems like such a small and simple change to perform our —Susan Gedutis spring concert outdoors, yet we hadn’t tried it before. Now, it’s something that may become a new tradition. Here, the combined band of South and Manomet Elementary Schools in Lindsay, Managing Plymouth performs “Rock-a-Bye Baby” from the Yamaha Band Ensembles series (John O’Reilly Editor and John Kinyon, Alfred Publishing Co., Inc, 1990) Well… again, we have a themed issue without even meaning to! This issue is packed with pandemic reflections, the product of a com- munity of educators who are looking back on the last year to make sense of what was, in order to decide on what is and what will be. P. S. Please do consider submitting an article. No topic is out of bounds. We If this issue’s authors are a fair cross section and the thrill of ensemble, and you can’t welcome your authentic voice. Write to me of our statewide membership—and I’d replace one-on-one, in-person instruction, directly at [email protected], and I’ll venture a guess that they are—we all seem because what we do is really about playing connect you with the appropriate subject- to be looking back at this unprecedented together, feeling the music, and experienc- area editor. year and deciding what to keep and what ing coordinated rhythm, melody, unison, to throw away. It seems that every one of us and harmony. I know that, for me, as learned new skills this year that we never restrictions loosened and I began to have thought we’d need, but they turned out to kids back together playing in pairs and be pretty handy in many cases. Many of trios, harmony felt like one of the most those new approaches will remain. beautiful sounds on the planet –even when it was that special brand of fifth-grade Here’s a big one, though: As much invigora- intonation. (Say no more!) Rarely in the tion (or torture) that we experienced in past would I describe the harmony of three learning new skills, I think we are all in second-year saxophone players as “a rich agreement that you can’t beat live music bath of sound”—but truly, it was. As the

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MMEA Conference 2022 Update Noreen Diamond Burdett, Conference Coordinator

The 2022 MMEA All-State Conference will not be in the usual three-day, in-person format that we had for so many years before the pandemic. The conference format will be whatever works best as the restrictions ease—maybe that will be a combination of virtual workshops throughout the year and a one day in-person event at a college or conference site, Music Education or maybe it will be some other option that will arise when life and gets back to somewhat normal. Social Emotional Learning Regardless of the format, the 2022 • What we don’t know for sure MMEA Conference Committee is is: when and where, virtual or committed to providing meaning- in-person, length of sessions, This brochure ful PD for music educators and etc. includes key talking will continue to work on a plan • What we do know is: clinicians points for music that meets the expectations and need to indicate whether or not education advocates needs of our members. their session could be virtual, to use as they Whether the sessions next year be so that the committee members communicate with virtual or in-person, we are now are aware of that when choos- decision-makers seeking proposals for workshops. ing sessions. Proposals can be made on the about the place of It would be utterly fantastic to MMEA website—the link is on have a magic wand to predict music education in the conference page. any school setting. exactly what this is going to look like, but that’s not the case! So we have wait a tad to see what is safe, Download your comfortable, and affordable. It is brochure at important for you to check the bit.ly/MusicEduSEL website and MMEA e-blasts for updates. • Questions? Email [email protected]

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Emo Rap and Journaling: A New Foundation for Social-Emotional Learning By Meaghan O’Connor-Vince, Barnstable High School

At this point, it is an overstated but perhaps not quite well enough feelings and identify their listening choices understood truism that every teacher across the country has been based on emotional state. This provides a check-in of sorts, allowing the student the affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps this is none more true opportunity to state how they’re feeling than for music teachers. We’ve changed what we teach and how we that day. This frames their listening as a teach to engage our students in an unknown virtual world. The pan- healing tool and validates their individual musical tastes. Being able to read and demic has isolated students from each other, and there have been several understand their personal process for published studies stating that depression and anxiety among K–12 selecting a particular song gives me great students has skyrocketed since last March. As one such study states: insight. I use this information to guide my curriculum, discuss music current events, To assess mental health, substance use, and This year, I had the opportunity to develop and learn more about my students. suicidal ideation during the pandemic, a new course, Music Technology 2. This Helping students identify the overall representative panel surveys were conducted course provides students with the opportu- emotive effect of a song by reflecting and among adults aged ≥18 years across the nity to expand upon their songwriting skills journaling has also helped other class-based United States during June 24–30, 2020. and work towards using music as an outlet activities. As an active practice, I allow my Overall, 40.9% of respondents reported at for expression. This course also provides students to share music for class discussion least one adverse mental or behavioral health students with a deeper understanding of and analysis. I call this segment “Hip-Hop condition, including symptoms of anxiety music analysis and promotes classwide dis- Honor with O’Connor.” Students submit disorder or depressive disorder (30.9%), cussions. In Music Technology 1, students a song of their choice to me monthly via symptoms of a trauma- and stressor-related are provided with a listening worksheet that Google Classroom, and I select one song disorder (TSRD) related to the pandemic† identifies tempo, genre, dynamics, etc. to a week to take a deep analytical dive. (26.3%), and having started or increased dissect a particular genre on a weekly basis. I research the song on websites such as substance use to cope with stress or emotions Music Technology 2 students take those Genius (a lyric analysis website) and search related to COVID-19 (13.3%). listening skills to the next level through for interviews of the artist. Traditionally (Czeisler, Lane, Petrosky) journaling. Students are asked to complete on a Friday, I present my research to my a weekly journal assignment in which With the power of music, we have the abil- students, providing them an opportunity they select a song of their choosing and ity to address these debilitating conditions to talk about their experience with the song reflect on their emotional experience while with students, teach them how to reflect on and reflect on the artist’s development. listening to it. Students are asked questions their social-emotional state, and use music We also analyze the production (especially such as: as an outlet and a powerful vehicle towards sampling) and compositional elements of healing. • “How are you feeling today?” the song. This practice builds a relationship of trust between myself and my students. I was fortunate enough this year to • “How did this song make you feel?” Students know that I take this process very maintain a somewhat regular class • “Is there an overall dominant genre or seriously and it offers them the opportunity schedule. Currently I teach three levels of artist that you’ve been listening to on to reflect on the analysis of the song and music technology: 8th grade (semester- repeat? If so, what is it?” offer their input. One particular class based course), Music Technology 1 (open discussion really changed my outlook on to grades 9–12, full year), and Music • “Please describe the music’s ‘vibe’ or some of today’s current music: emo rap. Technology 2 (open to grades 10–12, full overall feeling in a few words . . .” year). Previously I’ve taught Symphonic Emo rap by definition, according to a • “What level of listening intent are you Band, History of Rock, and History of Genius News video, “takes influences experiencing?” Hip-Hop. I am also the jazz band director, from the trap beats of Metro Boomin and but this program meets after school and has With these questions, students can begin to the lyrical raw teenage angst of bands unfortunately fallen to the back burner this understand and reflect upon their listening like Taking Back Sunday to create what year due to the pandemic. selections. Ultimately, they begin to label people are calling ‘emo rap.’” (Genius) This

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particular video spotlights artists such as Peep specifically, provides opportunities This QR Code is linked to a class podcast series, Lil Uzi Vert, XXXTentaction, and Lil Peep. for self-reflection and cathartic experience. where many students mention topics discussed in this article. Feel free to listen At first, I was skeptical of emo rap. I am When Lil Peep became successful, he felt and check out other student work, linked on very passionate about conscious hip-hop obligated to support friends who stood by my teacher SoundCloud account. and usually try to steer my students towards him throughout his journey. Unfortunately, artists such as Kendrick Lamar, J.Cole, the word “friend” became a loose term for about sadness and the fact that we all need and Rapsody. After having a “Hip-Hop him, as they all excessively indulged in validation of our feelings. I would argue Honor with O’Connor” session on Lil Uzi drugs and alcohol. Students were able to that during these trying times, we need to Vert’s “XO Tour Llif3,” our class analysis recognize that Lil Peep made the wrong validate and acknowledge what students and discussion was mostly around emo decision in keeping those particular people are truly feeling. We all need to know that rap and the concept of catharsis. I realized close to him, touching on all five aspects of it’s ok to be sad sometimes and that there that students need to be reflective of their the CASEL wheel in one scenario. Creating is space in life for that, just as there is with feelings and what they’re listening to for an environment where students have a voice joy. One does not exist without the other, different purposes. Once I explained the in the repertoire discussed in class can open and it’s important to recognize that. This idea of catharsis, my students instantly endless possibilities for social-emotional student response tells me it’s time to expand agreed that emo rap was a way for them growth. Undoubtedly, our students can upon the music we cover in contemporary to release feelings of sadness, loss, and often be our best teachers. music classes, in genre and in purpose. • angst. Catharsis is a familiar concept in all Continuing these open class discussions music, in myriad genres such as folk, blues, CITATIONS around social-emotional learning is crucial post-rock, punk, heavy metal, and even during this uncertain time. According to Álvarez, Brenda. “When Too Much of a Good Attitude Becomes nineteenth-century impressionism. One Toxic.” Advocating for Change, National Education Association, the National Educators Association, teach- student suggested that I watch the Netflix 5 January 2021, https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/ ers and students alike often suffer from documentary on Lil Peep, Everybody’s new-from-nea/when-too-much-good-attitude-becomes- the idea of “toxic positivity,” or the idea of toxic?utm_source=nea_today&utm_medium=email&utm_ Everything. That Friday night, I watched censoring other emotions to please others. campaign=210113NEAToday&utm_content=toxic. Accessed 11 the documentary and the following week February 2021. “Just like anything done in excess, when had an incredibly enlightening conversation positivity is used to cover up or silence the Czeisler MÉ, Lane RI, Petrosky E, et al. Mental Health, Substance Use, with my students about emo rap and Lil and Suicidal Ideation During the COVID-19 Pandemic–United States, human experience, it becomes toxic. By Peep’s legacy. June 24–30, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020;69:1049– disallowing the existence of certain feelings, 1057. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6932a1 Students were able to recognize and we fall into a state of denial and repressed Genius. “How Lil Peep, Lil Uzi Vert, and Trippie Redd Are Bringing sympathize with the late artist, his struggle emotions.” (Álvarez) We often observe the Back Emo.” Genius News, Genius, YouTube, 17 September 2017, with boundaries, and his rise to fame, concept of “toxic positivity,” with sayings https://youtu.be/RKhMq4VE79Y. Accessed November 2020. which ultimately led him to his untimely like “we’re all in this together” or “positive Meaghan O’Connor-Vince death. I was very impressed by my students’ vibes only.” However, does this practice teaches eighth-grade music dialogue and their self-awareness. They actually validate our feelings? Does this technology, Music Technol- recognized every aspect of the CASEL practice cause more isolation for a student ogy 1 & 2, History of (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and who is experiencing other emotions? Rock and Roll, History of Emotional Learning) wheel: self-awareness, Recently I assigned my students a survey Hip-Hop, and Jazz Band self-management, social awareness, asking for ideal questions to ask their peers at Barnstable High School relationship skills, and responsible decision- for a podcast. One response in particular in Hyannis, MA. She holds a bachelor of making. Lil Peep struggled with anxiety caught my attention: “What music do music in music education from the University and depression throughout his life and you listen to when you’re sad?” As music of Rhode Island, where her principal instru- ultimately that became the main message educators we often dwell on the joy that ment was saxophone. Meaghan also holds a in his music. Using music as a cathartic music can offer, and we fill our classrooms masters in music education from Teachers outlet was a display of self-awareness and with happy, upbeat music that brings smiles College, Columbia University. You can find self-management. My students have also to our students. While this is wonderful her full curriculum and contact information voiced that listening to emo rap, and Lil and certainly critical, we shouldn’t forget at: www.musicoconnor.com.

SUMMER 2021 | VOL. 69 NO. 4 MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL | 7 ADVOCACY BACK TO TOP

A Credo of Artistic Intent By Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr., Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts

ART defines our humanity while teaching us what it means to be that have been a part of our very being long human—to think, to imagine, to feel, and respond with understand- before students entered our rehearsal spaces, classrooms, and performance halls. ing, sensitivity, humility, and gratitude. ART is Soul Education! “How can the arts be thought of as an orna- ment or a luxury when they are always used With or without public school music Robert Lawson Shaw expresses to celebrate, mourn, and unite on occasions education, we seem to have it this way: “Great art illuminates of society’s most significant observances?” cultivated a society that views art and and enlightens our humanity.” entertainment as synonymous. asks the great soprano Phyllis Curtin. Creativity is an attitude toward life. The ARTS reveal themselves “What distinguishes entertainment is that More importantly, it is about freedom to the contemplative mind! • it happens within what we already know,” and the joy of discovery while revealing says Eric Booth.1 “Whatever your response who we are and sometimes what FOR FURTHER READING: to the entertainment presentation […] it we know or don’t know. says, ‘Yes, the world is the way you think The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible: Becoming a Virtuoso Educator, it is.’ It feels great to have your worldview Creativity invites us to color outside Eric Booth (Oxford University Press, 2009) confirmed in the many dynamic, imagina- the lines and think freely while The Art Spirit, Robert Henri (Basic Books, 2007) tive, exciting ways our entertainment eliminating the fear of right or wrong. Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, Ken Robinson industries provide. Art, on the other hand, (Capstone, 2011) happens outside of what you already know. Creative interplay, says author Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Inherent in the artistic experience is the Ken Robinson, is a process of exchange Rite and Art, Susanne Langer (Harvard University Press, 1996) capacity to expand your sense of the way and dialogue that can open doors, Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr. the world is or might be.” allowing our imaginations to is professor emeritus discover, explore, and realize new at UMass/Amherst, “Art is not a thing,” says author ideas and possibilities. after having served as 2 Elbert Hubbard, “Art is a way.” director of bands from Our classes, lessons, and rehearsals must 1980–2003. He is past Art must pass through the vein create “feelingful” experiences that leave president of the New of one’s imaginative mind, to us with the sense that we have lived England College Band inform our instincts and intuition. through something of significance— Association and CBDNA Eastern Division experiences that move us, transform, and served on the national board of directors. The art lives in an individual’s capacity enrich, inspire, and deepen us as people, He is an elected member of the American and capability to engage in the while also giving us the understanding, Bandmaster’s Association and founded and fundamental act of creativity, skills, and ownership necessary to embrace served as music director of the Massachusetts expanding the sense of what is possible. the essence of the artful experience. Wind Orchestra from 1991–2007, bringing this ensemble into national prominence and The arts are a powerful tool for exploring Philosopher Susanne Langer, in her book receiving broadcast performances on National one’s inner self, bringing into focus A Philosophy in a New Key, refers to this Public Radio. Rowell is a strong proponent all that needs expression. moment as “The Power of Utterance.” of new music and music education and has given freely of himself to improve the ART as a spiritual journey implies that to The creative spirit is inherent to our nature, condition of the modern wind band and its know something is to have a relationship defining what it means to be human. leaders, a heritage that lives on in the work with it, thus ownership. The conductor of his students and colleagues. The purpose of music education, therefore, 1 The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible (Oxford University Press, 2009) should be to stimulate and enhance the 2 All italicized emphasis is from Mr. Rowell, not from the original creative spirit of our students—qualities source.

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Getting Back to “Normal” in the Chorus Room: Rehearsal Ideas after the Pandemic By Carol Forward, MSEd, CAGS, Doctoral Candidate, Univ. Southern Mississippi

As a Massachusetts public school choral and general music director Allow for “Talk Time” for twenty-five years, I have never had a semester without chorus in To allow for more time to get to know each my schedule. I truly miss choral singing and conducting my high other on a personal level, I am building a short opportunity during warmup time school students. I miss the tuneful singing, the rhythmic precision, to reflect on a thought/question of the day and the quality of my student’s voices, and I also miss the energy with a think/pair/share activity. Students and the chatter in the classroom. I miss the outbreak of song in the will need to rotate who they work with daily until they have interacted with the middle of conversation. I miss the laughter and the comradery that whole class and will be given a checklist my students had. Hopefully when we return to the classroom in to ensure that they do so. These can be August, 2021, my students can return to chorus in my classroom for musical ideas, questions, poem interpreta- tions, inspirational quotes, thoughts of the the first time since the pandemic began. As I ponder this transition day, etc. Students will be given the question, back to in-person choral rehearsals, I can’t help but think that the have one minute to think of a response, students will need much more than just traditional methodology. then have one minute each to share it with It may take years to rebuild what has been lost after a year without a partner. This will give students time to build deeper social relationships with other singing. members of choir.

Pass the Beat Around the Room What will we do as educators to support remediation from the isolation that many our students as they re-enter our choral of our students have suffered over the past This is one of my FAVORITE GEMS to classrooms? How can we help them to not year. Here are some of the examples of help the students work together and keep only rebuild their instrument, but feel safe, activities I will be incorporating into my the beat! This can be done with many cared for, and help them to get back to the choral rehearsals. grade levels (I used to use this with second beautiful music making that they can cre- grade without the stamp) but my high- ate together as an ensemble? I think it will Chorus Get-to-Know-You Grid schoolers have always loved it. Standing in take more than just my “usual” beginning There are so many ways to get the students a circle, each student says one beat from of the year activities to move us forward in connecting again. I’ve created a “Chorus the phrase “Pass the beat around the room the new season. Get-to-Know-You Grid” for our first day (rest)” in steady beat. If they happen to be the rest at the end of the phrase, students As a Kodály trained educator, my goal is to in the fall. (Please see example on next page.) The object is to get the students tap their shoulder on the beat. If students find where my students are and take them miss a beat at any point they sit down, but from what they know to what they don’t moving and give them the opportunity to communicate with each other. If you are continue playing the game in their head know in a fun manner where students are (so those words end up being silent.) Once learning but aren’t necessarily conscious of still in a scenario where you are unable to allow your students to move in the fall, feel students are comfortable with the game, this fact. I love to let them think that they the word “beat” is replaced by a stamp. are only “having fun,” and then transition- free to modify this so that each student has an opportunity to pick one square in which ing to the “aha” moment where we present A - My Name Is . . . the crucial element. Much of the first few their name could be placed and share that Students sing the three phrases on a specific weeks of school will include ice-breakers, with the class. Not only will this give your interval given by the teacher using the first canons, rounds, games, and activities that students an opportunity to find a connec- letter of their name. They could use Do-Re, will give me the opportunity to assess their tion, but it will help you as the teacher to Do-Mi, Mi-So, etc., in order to work on skills and decide what will be needed to identify items where YOU can connect tuning. help them not only with vocal remediation, with your students. blend, and intonation, but also with social Example: “A my name is Ally, I come from Alabama, and I like Apples.”

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Hand Sign Canon Partnerships quickly create dictations and I will be reinforcing partner hand- even use them for basic polls sign groups to help work on intona- and informal assessments in tion as well as help less-experienced class. members of my choir practice hand I hope that this transition will signs. Students will break into take less time than I plan for, pairs and sing the pitch from their but I will be prepared with partner’s hand, showing hand signs an overabundance of social with each other to make an interval. activities and opportunities to As the students take turns, the build our students back up. If interval will change and the students we set them up for success and have to listen to each other to find provide clear expectations for the accurate tone. They can not only our students, they will be able work on this with different partners, to overcome this trying year. but also with a section leader in front Scaffolding and embedding of the group to help work on pitch opportunities for social interac- accuracy. tion within my curriculum will help move students from a year Notation Work in a Fun Way of stress to a year of success! • During the pandemic, SmartMusic online software became a way for Carol Forward, MSEd, CAGS, me to assess sight reading skills is the choral and general music and have the data required to grade educator for East Longmeadow the students. Now that we will be (MA) High School and has taught back in person I have vowed to my all levels from pre-school to gradu- students that they won’t see SmartMusic Popsicle Sticks and Other Manipulatives ate level throughout her at all this year! So how will I assess sight Even high schoolers love popsicle sticks! career. She is also the reading skills? With fun activities! Students can write rhythms on the ground co-director of the Kodály and then add ostinatos and other rhythmic Music Institute in Competition elements as they read what they created. Boston. Carol has served on the MMEA board Friendly competition can be a fun way to Students can be required to incorporate in several capacities, teach students to support each other. If rhythmic elements that are in their octavos, and is currently the you have a smartboard, students can use therefore helping them to read the items National Secretary of the musictheory.net as a game. Students can before they even see it in their scores. Pipe Organization of American Kodály Educators. make two lines (teams), and compete to cleaners also work well for this purpose. Mrs. Forward is also a graduate student at determine which line or space the notes are the University of Southern Mississippi earning on. The one who answers accurately gets a Whiteboards her doctorate in educational administration. point for their team. This can also be done I have purchased enough whiteboards from for clef exercises as well as key signatures. a dollar store for each student to have one. I will be using these during class to help students who are still hesitant to share their answers in a larger group. I can have them

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Universal Design for Pandemic Learning in Higher Education By Rhoda Bernard, Ed.D., Managing Director, Berklee Institute for Arts Education and Special Needs, Berklee College of Music

As many of us have returned to on-campus teaching, it is a good time The first principle, Multiple Means of to look back at the ways that the pandemic has affected our teaching. Engagement, refers to educators providing a wide range of ways to get students Personally, I find Universal Design for Learning to be a particularly interested and involved in the materials helpful framework for thinking about how the pandemic has forced and activities of our classes. For me, us in higher education to think differently, work differently, and teach the use of various forms of media has been extremely helpful in engaging my differently. undergraduate students. Some examples of media that I have provided include TED Universal Design for Learning is a set of student learns and designing curriculum, talks, podcast episodes, radio broadcasts, principles that are rooted in the concept of materials, activities, and experiences so that infographics, and PowerPoint presentations. Universal Design in architecture. Accord- the student can learn effectively. Third, I have noticed that my students have ing to Universal Design in architecture, all Universal Design for Learning seeks to been extremely involved and engaged in physical spaces must be accessible for all minimize barriers between students and our work together this year, and I believe people. In practical terms, this means that the materials, experiences, and processes that this is due, at least in part, to the fact there must be ramps and/or elevators in of education. A big part of employing that they have been able to interact with addition to stairs, wide doorways that can Universal Design for Learning has to do multiple forms of media. accommodate wheelchairs, and accessible with the teacher anticipating the barriers Multiple Means of Representation is the bathroom stalls, for just a few examples. that students may face, and designing ways second principle of Universal Design for to help the students to break through those Universal Design for Learning was Learning, and this principle has to do barriers. developed by David Rose in the 1980s, with educators providing information as a direct application of the concept The pandemic has certainly introduced using a wide range of symbol systems of Universal Design to education. The barriers for all of us in higher education. and formats. In my experience, being principles of Universal Design for Learning, Suddenly we were not able to be in the required to think about the asynchronous which are grounded in extensive research, same physical spaces as our students. We and synchronous realms of teaching has have been created to ensure the accessibility were conducting our teaching over various brought this principle to the fore during of all educational activities and materials forms of technology, all of which have the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, all of for all students. Put slightly differently, limitations—such as latency affecting my teaching took place synchronously in according to Universal Design for Learn- musical performances, challenges with seminars. Suddenly, I was forced to create ing, all educational experiences must be audio and video, internet bandwidth and asynchronous representations of informa- accessible for all learners. access issues, and much more. Our students tion and materials, including handouts, who were to be student teaching in the field short videos, slide shows, and more. In A few key ideas undergird Universal Design were suddenly confronted with the barrier addition, I determined which aspects of my for Learning. First, learner variability is of not being able to go to their schools teaching would be most effective provided not the exception; rather, it is the rule. in person. Instead, they assisted their asynchronously and which would be most Universal Design for Learning is based in cooperating teachers and taught their mini effective executed synchronously. Adding the understanding that we all learn differ- lessons over video conference. Simply put, the asynchronous dimension to my teach- ently—all of us, whether or not there has they engaged in their practicum placements ing this year has meant that representation been a diagnosis of any kind. Second, the in entirely new ways that did not look or has taken on an entirely new life for me. It differences in the ways that we all learn are feel anything like what they had learned in has caused me to rethink my pre-pandemic to be celebrated and nurtured. For Univer- their music education coursework. practices and consider more asynchronous sal Design for Learning, effective education possibilities for the future. has to do with reaching a wide range of The three principles of Universal Design learners. It is not about a teacher trying for Learning have shed some light on ways The third and final principle of Universal to change how a student learns; rather, it that I have been able to work through the Design for Learning is Multiple Means of is about a teacher understanding how the barriers of the pandemic. Action and Expression. Multiple Means of Action and Expression means that educa-

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Intermodal Arts Processes: Creativity and Expression in General Music By Nicholas Patrick Quigley, Fall River, Mass.

tors must provide students with a wide Many music educators may assume they Deeply held and complex thoughts or range of ways to show what they know and are facilitating creativity and expression emotions can be accessed when musick- can do. As all of us know, from when we in their classes. This is especially true in ing is situated amongst movement or have battled the latency in video conference general music settings, where standards dance, dramatic action, and journaling technology, the pandemic has certainly relating to creating, responding, and mechanisms such as art, mark making, upended the ways that our students express connecting can usually be more balanced poetry, or creative writing. What may their musical knowledge and skills. Playing with standards relating to performance initially seem insignificant can be simultaneously with others in an ensemble than in ensemble settings (Massachusetts realized to be precious and substantial was no longer an option. Creative educators DESE, 2019). Advocates proclaim music when translated from musicking to have found new ways for their students education to offer expressive and creative another form of art making, or vice versa. to demonstrate what they know—from outlets that students cannot access Traversing through various modalities student created videos, to muting and elsewhere in school. But unless educators of art making can reveal entire worlds unmuting students who jam together, to specifically aim to facilitate expression we may not have been attuned to before, using break-out groups for smaller student and creativity without ulterior aesthetic because each art form requires a different configurations, and much more. I am a big goals, such experiences may be shallow method of delivering thoughts into fan of encouraging students to use creative and inconsequential. This results in tangible works that exist in the physical formats for their assignments. This year, music lessons that are content-centered world. Our conscious and subconscious many of my students wrote and performed rather than person-centered; ultimately, thinking is revealed through embodied, original songs, created and scripted their a mis-education that separates students artistic actions, and our understanding own videos, or crafted short stories for their from their natural musical inclinations is deepened as we analyze or translate mid-semester and final projects. In these and inhibits their abilities to make music works of art into other art forms. This creative expressions, the students produced for self-care and self-expression. is when personal, individual learning works of art that also met the criteria for and growth takes place. This is when Intermodal arts processes can empower their assignments in terms of content. students can learn about each other by students towards individual expression listening to and watching each other’s What can we take away from this analysis? and creativity. Therapists have used performances, viewing each other’s art, The biggest revelation for me is that such expressive and creative practices and so on. The implications for social- education is an extremely flexible, adapt- to help patients access memories, deep emotional learning connections are able, and generative endeavor. New barriers feelings, and connections in order to infinite, which is exactly what is needed were suddenly thrust upon all of us because release, reinterpret, and begin to heal as we experience educational and life of the pandemic, and it became necessary from trauma (Appalachian Expressive shifts caused by the pandemic. for us to expand our means of engagement, Arts Collective, 2003; Carey, 2009; representation, and action and expression. Darley & Heath, 2008; Rogers, 1993). Fitting into a lesson We all became UDL educators, whether While educators are not tasked with nor we thought about it in those terms or not. qualified to undertake such responsibili- How can intermodal arts processes take And we all found our way through the year. ties, this can be important to consider in place in general music? Most teachers It will be fascinating to see the influence schooling contexts where there are high use familiar routines or lesson flows to of this year-plus on our future teaching. rates of childhood trauma. And now, in help students stay engaged and know Which aspects of teaching in 2020–2021 a time when everybody has been living what is expected throughout the lesson. will we keep with us, and which will we through a pandemic for over a year, this Intermodal arts processes can fit into leave behind? • is important for all educators to consider. most traditional lesson formats, which— What might be possible if we provide our very simply put—include an opening, a Rhoda Bernard is the students with tools to access and express practice or working time, and a closing. Higher Education Editor deep, complex thoughts? How might our Experiences can vary, whether to be of MMN. educational environments benefit from short and include only two different art collective access, release, and transforma- forms or be long and include many. Each tion? mode of art making can last for as short

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or long as you and your students need it process (i.e., one instance of visual mark than a mere assortment of artistic modes to. For example, having many modes, each making). Movement is naturally a part of randomly strung together. The role of lasting only a few minutes, might be most music and can serve as an integrated form the educator in facilitating intermodal developmentally appropriate for kinder- of art making or performance. The place- processes is to help students find or garteners. For older students, there might ment of musicking within the intermodal articulate meaning in what they have made be fewer modes, but with longer periods process can also impact the learning experi- or what they have done, and then to guide of time spent in each. And as experience ence, and to witness the transformation of them in deepening their understanding and with intermodal processes is gained with musicking can be powerful. An example discovery through related but varied artistic their teacher, the experience for older would be starting an experience with vocal methods. Each lesson should have goals students can become more independent improvisation and movement, transitioning and intentions, and musical learning can and self-directed. to body percussion improvisation, then to still be facilitated or assessed through inter- art making, then to dramatic action, and modal processes. But how lessons unfold While providing a meaningful approach then returning to the vocal improvisation through intermodal processes should for individual expression and creativity, in closing. Another way to deepen a musi- logically flow from one experience to the intermodal processes can also make cal experience throughout the process is next, constructing around what students interesting and varied group experiences. A to combine music with multiple art forms, have previously made, done, performed, or fun concept to consider in lesson planning such as first moving to a musical selection exhibited. Some questions that can guide is how groups or stations can co-construct and then writing reflective poetry in students in imaginatively traversing artistic performances or experiences that incorpo- response to the movement while listening experiences may include: rate multiple artistic modes at once. For to the same music. example, perhaps there can be a station of • This character I’m performing, how drummers providing music for dance and Beyond error detection and correction would they dance? movement, while at another station, the • What would it sound like if my move- dance is being visually expressed through Most important about intermodal arts ment extended through my voice? painting, all simultaneously. Groups and processes is that they inhibit the aesthetic, individuals can also benefit from varied content-centered instinct of educators to • What direction is my voice singing in? leadership through echoing and/or mir- refine musical creations and performances, What would it look like visually? roring a student rather than the educator. in favor of honoring authentic student • What words do I associate with what This provides a platform for individual expression and creativity. There is inherent I’ve just drummed? expression, creativity, and performance, value in aesthetics, critical thinking, and while also giving new ideas to the whole polishing work. But what does it communi- These questions are meant to give some class, or an opportunity to participate as a cate to our students when all their teachers ideas for artistic connections—the modali- group member, rather than creating as an do is find fault, replace, or otherwise edit ties each question addressed could easily be individual or serving as a leader. Students what they have made? There is also inher- replaced as needed. should have time to practice in all such ent value in raw creativity, the flow of an roles. artistic process, and what students have to Towards person-centered music education say. Translation to other art forms—rather My intention with this article was to than mere refinement of work—deepens The role(s) of music provide a rationale for intermodal arts the understanding of what students have The role of music in intermodal arts processes in general music settings, along made and can lead individuals to develop processes can vary depending on the goals with some ideas for how educators may self-awareness and self-teaching skills. of the lesson. Being music educators, many start to use them in lessons. (For many of us will naturally accentuate how music Translation and meaning more ideas, please see the reference list is used in the process, in comparison to included below.) While expressive and an art teacher, for example. Music may be The benefits and fun of intermodal arts creative arts practices have primarily served included in various ways (i.e., periods of processes come from connections and therapeutic purposes, they have the poten- critical listening and composition) while translations. Designing a lesson flow with tial to radically transform music education. other art forms are singularly used in the multiple art-making periods requires more How students engage and connect with

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music, how students develop musical and non-musical skills and knowledge, and why schools include music in curricula can be expanded and recentered from content to people through such methods. Perhaps with person-centered approaches that honor authenticity, expressivity, and creativity, more students will find connections to and through music that will lead to lifelong music making, music for self-care, and music for self-expression. • For more from Nicholas Quigley on this topic, please see his MMEA presentation on video: Intermodal Arts Practices for Expression and Creativity in General Music REFERENCES

Appalachian Expressive Arts Collective, 2003. Expressive Arts Thera- py: Creative Processes in Art and Life. Boone: Parkway Publishers. Carey, Lois, ed. 2009. Expressive and Creative Arts Methods for Trauma Survivors. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Darley, Suzanne, and Heath, Wende. 2008. The Expressive Arts Activity Book: A Resource for Professionals. London: Jessica Kingsley Image 1(above): kindergartner’s image from music Publishers. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. 2019. Arts Curriculum Framework. Rogers, Natalie. 1993. The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing. Palo Alto: Science & Behavior Books. Nicholas Patrick Quigley (he/him) teaches elementary music in Fall River, Mas- sachusetts. His pedagogy promotes expressivity and creativity, while highlight- ing the intersecting issues of social injustice and climate change. This is enacted through praxial curricula integrating music within multimodal arts processes, centering creators from marginalized groups, and negotiating the balance of anthropocentric and ecocentric philosophies. More online at nicholaspquigley. com.

Image 2(below): fourth grader’s image from music

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Three Things… Instrumental Reflections on 2020–2021 By Adam Gruschow, Scituate Public Schools

We are all taking a sigh of relief that a year like no other has finally …about yourself as a teacher? I need to put a higher priority on my students’ well-being, come to an end. While this year has been something we never wish not purely musical goals. to experience again, hopefully it has allowed us time to notice those …about our profession/music? I learned things we took for granted and those that have been hiding beneath how much we need each other and how the surface of “normal.” Many of us are in the midst of a critical communal groups, our ensembles, can help moment for our bands and orchestras: a liminal space between what foster that. was once normal, what the pandemic changed, and how we shape the future. To collectively reflect on this moment, educators from Andrew Shaw across the state were asked about three of the most impactful things BAND DIRECTOR, PLYMOUTH COMMUNITY INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL they learned this year‚—about their students, about themselves as teachers, and about our profession and music itself. What is the most impactful thing you learned… “product.” I’ve learned that looking at the …about your students? This year I realized Suzanne Dasilva big picture will always be more important very quickly that as much as the students INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC/BAND to me than the details of any given moment. appreciate the art of learning and making TEACHER 4–8, SCITUATE PUBLIC SCHOOLS music, it’s the social aspect of the concert …about our profession/music? I’ve learned band program that provides one of the What is the most impactful thing you that as “specialists’’ we are often taken biggest returns for the students. Music is learned… for granted, but that in times of need, the important and relationships are too. arts will find a way to thrive because they …about your students? I was most surprised are necessary. I have enjoyed witnessing …about yourself as a teacher? This year I to learn how completely open to new ideas the creativity of artists as well as the have learned that although we have spent they are. I was surprised at how willing creativity of people who do not consider thousands of dollars on education, nothing they were to try new things and at their themselves to be “artists.” Music is not could have prepared educators for what ability to be able to “go with the flow” when on the periphery of life, as many might this year would look like. Although my things were not going as planned. As for the assume—it is a central part of what makes time and experience as a music educator is important, it is my ability to connect with younger grades, I was surprised at their level us human. I feel proud of myself and others in my profession for recognizing this and in the students that makes me successful. of emotional sophistication, and by that I choosing to make it our life’s work. I realize …about our profession/music? Music educa- mean (among other things) their constant that I have taken the power of music for display of humor, patience, and ability to tion is critical in providing students a break granted because it has always been such a from the state of the world. Aside from persevere. major part of my life. When I reflect back, theory and composers, we had thoughtful I feel very lucky to be able to do what I do conversations about the pandemic, the …about yourself as a teacher? I learned that every day. there are many ways to do what I love—and election, and what the next few years will look like for us. Students feel empowered that this is truly a labor of love. I have Tim Anderson and comfortable in our learning spaces. always known, but now more than ever I That empowerment goes beyond singing DIRECTOR OF THE MINUTEMAN realize the importance of connection and and playing; it extends to their concerns, MARCHING BAND, UMASS AMHERST relationships. I have learned to simplify, and their hopes, and their views of the world. in doing so, feel that I have become a better What is the most impactful thing you teacher. I have learned to prioritize and learned… appreciate the process much more than the …about your students? They need structure!

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students is that they crave the community Emily Plunkett that our music family provides. We learned Allison Lacasse ELEMENTARY STRING ENSEMBLE DIRECTOR together that community takes many BAND DIRECTOR, BELMONT HIGH SCHOOL MILTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS forms, and through a tremendous effort BELMONT PUBLIC SCHOOLS we faced adversity together and emerged What is the most impactful thing you What is the most impactful thing you learned… stronger. I am in awe of the resilience and learned… dedication of our music students, whether …about your students? I’ve learned how participating in daily rehearsals or chal- …about your students? My students are important it is to build in some down lenging themselves in virtual ensembles and passionate, resilient, and motivated to time/team building/check-ins into lessons. festivals. create together more than they ever were Especially for after-school lessons/rehearsals, before. They thrive when they are making not many children want to log onto Google …about yourself as a teacher? I have learned music together. They are artists living Meet after a long day of remote school! to lean into the awkward and unknown, for the moment and are consciously not especially where technology is involved. taking anything of what we do for granted. …about yourself as a teacher? I’ve learned my I have truly enjoyed finding new ways This was a reset that will impact our band limits, and self-care also includes knowing to create music with my students and culture immediately and for the life of the your limits. discovering otherwise hidden talents they program. …about our profession/music? Music will possess. On a more personal level, I have …about yourself as a teacher? I learned always find a way! learned to give myself grace and balance work with embracing life. It has never been that I don’t need concerts to mark big more important to recharge our emotional, moments throughout the year. The prize Paul Tomashefsky intellectual, and physical batteries. is the process, NOT the product. This GRADE 5 BAND / JAZZ BAND year, I took tons of extra time to listen to …about our profession/music? I believe the WESTBOROUGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS great music with my students, taught them community of music educators is unlike to conduct, encouraged them to take on What is the most impactful thing you any other—we give selflessly to each other secondary instruments, and connected with learned… and our students and when we face our students through silly daily attendance darkest moments, we are there for each questions. Those moments are the ones that …about your students? I learned that other. I can think of many occasions where, matter the most and it’s worth investing students are and can be resilient when throughout the course of the pandemic, I time in it, even when rehearsals already feel confronted with a HUGE challenge. was inspired by colleagues over a Zoom call short. …about yourself as a teacher? Creativity and or through a kind e-mail or social media …about our profession/music? The arts and thoughtful, caring planning wins every post. In so many ways, the music family arts education prevailed throughout this time! has grown closer as a result of our distance. We have made exposing our students to the grand pause. Music students are the ones …about our profession/music? Music will wonderful composers and performers in our to look to in the absence of typical cultural always find a way! field more possible than ever before. Most events; their drive and passion is there, and importantly, music has been the glue that it is absolutely our job as directors to pave Matt Harden has held many of us together. Learning new many paths for them to create in even the instruments, educating myself on music of most nontraditional of ways. Applause DIRECTOR OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC/HIGH underrepresented cultures and peoples, or is wonderful, but the most important SCHOOL, HANOVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS simply listening with my heart and mind audience we will ever have is the group facing the podium every day. What is the most impactful thing you open has made all the difference to me. I learned… simply wouldn’t have survived without the healing power of music. …about your students? Throughout the course of this often challenging year, the most profound lessons learned from my

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Silent No More: Vietnamese American Adoptee Speaks By Dr. Kính T. Vũ, Boston University

Dr. Kính Tiện Vũ’s general music contribution is in a different format from most MMEJ articles. In this script, Kính presents an emotionally evocative and intellectually stimulating short play that connects personal stories, research, and musical excerpts to illustrate examples of racism that Asian Americans face in society at large, in school, and in music education. For me, reading this play was an embodied experience engaging my mind, heart, and soul. I visualized the scenes and imagined the characters’ emotive performances. Like an engrossing novel, the characters, stories, and Kính’s call to resist racism and adopt critical and anti-racist stances in our classrooms have stayed with me long after finishing the article. —Allyn Phelps, General Music Editor

Characters KÍNH I got taught my ancestral roots in fourth grade SAM: Main character in Amputees, a play by Quentin Nguyễn-Duy (2019). when a mean boy placed his fingers alongside his eyes, raised the corners into slants, and called me a KÍNH: A teacher educator employed at Boston University. Kính chink. is a Vietnamese American who was airlifted from Vietnam and adopted in Pennsylvania. When Kính speaks, he is talking aloud. Lights cut. NARRATOR: This voice is sometimes Kính’s inner voice, a sort of Scene 3: Downtown Minneapolis, 2011 interlocutor between his words and thoughts. Sometimes, the Lights up. narrator speaks directly to the audience as if Kính were absent. A street called Nicollete Mall. Setting KÍNH An empty stage. The only source of light is a bank of white I got taught my ancestral roots in graduate school spotlights. when four Vikings fans in downtown Minneapolis called out various racial slurs in a faux-Chinese ACT I accent. Scene 1: Boston University School of Theatre “Fringe Festival,” 2019 Lights cut. Lights up. Scene 4: Boston University, 2021 Sam’s living room. Lights up. SAM An empty stage. I got taught my ancestral roots in fifth grade by a class seminar on how to use chopsticks. We made KÍNH sounds like bing-bong and ching-chong, holding Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words them between our gums like walruses (Nguyễn- can never hurt me: Wrong. Seriously wrong. Duy, 2019, p. 3). Bing-bong, ching-chong, gook, chink, Jap, and Chinaman are easy to say. These words drip softly Lights cut. off the tongue but fall hard on their victims. Scene 2: Somewhere Pennsylvania Elementary School, 1984 Lights flicker out. Lights up. Silence. A noisy playground.

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ACT II NARRATOR Garbage? Oh, now your life story is garbage. Wal- Scene 1: A rehearsal lowing in self-pity is weak. Okay, not weak, wallow Lights up. a little if it helps. But you never know who will be KÍNH affected by your story or who you will encourage to I am silent too often. I don’t speak up when I see tell their story unless you share your own. Students injustice. I bury my head in the score and hope that look up to you more than you know. Yes, the little Kelly will be okay: Just play your trumpet, kid. It’ll ones, the high school ones, the college ones, and be fine. the adult ones. All those students look at you as a mentor and maybe even a friend. NARRATOR Say something, damn it! Just say something KÍNH meaningful. You’re supposed to be the responsible Not my job. Music teaching is my job. adult. NARRATOR KÍNH Survey says? Hey there. It was an F-sharp in 1942 and it’s an Gameshow buzzer sounds. F-sharp today. It is not the place of a 15-year-old to question the composer. Second finger! Lights cut. NARRATOR Scene 3: Graduate seminar No, don’t say that. You know that Kelly has been Lights at half. really down lately, for months actually, bullied most likely. Didn’t you want to say something more kind: Students and professor gathered in a circle. “How are you feeling today?” or “Are you okay KÍNH today?” But you don’t actually care. That’s why you This short dramatization is inspired by Boston continuously look down at the music. You’re afraid University School of Theatre alumnus Quentin to show emotions. Just teach music. It’s about the Nguyễn-Duy, whose play Amputees is a semi- music. fictionalized account of his experience growing Lights cut. up with a Vietnamese refugee father and a white mother in Ohio. Sam, the main character and son Scene 2: Kính’s office of said refugee father, is trying to answer a prompt Lights up. on his college grant application that asked about a “background, identity, interest, or talent that is NARRATOR so meaningful I believe my application would be Why are you silent when you should speak and why incomplete without it” (Nguyễn-Duy, 2021, p. 83). do you speak when silence would be more powerful than words? My play is under construction much like my life. I waited a long time to share pieces of my story with KÍNH students, because I was afraid of appearing weak in I’m afraid. Afraid that my students will see through the context of music education (especially marching me. I feign caring sometimes. band). Abandonment and a subsequent adoption NARRATOR added layers of complexity to my teaching life They see you whether you speak up or whether you because I figured that people would abandon me remain silent. if they really knew what was going on inside me. I KÍNH had an idea that I was not really Asian, just a white Yes. I know. Don’t remind me. guy with a white guy name and privilege to go with it (see Westerman, 2021). If students realized NARRATOR my confidence was just a façade (and some did), I Just come clean and tell them that losing your imagined that my music teaching, a very expensive parents, losing your country, losing your name, education, and all my friends would become null losing your V t voice, and losing your Asian-ness iệ and void. sucks. Lights to full. KÍNH They won’t understand, and music class isn’t the KÍNH place for that garbage. I wonder, however, if my insecurities which have partially caused the silence are actually strengths. Aren’t our stories gifts that we can share with others

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as part of a process of becoming more real, more NARRATOR human alongside our music students? You remind me of an interview with PopAsia host Andy Trieu. He said, “For many Asian-born NARRATOR Australians, Vietnamese Australians included, the Would you have felt empowered as a young musi- feeling of estrangement and a need to shed their cian if your teachers had been more forthcoming otherness to fit-in is a common story. Learning to with their stories? embrace one’s heritage is a personal journey, and KÍNH for some, music can act as their guiding compass” I don’t know if that would have helped back then. (Truong, Tran, & Ford, 2021). I wasn’t ready to question my identity; I wanted to be a band director. Today, however, I do see a KÍNH Andy is definitely onto something important where connection between identity and career. My college Asian identity is concerned. If music teachers students have begun to share self-stories after I tell can help people tell parts of their stories, then let some of my tales with them in the context of course us break the silence and make more music. Our syllabi or outside class. music-making would be incomplete without our NARRATOR stories, without the stuff that makes us human. Will that make them better music teachers? Lights cut. KÍNH Anything that deepens their experiences of life will Epilogue: Boston University, 2021 inform their music-making and music teaching. As Lights up. I argue in my recent book called My Body Was Left on the Street: Music Education and Displacement A place filled with purpose, energy, joy, and love. (Vũ & de Quadros, 2020), music-making is not KÍNH baggage-free. We can bring our bags full of joy and Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words sadness into the room so they can inform our art- can never hurt me: Still wrong. Still seriously istry. I vividly remember a wind ensemble rehearsal wrong. Bing-bong, ching-chong, gook, chink, Jap, of H. Robert Reynolds’s (2003) transcription of O and Chinaman are still easy to say. But I will not Magnum Mysterium (Lauridsen, 1995) conducted play the part of victim any longer. by my graduate school professor who had just Lights grow brighter. returned from his father’s funeral. There wasn’t a dry eye among the musicians at the song’s final Silent no more. cadence; this is among the most powerful musical REFERENCES moments of my life. I’m so glad that my professor brought his “bags”—his whole self—into the room. Joel, B. (1989). And so it goes. [Recorded by B. Joel]. On Storm front. Columbia. During that rehearsal, he showed the band what it Lauridsen, M. (1995). O magnum mysterium. Southern Music Publishing Co., Inc. means to be human, to love one another fully. Nguyễn-Duy, Q. (2019).Amputees. Unpublished play. NARRATOR Reynolds, H. R. (2003). O magnum mysterium. Songs of Peer, Ltd. So, what you are saying is that stories are powerful, Troung, G., Tran, J., & Ford, S. (2021). Vietnamese hip-hop and rap: Connecting Australian and Vietnamese right? youth through music. https://www.australiavietnam.org/post/vietnamese-hip-hop-and-rap-connect- ing-australian-and-vietnamese-youth-through-music KÍNH Vũ, K. T., & de Quadros, A. (Eds.). (2020). My body was left on the street: Music education and displacement. Yes. Stories and songs both. Maybe they’re the Brill|Sense. same thing. Whether told in words, or songs, or Westerman, A. (2021). “Am I Asian enough?” Adoptees struggle to make sense of spike in anti-Asian violence. songs without words, we educators can break the https://www.npr.org/2021/03/27/981269559/am-i-asian-enough-adoptees-struggle-to-make-sense- silence, and in turn, model how our lived and living of-spike-in-anti-asian-violenc experiences are needed aspects within the context Kính T. Vũ is an assistant professor of music at of music teaching and learning activities. I think Boston University. His main research area is about of these lyrics by Billy Joel (1990) often: “But if displacement, with a focus on issues that affect my silence made you leave, then that would be Asians and Asian Americans who are somehow my worst mistake.” My silence has been centered dislocated (e.g., adoption), but experience “home” in around (a) who I am as a Vietnamese American their music-making communities on US soil. Kính adoptee and (b) how my stories and songs might can be contacted by visiting https://www.KÍNHtvu. matter to my students. com. (photo credit: Jacob Chang-Rascle, 2020)

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Growing Music In MASS: A 2021 Update Massachusetts Music Educators Association

Growing Music in MASS is here and ready to help teachers and • Composition-based or improvisation- schools struggling with pandemic-related issues for the 2021–2022 based instruction school year. Recently, we have received several inquiries about • New or expanded technology-based the range and scope of our block grant programs, and we look programs of instruction. forward to receiving those applications and more later this spring. • Student learning centers and indi- vidualized instructional programs For this school year, a Future Symphony Hall Scholars grant was given to a Greater • Programs designed for special Boston community instrumental ideas. learners (as distinct from modifica- program to develop and fund online tions or adaptations of regular lesson Here again are the block grant descrip- lessons at the high school and middle planning) tions in a nutshell: school levels. In the absence in many • Developing methods, tools, and schools of in-person instruction or the Future Symphony Hall Scholars, funding strategies that measure student use of hybrid instructional models, it is grants to schools that are specifically growth and achievement vital that the valuable work of musical designed for instrumental and vocal/ teaching and learning goes on. Growing choral performance skill enhancement, • Developing online and distance Music in MASS funded a Classroom and typically fall into these categories: instructional models that provide Innovations proposal in Western Massa- virtual teaching and learning • Private, semiprivate, or small group chusetts, allowing the school to purchase lessons and targeted instruction • Curriculum integration for every student, from kindergarten to grade 3, classroom instruments • Master classes by visiting professional Our website provides contact e-mail that that could be kept at home for online musicians, conductors, or musical teachers may access should they have any learning. This teacher is exploring and mentors questions. The address is gmmchair@ refining methods for measuring and gmail.com. The GMM Committee typi- • Sponsoring or attending perfor- evaluating student growth in compliance cally accepts applications in the spring mances and performance-related with the state curriculum frameworks and reviews them over the summer. events and the school district’s requirements. As always, we welcome member ideas, • Financial support for students While this year will probably not along with contacts or referrals for pos- participating in advanced college, see Symphony Hall Scholarships, sible donors and donations—corporate, conservatory, or music school that initiative will return in 2022, charitable, or individual—so please pass programs conditions permitting. On our website, our program information on to them, or growingmusicinmass.org, you will find • Instructional and support materials send their contact information to us so information about each of our giving that we can extend an invitation. Lists Classroom Innovations grants are initiatives and block grant programs, of donors are updated regularly on the designed to allow member teachers the Future Symphony Hall Scholars website and in MMEA publications. to explore a range of strategies and and Classroom Innovations projects. methods of musical instruction and —Tom Walters, We encourage teachers to apply, even if evaluation. Falling into but not limited GMM Committee Chair you’re not entirely sure about what types to these categories, grants will be of instruction you’ll be able to offer for available at all levels of music education next year. Further, if member teachers from preschool to college. have ideas for grant programs that may not fit exactly into these categories, • Specific nontraditional instruments please write to us and let us know your and ensembles thoughts. We’re always open to new

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MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION Growing Music in MASS 2021 Donation Form

I’d like to donate to the Growing Music in o My company will match my gift. Please make check payable to: MASS family of giving initiatives The gift form is enclosed. MMEA Your name as it will appear in the All-State concert Donations may also be made through PayPal o Symphony Club - $5,000 and up program and MMEA publications: at our website, MASSMEA.org. o Concert Benefactors - $2,500–$4,999 (MMEA is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, so your donation o Conductors Circle - $1,000–$2,499 is tax-deductible. Please put “GMIM” on the memo line so that we can track your donation.) o Musicians Guild - $500–$999 MAILING ADDRESS: o Patrons - $200–$499 MAIL TO: o Friends - $100–$199 MMEA P.O. Box 920004 o Donors - up to $99 Needham, MA 02492

TOTAL ENCLOSED: $ EMAIL:

Young musicians throughout Massachusetts thank you for your support! Fold and tear on dotted line to separate form.

Growing Music in MASS AND MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION DONOR LIST 2020/21

CONCERT BENEFACTORS $2,500+ Lexington Symphony Orchestra FRIENDS $100 – 199 DONORS UP TO $99 Jody Marsh Rosalie Cohen Scholarship Fund Howard Rockwin Enterprises Dr. Cecil L. Adderley III Lori J. Anderson Johnetta Smith at the Celebrity Series of Boston Irene Idicheria and Nathan Tiller Paul and Doris Alberta Steven and Carol Archambault Dr. Tawnya and Karin Smith- Hendricks MUSICIANS GUILD $500+ MA Instrumental and Choral Jost Woodwinds, David Jost Anthony Beatrice Conductors Association Robert and Nancy Stoll David French Music Company Paul and Gale Livingston Frank and Sarah Casasdow MA MEA—Central District Tom and Susan Walters Mark and Cynthia Napierkowski Ruth Debrot PATRONS $200 – 499 Dr. Walter M. Pavasaris Greg A. Williams Needham Music Inc. Leslie Randall Dooley Dr. Sandra Doneski Dr. David Neves Linda Ethier—Sharon Gerry’s Music Shop Orchestras Ms Joyce Neves Barbara Green-Glaz Susan Gedutis Lindsay and Ron Glaz Richard Vaughan The Yemin Family

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Making Ourselves Make Time for Making Music By Gareth Dylan Smith, Assistant Professor of Music, Music Education, Boston University

drum kit is bolstered by additional massive, layered kick and snare sounds supplied by my sample module, and Yoav’s Music Man Sterling bass guitar growls and barks through a gnarly fuzz pedal. The abrasive- melodic keys on the tracks fill out our sound and Ingrid’s voice floats and weaves and belts by turns. The songs are haunting, moody, raucous, energetic, and driving. I love being the beating heart of it all. If I stop, the moment and the momentum disintegrate. When I keep us going, we soar on a magic carpet up and out of the room to another plane for three or four minutes at a time. After playing together for nearly four months now, Black Light Bastards can run through our set, top to bottom, with no major hiccups. Sometimes I forget what groove to play at the start of a song, and I still might hesitate ahead of the interlude that comes before “Outrageous,” where I The pandemic has been tough on musicians and music teachers have to trigger space sounds downloaded in all kinds of ways—emotionally, financially, and existentially. from NASA and other sound effects to Politicians and the media have tended to focus primarily on Ameri- give the band a breather before we take it home. I love the focus I find playing drums cans’ physical health and the economy; rightly so, since without in a rock band. It’s there to a lesser extent basic resources to sustain ourselves, nothing in the higher tiers of in other contexts like jazz combos and pit Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid is attainable. But my social bands, but the physicality, the bigness, and, yes, the loudness of being in a rock band media feeds, alongside conversations with colleagues and friends, are intensely thrilling; exhilarating. People reveal that while music is what puts bread on our tables, that’s not often say things to me like, “Oh, it must the main reason we all do it. Making music is what makes us who great to take all your frustrations out on the drums!” Alas, it is not. Of the handful we are; it’s how we connect with one another and with our stu- of occasions I have played drums angrily dents. Below is a short reflection on getting some music back into in the thirty-three years since I started, this flagging musician. I hope it resonates. Thank you for reading. all have been roundly unfulfilling, even disappointing. Drumming with my full The loudest part of my current weekly playing in bands in the city. They needed cognitive, emotional, and physical presence routine is the two-hour band practice I a drummer to realize some new material; allows me to channel my full being into have with Black Light Bastards (new) new would I like to get together and jam? We the now—the immersion is what’s so great wave band on Thursday nights. We formed immediately gelled in the rehearsal room, about it. Paradoxically, it’s an escape to after one of them contacted me through bonding over a shared desire to rock out. being fully present. my website, introducing themselves as We’re a trio comprising vocals, bass guitar, Perhaps it seems silly or even reeks of middle-aged punk rockers who’d moved and drums, with keys and SFX on backing detached social privilege to say I “need” to out to the ‘burbs after twenty-five years of tracks stored in my iPad. My small acoustic rock out once a week, but I do. I have to

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President’s Message By Joseph Mulligan, MAJE President

do it. It’s a huge part of what makes me, I hope that you are looking forward to the summer and your end me, and I feel as de-centered and unhinged of the year performances have just about finished. I trust that you when I don’t have this sustenance as I do when I’m away from family, deprived of will be getting some vacation time and recharging your battery sleep, or don’t eat well. for next year. I am happy to report that MAJE ran an extremely I get so caught up in the demands of work successful Feedback Festival this year with almost twenty different and home life that I don’t find much time jazz ensembles. Thank you to our Chief Adjudicator Paul Alberta in my adult life for rocking out. But I for getting three quality judges to give feedback to the ensembles. yearn for it. When I first arrived in the United States a little over three years ago, The judges this year were Jeff Holmes, Terry White, and Lee Abe. my lack of permanent abode kept me out If you have any feedback on how the festival went, please feel free of a regular band, and then the pandemic to reach out to me. I know that it was a great experience for my stripped of me rock and roll for nine more months. But I’m back! When Black Light students and myself. Thank you to Simon Harding, who took care Bastards knock out the first song in our of all of the technical aspects of the festival. rehearsal, I feel invigorated and fully alive! • Congratulations to the two Mas- leaving the military in 1968 Nestico That is a feeling everyone should have. sachusetts jazz bands who were went to Hollywood to write for the It’s why music education is important to selected as finalists for the Virtual Basie Band. The album Basie Straight me—I want everyone to have the chance to Essentially Ellington Festival this Ahead, the band’s first recording of experience this transcendence. Musicians year: Newton South High School Nestico’s arrangements, became a classic know from our own lives, as well as from directed by Lisa Linde and Foxboro and was the first of ten albums together. writers like June Boyce-Tillman, Oliver High School directed by Aaron His influence on jazz education will Sacks, David Orr, Richard Shusterman, Bush. It is great to see two groups truly be missed. and Ellen Dissanayake that the rich, from Massachusetts selected this embodied, spiritual, life-giving experience • If you have any billing questions please year. Congratulations again to the of making art is crucial to our thriving as send them to our treasurer, Mr David directors and students for all of humans. It is vital we make ourselves make Kaminski from Marshfield Public their hard work. Make sure that you time for making music. • Schools. His e-mail is dkaminski@mpsd. check out the Essentially Ellington org. Please let your purchasing agent Gareth Dylan Smith Festival on June 4 & 5. Good luck to know about the change. is Assistant Professor of both groups. Music, Music Education Best wishes to everyone for a great year, • Some sad news is that Sammy at Boston University, Nestico, trombonist, composer, —Joseph P. Mulligan, MAJE President a board member of the and arranger has recently passed. International Society Nestico was a true giant in the world 2021–2022 Festival Schedule Announcement: for Music Education, of music, and jazz education in Information about Junior and Senior a founding editor of particular. A veteran of the Charlie District Jazz Festivals, including online reg- the Journal of Popular Music Education, and Barnet, Tommy Dorsey, Woody istration forms, registration fees, program a drummer. Gareth’s research interests include Herman, and Gene Krupa orchestras, information, MVP Award information, popular music, music learning, drum kit Sammy made his most enduring adjudicator commentary, and performance performance, distributed telematic perfor- contribution to big band jazz during guidelines can all be found online at: www. mance, punk pedagogies, and eudaimonia. He his seventeen years as an arranger for MAJAZZED.org . The season will be is excited to get to work every day with future the Count Basie Orchestra. He was very similar to this year. We are currently music teachers in Massachusetts and beyond. also a first-call arranger for vocalists, working on finalizing the dates and sites for working with the likes of Sarah next year as I write this letter. They will be Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Barbara complete on the website as soon as possible. Streisand, and Toni Tennille. After

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Building Digital Bridges in Times of a Plague By Tina Nospal, Cambridge Public Schools

Old ideas and old values clashed with the new ones, merged with the natural interconnection among people them or existed side by side, as if waiting to see which would outlive and their feeling of isolation, unhappiness, disconnectedness, lack of involvement with which. —Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina, 1945 work and with others. When we feel alien- ated, we have less contact, less intimacy, In The Bridge on the Drina, Ivo Andric, a society. As the COVID-19 pandemic took and less trust. Personal connections feel less beloved Yugoslav author and a Nobel Prize away our opportunities to engage in live, tangible. laureate, depicts the life of people in a small face-to-face interactions with other humans, Bosnian village by the Drina River from the intimacy of human communication Although the concept of alienation is the late sixteenth century to the beginning became subservient to the supremacy of associated with the work of Marx, other of World War I—an immensely rich technology. Undoubtedly, the stage for this classical sociological theorists, such as historical period that covers the expansion was set in the pre-pandemic period. Tech- Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, have of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the nology “has been heavily structured into also proposed that alienation leads to loss Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In 1566, a societies and has tremendously affected and of self or relation with others (Kalekin- Grand Vizier by the name of Mehmed continues to affect all aspects of peoples’ Fishman, 2006). This is relevant to the Pasha Sokollu orders the construction of a life” (Adibifar, 2016, p. 61), particularly the times we are in. In modern societies, bridge at the precise spot of the river where way we interact and communicate with one materialistic, money-is-all attititudes as a very young boy he was forcibly taken another. decrease social relationships and increase from his Serbian family and converted alienation from ourselves and others (Kim, On the surface, technology has greatly to Islam. The bridge, built not only as an 2015). When people experience less contact, benefited human society, especially by expression of the eternal human struggle to intimacy, trust, and weaker relationships revolutionizing the medical field and by connect but also as a means of facilitating with each other, they attempt to substitute playing a major role in all types of scientific conquest, becomes a symbol with dualistic those by pursuing money and material research. Digital tools liberate us from meaning. goods (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Pieters, 2013). constraints and help us to do our work As we allow corporate interests to invade A lot can be said about dualism, a theory at a faster pace and in a more efficient our lives and compromise our privacy, that has haunted Western thinking for way. Sociologically, the plethora of smart we can see distances widen and human ages. Put briefly, dualism can be seen as a devices has created new opportunities closeness departing in front of our eyes. consequence of our fear of contradiction. for frequent communication with others, We feel under pressure to choose one side or lowering the likelihood of loneliness and In the grip of a plague, education the other, therefore reducing our immensely isolation. Little is known, however, about has undergone rapid changes as well. complex inner and outer lives to something the ways electronic forms of contact, such COVID-19 accelerated digital trends that that is one-dimensional and linear. As we as cell phones, video calls, and social media, will probably remain after the pandemic seek to make sense of the current pandemic, influence our social interactions and affect has subsided. Working conditions have we have comfortably resorted to Western the way we experience these interactions changed as a lot of people started working thought patterns. Indeed, the virus has (Antonucci, Ajrouch & Manalel, 2017). from home. Personal interactions gave exploited deep and fundamental aspects way to electronic screens. With respect to Research on how technology affects social of our common humanity: our desire to K-through-12 education, the hybrid model structure suggests that technology has touch and hug each other, to befriend each of remote/in-person schooling has slowly a number of drawbacks for individuals other and spend time in groups (Christakis, become “the new normal” and will likely and for the society as a whole, the most 2020). The virus gives rise to feelings continue to be a preferred option for some notable one being that of “mass alienation” of grief and fear, but it also gives rise to families in the post-pandemic period. On (Adibifar, 2016). The concept of alienation, feelings of hope, optimism, and love. the plus side, there is “a real opportunity originally introduced by Karl Marx, refers to revitalize a hundred-year-old model Technology and education to separation, being a stranger to something of K-through-12 delivery that cries for or someone (Meszaros, 1970). In sociologi- innovation” (Christakis, 2020, p. 280). We can think in similar terms about cal terms, alienation is the breakdown of How we understand teaching and learning technology and the role it plays in today’s could change drastically.

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On the other hand, if we look at some of I write as someone in two worlds: In one other words, if we see the current situation the costs of this sudden shift to remote I am a classical pianist and in the other I as an invitation rather than an obstacle, we teaching and the Internet as the main am an educator and a researcher. Over the may avoid the trap of dualistic thinking bridge to the outside world, there are course of last year, while working from and make a shift towards dialectic think- areas of concern. Technological tools are home, the boundaries of these two worlds ing—that is, viewing issues from multiple a great facility, but as the Irish poet John have merged. I am equal parts “performer” perspectives. O’Donohue puts it, the fact we have this and “facilitator,” teaching both synchro- amazing technological capability does not nous and asynchronous lessons with the Final thoughts mean that good work will actually be done primary goal of connecting to my students It is difficult to say what the enduring (O’Donohue, 2018). The digital realm through music and of creating a nurturing impact of this pandemic will be, with the is somewhat like Plato’s “Allegory of the online community. This year, the lack of rapid changes it bestows upon humanity, Cave.” Plato’s theory about human percep- interpersonal communication with my like a wild river carrying old ideas and old tion and the knowledge gained through the students made it even more important to values that clash and merge with the new senses is ultimately about falsely confusing emphasize relationships over content. As ones. We are yet to see which will outlive the world of images with the absolute truth. many music educators know, this is a which. Our reliance on technology as a Not unlike the prisoners in Plato’s cave who challenging task in the remote environment. bridge is a reflection of our attempt to could only see the shadows of passers-by Video conferencing platforms, such as adapt to the uncertainties of a new reality walking behind them, it is questionable Zoom and Google Meet, were not created in order to survive and thrive. Christakis whether the digital environment could for singing and doing music together—the (2020) wisely notes that the spread of germs allow one to “see” the complexity and primary way musicians connect to one is the price we pay for the spread of ideas. depth of people and to bring real encounter another. Teaching an audience of both in- But equally, it is through the spread of and intimacy to the surface. person and remote learners made it difficult ideas and knowledge that we are going to to choose a music repertoire that is equally beat the spread of germs. It is precisely by Music bridge engaging and of good quality, especially building bridges and working together, by On the stage and in the classroom alike, because in-person students were all wearing sharing information, by recognizing we all personal interactions are the key to masks and were not allowed to sing. have a shared interest in what happens to emotional and intellectual connection. In Asynchronous instruction, though much of all of us. • all societies, the primary function of music the response to it in 2020 had been nega- Originally from North has always been collective and communal, tive, allowed for some creative thinking. Macedonia, Tina to bring people together and enable a Namely, recorded lessons do not require Nospal received her shared social experience. It has been all students to be in the same place at the undergraduate and wonderful to see all the innovative and same time. In-person students can watch graduate degrees in engaging ways in which performers and them outside of school, allowing them piano performance from educators have been reaching audiences to practice singing just as much as their Boston Conservatory, through the use of technology. Over the remote peers. Asynchronous lessons may and music education last year, musicians and educators have also also serve as preparation for synchronous from Boston University, learned that the famous maxim, “know lessons, thus reserving live instruction where she is currently a doctoral candidate. your audience,” rings truer than ever! time for more personal interaction and Her work focuses on collaborative practices of Recent research suggests that remote music meaningful discussions that go into greater music teachers and paraprofessionals. Tina sessions are better suited to events with a depth. I would even argue that with remote has been teaching Kodaly music at Cambridge seated audience rather than for ones where schooling, synchronous and asynchronous, Public Schools since 2009. the social experience of music is funda- we may expect a greater sense of shared REFERENCES mentally about physical engagement with educational vision as teachers, coaches, others (Vandenberg, Berghman, & Schaap, online experts, and homeschooling Adibifar, K. (2016). Technology and alienation in modern-day 2020). For example, you can certainly have parents work in tandem to assume greater societies. International Journal of Social Science Studies, 4(9), 61–68. https://doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v4i9.1797 a dance party on Zoom, but its essence responsibility for children’s learning. In would be lost.

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452 Days: Lesson Learned from the (Almost) Other Side By Chris Martin, Music Program Leaders chair, Westborough Public Schools

Andric, I. (1977). The bridge on the Drina (G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., On any other April 28, our high school’s spring jazz concert Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1945) would’ve been like most other concerts for our district. April 28, Antonucci, T. C., Ajrouch, K. J., & Manalel, J. A. (2017). Social 2021 was different, since it marked our first live performance since relations and technology: Continuity, context, and change. In- novation in Aging, 1(3), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/ the pandemic started. As I introduced our performing groups and igx029 staff, I also had to pause as I looked out to our limited audience and Christakis, N. (2020). Apollo’s arrow: The profound and enduring impact of coronavirus on the way we live. Hachette Book Group. remind them (and myself) that it had been 452 days since the last Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of performance in our district: January 30, 2020. Our school’s musical goal pursuits: Human needs and the self‐determination of would’ve been the last, but opening night had been scheduled for behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi. org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01 March 13, the day the world shut down. Kalekin-Fishman, D. (2006). Studying alienation: Toward a better society? Kybernetes, 35(3/4), 522–530. https://doi. The evening’s concert went according to A Four-Month Quarantine Wasn’t the Worst org/10.1108/03684920610653782 plan, and the audience, both live and at Thing In the World: Kim, S. (2014). Does a money-is-all attitude cause alienation? home watching via our live stream, were I may be chastised for saying it, but I hope A cross-cultural comparison of Korea, the US and Sweden. appreciative. They gave a rousing applause I am not the only one who thought that the International Journal of Consumer Studies, 38(6), 650–659. both for the students and for the symbolic https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12137 four month quarantine was a forced pause start of our more “typical” spring routines. on life that may have been a blessing in Meszaros, I. (1970). Marx’s theory of alienation. http://napole- 452 days has given me plenty of time to tano.net/cursos/geomarx2018a/textos/Meszaros2005.pdf disguise. Running on all cylinders, balanc- reflect, ponder, and sonder. As I conclude ing work and personal life, and having a O’Donohue, J. (2018). Walking in wonder: Eternal wisdom for a modern world. Convergent Books. my four years as K–12 administrative to-do list that never could get completed representative on the MMEA executive was starting to wear thin. All of a sudden Pieters, R. (2013). Bidirectional dynamics of materialism and loneliness: Not just a vicious cycle. Journal of Consumer board, I’ve chosen to share some of these having all of the time in the world seemed Research, 40(4), 615– 631. https://doi.org/10.1086/671564 reflections with you as we move forward as overwhelming, until I started taking care of Plato (2018). The allegory of the cave (B. Jowett, Trans.). a united front into the post-COVID era. myself, finishing that book I started three Martino Fine Books. (Original work published ca. 385-378 BCE) summers ago, video chatting with my niece Sondering: Vandenberg, F., Berghman, M., & Schaap, J. (2020). and nephew almost every day, and finally The ‘lonely raver’: Music livestreams during COVID-19 as a Sondering is coming to the realization that ensuring that both my loved ones and hotline to collective consciousness? European Societies, 1–12. everyone you meet or pass by has a life as myself were taking care of ourselves. I also Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461669 complex and vivid as your own, filled with 6.2020.1818271 grew closer with staff members during that ambitions, conflicts, relationships, struggles, time period, which is something that would routines, etc. Sharing the common have not occurred had the year progressed experience of a pandemic makes you realize as normal. that everyone handles things in a different way, and, on top of all their “normal” life Fake It ‘Til You Make It: stresses, the pandemic may not be the As an administrator, I have learned the biggest thing happening for them person- unique skill of balancing any emotion ally. Realizing the spectrum of reaction to thrown my way. If a staff member was COVID has taught me empathy, flexibility, complacent, I was able to instill a sense of and compassion for my colleagues, students, urgency. If a parent was panicked, I learned friends, and family in a way that I didn’t how to assuage fears with a calm demeanor, realize needed to be learned. regardless of my own anxiety. Sometimes it felt like I was conveying mixed emotions

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within the same sentences, but compart- that made the difficult a bit more bearable Christopher Martin is mentalizing my own trepidations about a or the future a little brighter. the K-12 Director of Fine variety of situations helped me speak with & Performing Arts for To all program leaders, teachers, students, clarity and confidence to staff, students, the Westborough Public and families: Thank you for your flexibility, and families. It wasn’t easy, but it seemed to Schools. In addition to your tenacity, your resiliency, and your help and will definitely help me pause, take his work with MMEA, unwavering passion for music education a breath, and “read the room” a bit better as he also serves on the in our schools. Here is to a more musical I move forward. executive board for future that is just over the horizon. Have the Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral a safe and restful summer and we will see Everyone Is in the Same Boat: Conductors Association as the choral festival you in September! • Programs may look different for years co-chair. to come, but there’s at least some solace knowing that we are all in this together. Every district’s program has felt some impact from this past year, and to say otherwise would be an exercise in denial. Continue accessing MMEA’s professional development resources, expanding your network, advocating for your program, and asking colleagues from across the state (and country) for advice and help. No program is an island and we all benefit when all of our programs and students are thriving. It may take a year or five, but we will get to the finish line together.

Find the Silver Linings: People who know me are assuredly sick of hearing my catch phrase, “Find the silver linings,” over the last fourteen months, but I emphatically believed it has helped both myself and my department survive, and even thrive, in the most daunting of circumstances. Whether that be learning new technology, discovering new grants available to the profession, finding a voice for advocacy you never knew you had, revamping curriculum that may remain in your courses for years to come, learning more about your students or yourself, or just discovering your own resiliency, I hope that everyone was able to find out some- thing about themselves and their teaching

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Digital Badging in Music Education By Stephanie M. Riley, MMEJ Technology Editor, Yarmouth Public Schools

Digital badging has been around for a while in a d. Standards: Keeping track of any and all standards variety of ways. It’s likely that you’re most familiar addressed and achieved is very easy to accomplish. with the social media, personal development apps, 2. Do you want to create programs for each ensemble? (Chorus/ and my beloved Google badges that you get for Band/Orchestra/Guitar Ensemble/etc.) checking into certain places or a certain amount 3. Do you want to create a badging program for your elective music classes such as Rock History, Music Theory, Piano, or of times, etc. In a time where technology is mak- Guitar? ing its way into our classrooms at lightning speed, 4. Do you want to “go big or go home,” or do you prefer to select a it seems digital badging in the music classroom few things to try before you really invest in this model? If you’re could be very successful. unsure, I suggest a smaller trial. If you are an elementary music teacher and you are starting to navigate your way in digital What is digital badging? badging, I suggest piloting with a single classroom teacher (or a few) who you think would be onboard with this new idea. If Digital badging is a system that individuals complete to show they’re onboard, you’re going to find yourself with support and competency or achievement in any given area. It could be viewed as honest encouragement. a digital portfolio or a digital checklist, but with specific steps to be taken by the student in order to complete various tasks to complete 5. Do you want this to be a “quick” program? A term? A semester? the program. Or, do you envision this program extending through the year?

In our case as music educators, we would be music-based on our Elementary Music badges, and those programs can be completely tailored to your students: their grade level, ensemble, course specific, and school Generally speaking, you’re most likely going to gear digital badging specific, just to name a few. to older elementary music students. Grade 3 is an excellent place to start. Programs Programs such as Chrome Music Lab are easily “badged.” You can This is where you can begin the tailoring for your digital badging make this a goal for your class, or introduce it as a fun program to programs. Ask yourself a few questions as you begin this process: complete during Music in Our Schools Month. Depending on your school’s policy of screen time, if you find yourself with indoor 1. Do you want this to be a district-wide program? recess (especially during the month of March), completing a a. Benefits to a district-wide program: If a school has badging program could be a fun and educational use of time. multiple elementary schools, this can help the elementary In this case, if one-on-one devices are not available during class teacher prepare and share progress with the next teacher time due to school policy or other outstanding reasons, an educator that a student will have within the district. Instrumental could easily work these into class time each time they see their programs, of course, would be an obvious program that students. In addition to Chrome Music Lab, other fun things to benefits, but choral programs and even general music include that are worthwhile and lend themselves to future musical programs can also benefit. endeavors are websites such as Incredibox, Staff Wars, and then b. Digital badging can work as though it’s a built-in rubric creating music with the Google arts and culture experimental sites, if designed carefully enough. These can be used district- such as Blob Opera. wide. Middle School c. Digital badging is a great way to meet students where they’re at. Advanced students have something tangible Middle School is already tricky, and we often hear woes of teachers to work towards, and those who need more time and trying to figure out how to reach students and keep them interested guidance have clear expectations laid out for them. in music during this often awkward time of life when singing in class can be frightening for some. If anything, middle school could be the perfect place for digital badging.

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Many schools over the past few years and moving ahead now in the 3. Accessing material when they’re at home or even at school. With wake of the pandemic have been opting for digital programs such COVID, the vast majority of students have personal devices, as Soundtrap, Garageband, and Bandlab, just to name a few to add whether it be a Chromebook, a smart phone, or an iPad, and to their music curriculum at the middle school level. most have the ability to access digital files practically anywhere. This could certainly solve the classic problems of forgetting of A badging program at the middle school general music level could music either at home or at school. include: 4. Recording themselves playing/singing an assignment and then • Individual skills that are used in any DAW program. This uploading it or sending it to the teacher. When in ideal teach- includes but is certainly not limited to: looping, sequencing, ing scenarios (i.e., pre-COVID) giving students one-on-one layering, sampling, dynamic contrasts (fade in and fade out), attention is never an easy task. Even though our intentions and effects. are heartfelt for our students, it’s entirely commonplace to • Larger scale projects such as podcast creation, use of voice be hyper-focused on an upcoming performance and less on recordings and editing of those recordings, and the production individual development. Frequency of these types of assign- of those larger scale projects. ments, of course, are at the teacher’s discretion, but always allow for authentic feedback to students. And, for that student who • Music Notation Software: Noteflight, Musescore, or Finale is terrified to sing or play in front of others, it gives them the Chorus/Band/Orchestra chance to perform individually on their own terms and may even help to bring them out of their shell to sing or play in front Coming from the beginning band and orchestra angle, this could of others in the future. be a great way to track students’ progress for both them and you. Coming from the chorus angle, in programs and schedules that 5. Musicianship development can easily be badged using websites often make it difficult to offer individualized feedback, this could such as www.musictheory.net or other software programs. It’s a build in an attainable avenue to do that for your students. As great way to help students practice the beginning fundamentals more and more programs are becoming digital in their delivery of such as note naming, etc. and track their practice/proficiency. material such as method books, repertoire, and sight reading, this Other added benefits to a badging program are that it helps parents could be a natural fit. Yes, like all of the other programs, it’s a tiny understand expectations of their child and also show the highlights investment of your time upfront, but then you can tailor and adjust of your program and its curriculum. Depending on how you prefer for what works with your program and even each level of your to develop a badging program, it can be completely sequential in students. nature, and even if the badges are similar in nature, you could Digital badges that could be included here are: do “volumes” or “levels” or even “chapters” of a potential “badge book.” 1. Accessing a digital classroom such as Google Classroom, Schoology, or even a class website. While this may seem super Implementation fundamental in its own way, for a beginning instrumental The program below is based on a semester long “exploratory” class student, it helps you know who is able to get in (or not) to the for eighth graders. In this program the students rotate through four virtual classroom and ensures that they know how to navigate sessions that last five weeks each: Guitar, Piano, Music Tech, and the space. History of Rock and Roll. 2. Accessing a practice log in a program such as Google Docs or In the Google Classroom, each student is given an assignment that Google Sheets. Google in particular shows you updates and is titled “digital badges.” This assignment can be in Google Slides time stamps, so if you were ever interested, you could see when format or in a Google Doc that is assigned to each student and they went in to edit them to record their practice. each student receives their own “copy.” As students complete each badge, the color of the badge goes from grayscale to color to mark their completion of the badge.

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Team implementation Depending on your program’s structure, you can easily work on a badging program with your colleagues. Of course this is easily done with fellow music teachers, but opportunity could certainly present itself to partner up with your art, media, and physical education teachers and create a comprehensive arts badging program.

Evaluation opportunities Another opportunity that this program opens up is in the realm of Before completion After completion annual evaluations and goals. If you find yourself at the beginning Here is an example of what a digital badge “card” could look like. of a cycle, or charged by your administrator to branch out of your Again, tailor your badge program to your needs and your class’s comfort zone, this could be a great opportunity—not to mention needs. You can be super detailed, or very basic, as you see here: the evidence will literally collect itself.

8th Grade Exploratory Music Digital Badge Program Extensions So, now that you’ve read all of this, you may be thinking to Digital Classroom Materials yourself, “This is all great, but it’s just basically the projects and ❏ Accessing Google Classroom items we do on a normal basis with a ‘reward’ system thrown in.” Not necessarily. Remember that the goal of digital badging is to ❏ Completing an assignment in Google Classroom use technology as the vehicle to help us teach and solidify those musicianship skills and, for many students, offer a different lens ❏ Accessing Digital Worksheets from which to look at music, create music, analyze music, perform in Google Classroom music, and become musically diverse, among many other great ❏ Completing a Google qualities of being a digitally literate student. • Slides Assignment Basic DAW Skills History of Rock and Roll Digital Badge Record ❏ Demonstrates adding loops ❏ Demonstrates spitting a region Google Badge ❏ Demonstrates layering *This badge is given when a student successfully ❏ Demonstrates fade in completes the following items: and fade out a. Uploads a YouTube video in Google Classroom Personal Recording b. Completes a presentation in Google Slides ❏ Uploads a recording via an unlisted YouYube link to a Google c. Completes an assignment in Google Docs Classroom assignment ❏ Uploads a recording using Chrome Music Lab-Melody Maker the program Soundtrap with a backing track playing Online Collaborator Badge Composition using Chrome Music Lab-Producer Badge notation software ❏ Demonstrates setting up a Stephanie Riley is MMEJ’s technology editor. composition with 12 bars (for She is an 8–12 choral music educator at the a 12-bar blues composition) Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School where she ❏ Demonstrates ability to input is responsible for choirs grades 8–12, beginning basic rhythmic notation within piano, music technology, and theory classes. the 12-bar blues parameters She is also an avid lifelong singer of choirs. ❏ Demonstrates ability to differenti- ate between the bass line and melody when composing

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Relationships and Community Makes for a Strong Music Classroom By Catherine Iatesta, Needham Public Schools

So far this year, I have had six different schedules, seven different the past, is such a beautiful moment, and teaching spaces, taught on Zoom, taught live in a classroom and I genuinely believe students engaged in independent work differently because they outside, learned how to use PPE, taught students to put reeds on felt seen and heard. instruments without being in the same room—the list goes on and Tools and activities to help to build relation- on. I also know I am not the only teacher with a laundry list of ships: changes! I am tired, and yet I am so excited to see my students ALL With students: together again in just a few short days. All of these changes have • FlipGrid Brag Board. This was a tool that also reminded me of the importance of reflection. What are some I used with my elementary students. of the activities/lessons that I want to bring forward with me as our Students could post a song they were classrooms and rehearsals return to a more traditional scene? working on to share with their peers. These posts took the place of our musical share time at the end of our These changes this year have also allowed weekly lessons. Students could like me—or maybe forced me—to look at what and comment on each other’s work to I do in my classroom and remember the encourage their classmates. core of what makes music such a meaning- ful endeavor. During the summer, I took a • Class Playlist. Dr. Bryan Powell shared class in which we did an activity to “Marie this idea at our ENTME meeting in Kondo” our lessons or units. That is, to January. He created a public Spotify keep only what is necessary and get rid of playlist, and his students could add the rest. What are the core skills for each directly to the list. My students are a unit that must stay? What can be taken bit younger. To make sure I was sharing away? age-appropriate versions, I had students make sure that I used every minute of my complete a Google form, and then I One thing that kept coming up for me— in-person rehearsal time to make music, found YouTube videos or links to share outside of technique and playing skills— teach technique, and provide information the tracks. We would play these songs was the community and social-emotional to make sure their independent time was during pack-up time at the end of support that music class provides. It brings productive. I quickly came to find that this rehearsal. people together! Relationships are at the was not sustainable and not great for my • Question of the Day. This can be used core of my band rehearsal. I need students kids. The community aspect, the relation- during attendance time or a break in to trust me to take risks, trust their peers to ships, and the foundation of trust were class. The sillier the question the better, provide support, and trust themselves to try missing. Without a performance scheduled and creating friendly debate helps something new. for the year, what was the point of this kind students share the ideas in class. of rehearsal? I only saw my students when they were in • Student Voice and Choice. Asking stu- the building, and on their remote week Spending in-person class time to build dents what they need or want was also the work was asynchronous. This amount relationships was critical. Asking questions, very enlightening. Even my youngest of independence for instrumentalists checking in, and taking the time to allow students could share when they needed in grades 4 through 6 seemed daunting students to share who they are was essential music (notation) to be shared differ- for my students and me as a teacher. We in creating a safe space early on. This is ently, needed practice tracks, or liked were losing 60% of our guided rehearsal something that I will bring forward. This a specific practice style. This helped time. Initially, I felt so much pressure to “lost time,” as I would have called it in

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MMEA Executive Board & Staff

Board of Directors Administrative Staff Members Executive Officers Liaisons & Support PRESIDENT NAFME E. DIV. PRESIDENT Personnel to inform me when creating new Dr. Cecil Adderley Keith Hodgson lessons. This didn’t guarantee that I PRESIDENT-ELECT NAFME E. DIV. PRESIDENT-ELECT staff members could provide what they needed, but Dr. Heather Cote Susan Barre INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Michael LaCava it informed my choices. IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT NAFME E. DIV IMMEDIATE Dr. Sandra Doneski PAST PRESIDENT INTERIM ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR • Practice Videos/Resource Videos CLERK Marc Greene Dr. Noreen Diamond Burdett Parents shared that they were so Sara Durkin SUPERINTENDENTS ASSOCIATION PO Box 920004 thankful for videos that helped TREASURER Dr. Kim Smith Needham, MA 02492 617.680.1492 them support their students. This Thomas O’Toole CMMEA CHAPTER PRESIDENT helped build support around student Kamden Dennis District Chairs MMEJ MANAGING EDITOR musicians (especially the beginners I PRINCIPALS ASSOCIATION Susan Gedutis Lindsay CENTRAL DISTRICT Michael LaCava saw every other week for 30 minutes). MMEJ BUSINESS MGR. Todd Shafer Parents could provide additional TRI-M LIAISON Dr. Noreen Diamond Burdett EASTERN DISTRICT Meredith Lord DESIGN PRODUCTION support on the off week while their Brianna Creamer Megan Verdugo musician worked at home. NORTHEAST DISTRICT Subcommittee Tom Bankert These are a few of the tools that I plan Chairs support personnel SOUTHEAST DISTRICT to use and build upon when hybrid CONSTITUTION/BY-LAWS AUDITIONS COORDINATOR Bill Richter Michael Lapomardo and remote learning move away and we Dr. Heather Cote WESTERN DISTRICT DATABASE MANAGER go back to more traditional classroom Amanda Johnson NOMINATING Dr. Sandra Doneski Rick Lueth space. Ice breakers are typically a fall Representatives GROWING MUSIC activity to build relationships but they IN MASSACHUSETTS Council Chairs can continue during the year to help ELEMENTARY Thomas Walters Sara Allen Santos BAND COUNCIL create a stronger program and partner- DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD Margaret Reidy MIDDLE SCHOOL Dr. Noreen Diamond Burdett ship between teachers, students, and the Andrea Cook CHORAL COUNCIL community. • ADVOCACY CHAIR Catherine Connor-Moen HIGH SCHOOL John Mlynczak Meredith Lord JAZZ COUNCIL Catherine Iatesta teaches grades 4–6 LOWELL MASON AWARD Jeffrey Holmes HIGHER EDUCATION Dr. Noreen Diamond Burdett beginning and advanced band in the Reagan Paras ORCHESTRA COUNCIL Needham Public Schools. She is also an ADVOCACY AWARD Kristy Foye K–12 ADMINISTRATIVE REP Dr. Noreen Diamond Burdett executive functioning coach and mentors Christopher Martin GUITAR COUNCIL Harry Wagg students around the country. She can be PAST DISTRICT CHAIR Committee Chair Rebecca Damiani MUSIC COMPOSITION COUNCIL reached at catherine_iatesta@needham. ALL-STATE AUDITIONS Joseph Pandaco Michael Lapomardo k12.ma.us. GENERAL MUSIC COUNCIL ALL-STATE CONCERT Cathy Ward Sarah Grina IN-OVATIONS COUNCIL ALL-STATE CONFERENCE Tom Westmoreland ADVERTISERS INDEX Dr. Noreen Diamond Burdett PROGRAM LEADERS COUNCIL AWARDS Christopher Martin South Shore Conservatory IFC Dr. Noreen Diamond Burdett RESEARCH & MUSIC Gordon College Graduate 2 MEMBERSHIP TEACHER EDUCATION Cynthia Grammer Berklee College of Music 31 Dr. Tawnya Smith Gordon College Undergraduate 40 Yamaha IBC David French Music Co. BC

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Understanding Culture with Authenticity Anthony Beatrice, Boston Public Schools

“Teachers of all backgrounds walk into classrooms never studying the • Ask for family members to come into history or the culture of the children they are going to teach. So, how your classroom to co-present on the music they identify with. can teachers be culturally relevant when they have not studied culture? • Attend a local cultural event that you Culture does not simply fall from the sky.” —Dr. Bettina Love know your students and families will be attending. Dr. Love provides a clear-cut call for all of the sum of many spheres of influence, us in the education space to learn about including context within history, gender, Attend Workshops from Cultural Bearers the cultures of our students. It is a non- age, religion, family relationships, group You may currently be seeing a transforma- negotiable, but many of us can agree that memberships, cultural beliefs and practices, tion in offerings from our traditional we need some strategies in this area. Our historical context, and level of education. professional development providers in the large city school districts in Massachusetts Therefore, to avoid stereotyping, the educator music education space. Conferences are are composed of students from many must view each student as possessing a starting to address cultural responsiveness beautiful cultures. It is up to us to capture personalized culture instead of as a member of throughout all the traditional strands like these funds of knowledge and embrace a homogenous group. . . band, strings, and general music, but also them in our curriculum, but you can’t just as a standalone strand. You can see this Start with Families snap your fingers and magically become a in action with the upcoming multi-state culturally proficient teacher. It takes some The DESE rubric for teacher evaluation NAfME conference this summer called work to build this framing in your peda- mentions two-way family communication “Making Equity Actionable” and even in gogy. However, the results are impactful but we are often left to our own devices to the NAfME All-Eastern conference a few and our students deserve the best education figure that piece out. Luckily some newer months ago. We welcome this paradigm that affirms their values and beliefs. We publications are available to help guide us shift and are excited about the future of hope this article will be a starting point for in this work: MMEA’s offerings to address this ongoing your work in embracing the many cultures work. of our students in our large municipalities. • A Framework for Culturally Responsive Practices In the past we may have relied on practi- The Iceberg • Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential tioners to translate the music of a certain As seen in the iceberg diagram, our call to Guide to Family/School Partnerships culture into our Western European mindset action is to learn both the surface culture of music education. The authenticity and • School, Family, and Community and deep culture of our students. Yes, representation is often manipulated when Partnerships incorporating a balanced multicultural we do this. It is a tension in music educa- curriculum can help us in our goals of An important realization is that the tion and ethnomusicology that we need culturally responsive teaching, but it is the definition of family can include aunts, to work on. The answer to this problem work we can do in uncovering the attributes uncles, cousins, neighbors, etc. Remember is quite simple, bring cultural bearers of our students’ cultures that will make this when framing communications home. into your classroom and make sure they even more immense transformations in Some ideas to think about: are compensated! Additionally, it is now their learning (and our teaching)! We can commonplace to have virtual field trips • Have students and family members take build a sense of respect and empathy in our with clinicians video conferencing into your you on a tour of their community. classrooms that celebrate our differences classroom. The reality is that many of the and similarities while avoiding appropria- • Ask family members to share their curriculum vendors have not done their due tion, acculturation, cultural collision and favorite music and have the student diligence and can misrepresent a culture in code switching. report back to the classroom or on a texts. platform like FlipGrid. A word of caution, as stated in this 2016 All of our cities in Massachusetts have non- article from The Advocate: • Create a listening journal for both profit organizations that aim to celebrate students and families to complete. both the surface and deep characteristics of Remember this: a person’s culture represents a certain culture. In Boston for example, we

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have been able to partner with the African culture or region of the world. As men- music does not mean that you are being Community Economic Development of tioned at the beginning of this article, it is culturally responsive to your students. To New England organization to provide our important to not categorize all people of a be truly culturally responsive, we must music teachers with professional develop- certain culture with overall characteristics, do everything we can to expand our ment focusing on the Somali culture and and so you will want to double-check with knowledge and appreciation of our students children’s songs, Grooversity for Brazilian some community members on authenticity. by understanding their cultures and finding samba music, and Castle of Our Skins for ways of making authentic connections in Resources: music from the Caribbean Islands. One the classroom. easy way to find out what arts cultural • http://guide.culturecrossing.net/ Anthony Beatrice is the organizations are in your area is to check about_this_guide.php Executive Director for the out the Mass Cultural Council by clicking • https://www.commisceo-global.com/ Arts in the Boston Public on this website, selecting a municipality in resources/country-guides Schools. He is the Large your region, and then clicking “Funding Municipalities editor for List.” • https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/ the MMEJ. Research Online and Then Authenticate with • http://www.ediplomat.com/np/cul- a Community Member tural_etiquette/cultural_etiquette.htm There are many online resources for learn- In the end, creating a music education ing the various characteristics of a certain environment that embraces multicultural

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District Updates

NORTHEASTERN DISTRICT WESTERN DISTRICT

Thank you all for participating in our Hello Colleagues, led by Alex Shapiro, Moira Smiley, Helen Cha-Pyo, and Brian McCarthy, supported virtual festival workshops in the spring. It It has been more than a year now of the by the excellent group of managers—Chris was an honor to have Dr. Tim Lautzen- strangest times of our teaching careers. Moehringer, Todd Fruth, James “JP” heiser and Dr. Matthew Arau work with On an individual level, we have reinvented Kiernan, and David Kerr. I was privileged our students on the power of music and our teaching over and over again, and as to witness some of the rehearsals for each leadership. A big thank-you to Luke Miller, a district we have completely reimagined ensemble at both festivals and was taken Senior Festival coordinator, and Allison our auditions and festivals processes. We by the wonderful experience each clinician Lacasse, Junior Festival coordinator, for have grown and changed, helped each was providing for our students. The running these workshops and for making other, grieved our losses, and celebrated world handed us lemons, and the festivals the seamless transition from in-person to our accomplishments. As we are now were some of the sweetest lemonade virtual district events for the year. mostly all back in our buildings navigating around! Final festival videos are currently another unique end of the school year, I’m A big thank-you to the teachers in the in production. Watch your e-mail for sure many of you can join me in the wish Northeastern District who have volunteered announcements as soon as they are available that next year will see some return to a to be on the executive board for the to share. We can’t wait for you all to see the greater sense of normalcy. As more of our 2021–22 school year. I look forward to hard work on screen. working with you all as I move to past- colleagues are vaccinated and shots for stu- chair in the fall and Jared Cassedy of the dents not far behind, there is hope that by At this time, we are planning for virtual Lexington Public Schools takes over as this time next year we’ll be celebrating our auditions for the 2021–2022 school year chairperson of the Northeastern District. traditional end-of-year concerts. Together and will reevaluate our plan for festivals in It has been my privilege to work with all we have faced a period like no other and the fall. As always, we welcome your input the teachers and students over the last two we have come out stronger. I am thankful and invite all members to attend any of our years as chairperson and I am excited to see to have faced this difficult time with such a monthly meetings and strongly encourage what the future brings for our teachers and phenomenal group of colleagues. members to attend our general membership meetings in the fall and spring. We will students! Our Junior and Senior District festivals continue with virtual meetings for the went off without a hitch. Thanks go out to Please reach out to the executive board if we foreseeable future and hope that will our amazing Junior Festival clinicians— can help you in your school district. I look allow more of our members to attend and Chad Nicholson, Brendan Ferrari, Caleb forward to a more normal year in 2021–22! contribute to our wonderful district. Keep your head up and know Cutler, and David Picchi—and fabulous that you are appreciated! group of ensemble managers—Tony Wishing you all a wonderful, restful, Ohannessian, Colleen Grady, Todd Fruth, well-deserved summer break! —Tom Bankert, and Will Choe. Our senior ensembles were Northeastern District Chair Respectfully yours, —Amanda Johnson, Western District Chair

CENTRAL DISTRICT

Happy Summer! clinics hosted by area professionals. It’s great that, despite the challenges of these I would like to thank Junior High Concert times, senior high and junior high students Chairperson Nicholas Marcotte, the in Central District had the opportunity to Assistant Concert Chairperson JP Lanctot attend some virtual masterclasses/clinics and all of the ensemble managers and this year. assistant managers for putting together a wonderful day of clinics for every junior For those I didn’t see at the general mem- high auditionee on May 1. Students were bership meeting, I hope you recharge and given the chance to learn and improve refresh this summer and stay safe. upon techniques and skills in one-hour —Todd Shafer, Central District Chair

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EASTERN DISTRICT

Dear Eastern District Members, dents, and Dan Santiago, Matt Calapatia, Just a friendly reminder to please update and Maurice Soque for creating the concert your e-mail addresses and those of your Our Virtual Junior District Festival was video, which premiered on Friday, May department when you are logging into a huge success. Accepted students partici- 21 at 7:00 p.m. at the following YouTube Avenir to register students for auditions. pated in a two-hour masterclass/rehearsal Channel https://www.youtube.com/chan- Please know that we are here to support you led by our wonderful slate of conductors. nel/UCCifqWK46IG0El5qBlsdcEQ. Please and your programs, and if A big thank-you to Justin Glodich (Choral look out for an e-mail from Sarah Grina to we can ever be of any help Ensemble), Harry Watters (Jazz Band), be shared with students and parents that to you and your students let Elizabeth Reed (String Orchestra), and will detail all the information for the live us know. Terry Reynolds (Wind Ensemble) for the stream concert. engaging virtual masterclasses and rehears- —Brianna Creamer, Thank you to all the Eastern District als that they led. The students truly had a Eastern District Chair wonderful time. members who attended our general nembership meeting on Monday, March 8. Eastern District Updates I would be remiss if I did not also thank We are excited to have Sommer Forrester our Junior Festival coordinator Sarah Grina (Higher Ed. Chair) and Daniel Rivenburgh Check the MMEA Eastern District website for all the hard work she did to put together (Advocacy and Outreach Chair) return- for 2020/2021 calendar dates. this virtual festival. It would also not ing to their roles on the board. We also Information will be forthcoming on the have been possible without the help of the welcome Susan Memoli (Secretary) who has Junior Festival for 2020/2021. managers and board members—Jonathan been in a temporary position since Howard Eldridge, Kevin Maier, Guillermo Ortiz, Worona left, and is now officially our board PDPs are available for participation in Stephen Pixley, Larry Shea, and Alicia secretary. While the general nembership Eastern District activities. More info can Winslow—who attended and assisted with meeting was not the same as last year, we be found on the Professional Development the Zoom sessions. A special thank-you also do appreciate the membership attendance page on our website. goes out to Henry Buck for creating the on Zoom and hope to be able to have our accompaniment tracks for the vocal stu- dinner meetings again soon.

SOUTHEASTERN DISTRICT

During this year of unprecedented conversations with the composer, sectionals March 11/12: Junior Festival challenges the Southeastern District has with member teachers, technology instruc- We will be holding elections shortly to fill been able to continue activities through tion, and ice-breaker activities. vacancies on our board, particularly chair elect. completely remote means. At both the Going forward we will hold auditions Fortunately we have folks willing to run for senior and junior levels we successfully held remotely again in the fall given the those positions. auditions that, although altered in their uncertainty of schools being able to travel, I’m impressed with the resiliency and requirements, were meaningful and produc- concerns about in-person contact, and professionalism of the music educators in the tive. Incredible work was done by John host possibilities. We are going ahead with Southeastern District and across the state. I Collins, our auditions coordinator, and the securing sites, conductors, and programs think we are all ready to return to normal, adjudication chairs. We did experience a for the festivals in hopes that 2022 affords especially since the restrictions for in-person drop in the total number of students who music-making in schools have been so limiting us those activities in person. Fortunately auditioned but the quality of auditions did in what we can do. Be assured that great music if we have to hold virtual festivals again not diminish. will return, maybe even better than it was before we already have the experience to do it the pandemic hit! Festivals were also remote and really quite successfully. remarkable. Our managers and assistant Respectfully submitted, managers worked tirelessly to provide Dates have been set for 2021–2022: —Bill Richter, Southeast District meaningful musical experiences. The November 20: Senior audition materials Chair recordings of the virtual ensembles were due edited mostly by our membership—no small task as some of the groups were huge! December 4: Junior audition materials due Each ensemble had small- and large-group January 7/8: Senior Festival activities as well as experiences such as

SUMMER 2021 | VOL. 69 NO. 4 MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL | 37 LAST WORDS BACK TO TOP

The Essence of Musical Line Biking and Music By David Dworkin, Clarinetist, Conductor, Educator, and Creator of CONDUCTORCISE ®

Being an avid biker, I experience, every time I bike—cold or hot, rain or shine—many different emotions and observations.

every one, however I often take the oppor- tunity to turn and travel that unknown road and see where it goes—many times nowhere, other times I am rewarded with sights of beauty I would have never imag- ined. At the end of my performance career, I chose to take a road never traveled before, exploring music and its healing powers for all levels of health and age. I began with Today, as I biked along country roads, my Music and cycling, in parallel: Now you just a thought and lots of energy. I thought, mind went to the performance of music have gained technique. You know how to conducting is such a natural way to move. and the ability to bike. Strange bedfellows? pedal, change gears, never falter in your Why not give all a chance to move their Music is a love of my life. It began in my balance. What is next is your performance. bodies and think about conversations and early teens and continues as I approach my You must smell the fragrance of the music. colors in the score? I developed a program eighty-seventh year, and yes, I have biked The RUSH of a beautifully structured of works that were diverse and interesting. since I was five years old. line. The notes are there; now you have I sought a venue that would gather partici- to envision that every note is felt and pants and try the program. I found a Senior Biking becomes so much more than meaningful. Every note leads to another Center in CT that invited me to present pedaling, balance, and changing gears. It and tells a story. Never reject the idea that a program I called, “Conductorcise®.” I is the awareness of the wind in your face, one must feel each note in the depths of put a chopstick in everyone’s hand, and the perfumes of springtime, or the dry cold one’s body. The brain sends messages to the we were off. It was a great success. I was of a wintry day. It is taking in the beauty heart and vice versa, as you ride through on my way. I began reading books on of a green field, or the starkness of trees, the work being performed. (Side note: It exercise and the brain, neuroplasticity, sans leaves. What amazing works of art, as has been documented that the heart does effects of music on the brain, and so much though they were monumental sculptures. send messages to the brain.) more. I reached out to physicians focused The performance of music is a journey of on all levels of health, mind, and body. I We must all sing inside ourselves as we discipline. Learning the language of music contacted specialists in the field of aging. I perform. Seek to know every road traveled. and its grammar. Patience in acquiring a was now accepting engagements to present The hills, smooth paved roads, ruts in the flawless technique. Practicing over and over, “Conductorcise®, A SOUND Workout for musical landscape of travels. In short allow year after year, to gain a flawless technique, mind, Body and Soul.” I became a member your heart to respond to all the years of which then FIRST allows one to approach of the International Council of Active practice you have tirelessly put in. performance. Symphonic, opera, chamber Aging, IDEA Fitness, American Society on music, solo repertoire, and, yes, jazz, Biking through the rural countryside on Aging, American Senior Fitness Association, country—all music. any given day, I pass many dirt roads that and a member of the President’s Council on seem to go nowhere. One cannot explore Fitness.

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Say yes to music and to life!

David Dworkin posts Conductorcise ® videos Watch some of his videos: and photos of his cycling adventures daily on https://tinyurl.com/DavidDworkinPromoVideo Facebook. The videos include movement, https://tinyurl.com/DavidDworkinExample music appreciation, and history to help his https://tinyurl.com/DavidDworkinExample2 audience hear, feel, and understand the music and the composers. Find David at: https://tinyurl.com/DavidDworkinExample3 https://www.facebook.com/Conductorcise ® Find out more at conductorcise.com

Teaching is a noble profession, honored He led Kurt Weill’s Three Penny Opera on through the centuries in so many cultures. CBS Television, has served as conductor and Learning as we all do while teaching, we artistic consultant of three PBS television have the opportunity of exploring new documentaries in the series Grow Old roads as our tenure in the classroom ends. With Me, including The Poetry of Aging, It is not an end; it is a beginning. Positivity, featuring Richard Kiley, Julie Harris, and joy, engagement and love of what you are James Earl Jones. An avid chamber musician, doing makes an exceptional life. he has performed throughout the world, including four Carnegie Hall chamber Never stop learning. Never stop seeking the and solo recitals and as a member of Italy’s honesty of music. If I regularly travel the Musicisti Americani summer festival. In exact same route in my biking experience 2002 he created the acclaimed exercise for that day, I always see, feel something program CONDUCTORCISE®, where “you new. A musician will perform the same feel the beat as well as the burn” (Times- work, possibly hundreds of times. Each Picayune). Conductorcise® has received time it is rebirth. As soon as you play that rave reviews across the globe, and has been first note, it should be the same wonder as featured in publications from the New York if it were being played for the very first time. Times to Symphony and Town & Country That always amazed me. I am so taken with magazines, on television programs including the talent, technique, and musicianship of NBC’s Today Show, New Jersey Network TV, young musicians, many of whom under- Music is a language. At eighty-seven, I am and Retirement Living Television, where he stand everything I have discussed here. continuing to learn a new language of how appeared on the inaugural Living Live! with music affects the body and the brain in If you adhere to these thoughts, what Florence Henderson. He has presented the such a positive way. I have presented the you create and who you are can be truly program for all ages, especially healthy seniors. program for independent living through SPECIAL. That extra sound, phrasing, Conductorcise® has also proven effective memory care at retirement communities ability to communicate is what separates with residents of assisted living facilities and throughout the country. I have worked the “good” from the “great” performer. Feel with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s with people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, the music; be the GREAT. patients, and has gained wide recognition diabetes, cancer, autism, and many other with healthcare professionals. Dworkin Continue to enjoy, explore life. Music diseases. It is a form of sharing and giving. is a graduate of The Juilliard School and represents life in so many ways. That is what you music educators all do so Columbia University Teachers College, is a well. Have a great ride. • member American Senior Fitness Association, International Council on Active Aging, has The Maestro who Friends, musicians and music educators: a Certificate of Professional Recognition “sparkles with high-spirited Never forget that you are the conduit from IDEA Fitness, and is an advocate on virtuosity” (The New through which the composer has written the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge. York Times), David his or her contributions to the universe. CONDUCTORCISE® was named one of Dworkin has led orchestras Know the composer, the time, the culture. North America›s six most innovative active internationally and aging programs by the International Council Mahatma Gandhi said “Live as if you were performed as clarinetist on Active Aging. to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to with ensembles including the American live forever.” You will never run out of Symphony and Metropolitan Opera orchestras. things to learn if you were to live forever.

SUMMER 2021 | VOL. 69 NO. 4 MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL | 39 40 | MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL VOL. 69 NO. 4 | SUMMER 2021 SUMMER 2021 | VOL. 69 NO. 4 MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL | 41 Massachusetts Music Educators Journal P.O. Box 920004 Needham, MA 02492