Elementary Methods

Today I went through my personal collection of music and looked at the treble pieces.  I pulled 77 of them to sit at the piano and play.

Now it begins.  The process of selecting music.  Of course, I'm only looking at my collection right now.  The next step is to look at the college's library.  The third step is to look at public domain (guided by some of my research.  For example: finding some SA pieces by Buxtehude, since I know he wrote some).

In preparation for the fall, I have started to make lists of what needs to be done and when.  Selecting and prepping music is the fun bit.  It's what I love to do.  I'm teaching a conducting masterclass, which I also love to do.  I'll be teaching a voice class.  I've never taught class voice but I have taught many, many voice lessons.  I am excited to use my vocal books.  I have quite a few of them.

However, the class I really have to prepare for is elementary music methods.  I took the course in undergrad.  I taught 6 weeks of elementary music.  I'm certified K-12.  I had an amazing elementary student teaching placement.  But things have changed in the past ten years.  I know that I will have a lot to brush up on this summer.  For starters, I have an entire textbook to read.  I also have to hone my recorder skills.  I'm not kidding.  I'm teaching the recorder in this class (also excited about this).  Needless to say, preparation for this class will be a focus of mine this summer.  The person I am replacing has sent me all of their notes and lesson plans from their elementary methods course.  She has a PhD in music education, and her big passion is elementary music education.  So of course I will use her lesson plans this first year.  No need to reinvent the wheel when an expert has already given me a good roadmap for it.  Despite all the work this will be, I am very excited to teach this course because it will only serve to make me a better teacher.  I firmly believe that I became a much more aware and intentional teacher during my elementary student teaching placement.  The cooperating teacher was fantastic, and I loved learning from her.

I look forward to sharing some of my refreshers on this blog.

I'm also slowly starting to think of themes for the concerts this year...