When was the last time you sat down at your instrument and played music for fun? I mean, not music you had to practice or prepare, not the music you're teaching this week, but music you chose to play for yourself, for your own enjoyment?

In this episode, I'm sharing four reasons why playing your instrument for your enjoyment and creative expression is really vital to your music career:

It's one of those words that makes some of us uncomfortable: improvisation. Did your palms start to sweat when I said that?

In this episode, I’m sharing a story from the early days of my studio when I was still a student myself. It's about a lesson I had one October with an 11-year-old student.

If you teach elementary music in some capacity, you know the importance of singing to introduce, experience, and learn musical concepts. You may also know from personal experience that some children have trouble finding their singing voices.

Today, I'm sharing six practical strategies for helping children discover their singing voices and learn to sing in tune.

Perhaps you've heard the age-old adage: we teach how we were taught.

Of course, we know this isn’t the full story: we all have unique backgrounds and a variety of experiences that inform the people we are today and the teachers we are becoming. As you reflect on your own teaching practice, here are three things you should know:

When first introducing music-reading, it can be challenging for young students to recognize patterns and organize the content visually when everything is black and white.

For this reason, color can be a helpful tool. In this episode, I’m sharing four simple, unique strategies to use color to teach music literacy.

Today's episode is a special one because for the first time on this podcast, you'll hear someone other than me talking. In fact, you'll hear 22 other voices — my students!

One thing I love about summer is picking out a new book (or three) to read.

I love having a book with me when I travel, but also the everyday times like sitting by the lake on a hot summer day, relaxing on the porch with a glass of sweet tea, or curled up in the sunroom on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

During the year, I like to read a mix of books from different categories: Business, Spiritual & Lifestyle, Fiction, Personal/Intellectual, and Nonfiction/Memoir.

In the summer, I like to have at least one book that's an easy, light-hearted read — easy to pick up and put down, read outside or on a plane or in the car. I also like to choose a lifestyle-related book that will challenge me in some way or help me assess the rhythms and routines I've developed so far this year. And finally, I find summer is a great time to catch up on my development as a musician and educator, so I like having one book that I can learn from in that way.

If you're looking for a few books to add to your summer reading list, you're in the right place. Today, I'm sharing a few of my favorite summer reads (plus a couple I’m planning to read myself).

Welcome back to Music Education Basics!

Today, for our final lesson, we’re talking about one of my favorite topics, creative musicianship—what it is and how to teach it, and 5 ways to cultivate creative musicianship in your students.

First, let me explain what I mean by creative musicianship. When I say creative musicianship or musical creativity, I’m talking about improvising or creating music spontaneously and also, the ability to write those ideas down.

Now, if the thought of that makes your palms begin to sweat, I get it! If you had classical music training growing up, you probably didn’t spend much time improvising, composing, or creating your own music. I know that was my experience. Instead, the focus was probably on learning how to read and interpret what was on the page. Can you relate to that?

I'm sharing a few ways you can introduce musical creativity to those you teach in this lesson.

Welcome back to Music Education Basics!

Today, we’re talking about readiness for music-reading and developing proficiency.

Just like learning to read language, music-reading follows listening and responding, developing a musical vocabulary, and active musical experiences in a natural progression, as we’ve been reviewing this week.

If you’re a choir director or an elementary music teacher, I recommend introducing music-reading (as in holding a score in your hand) around 2nd or 3rd grade. We tend to introduce music-reading a little sooner in one-on-one settings — piano lessons or other beginning instrumental studies — but in choir, you can usually wait until 3rd grade and spend more time with rote-learning and gradually bridging that gap.

I’ll walk you through a simple 4-step process and a few tangible ways to do this in today's lesson.

Welcome back to Music Education Basics!

Today, we’re talking about musical phrasing, dynamics, and movement and why it’s important to incorporate these elements of musical expression into the teaching and learning process from the very beginning.

Visuals and active experiences are a huge part of the learning process. In some cases, they are more important in our teaching than spoken directions and letting people read things for themselves. How can we be intentional about structuring our teaching in a way that supports visual learning and active, hands-on experiences?

We’ll explore a few useful strategies, ways to create opportunities for active experience, and meaningful analogies you can use to support music learning and the development of musical understanding in your students.