NewsBlog Editor’s Note: This post is the first of a series written by CMIE Research Fellow Anthony Green, as part of the documentation for Green’s CMIE Research Internship. See other posts in this series here

Recently, I have been assigned to be apart of the research process observing the ear-training component of New England Conservatory. As one small cog in a machine of parts, my responsibility is to observe Professor Scripp’s Solfege for Singers class, which meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5 to 6. Time is noted here because vocal chord quality is affected by many things, including time of day.

Just a bit of background about myself, I am a 2^nd year Masters student, studying Composition. I also have a 5-student piano studio, and I am a vocal coach to a local singer (who is not a student), an accompanist, and a music history and theory tutor. More about me can be found on my website: www.agreencomposer.com.

Week One

My first week of this class actually started during the second week of the school year. The students and Professor Scripp were still getting acquainted with one another, and new introductions of not only me but also another MIE intern were made. This initial class began with a recap of what was discussed in the previous week, which was a general introduction into solfege.

The students along with teacher determined that solfege is the use of syllables assigned to pitches to facilitate the ease of sight-reading, especially when singing. It can be used for different goals, such as re-enforcing one’s relative pitch, improving sight-reading, re-representing and re-articulating familiar songs, proving the accuracy of pitches during sight-singing, and more. Students solfeged “London Bridges,” and professor Scripp encouraged the students to learn from the moments of “pause.” He also established the rule that it is most important in this class, when solfeging, to get the syllable correct.

Conducting was examined as a way to verify rhythm. Students observed what information is portrayed through conducting and how, how subdivision can solidify information in a conducting pattern, and how subdivision can aid and correct rhythm. Two main questions were reflected upon:

1) What is rhythm?

“Variation of beats within a given time.”

“Beats arranged in a pattern.”

“Placement of a note in a given time, meaning duration.”

“Proportion, ratio, grouping.”

“Patterns governed by periodicity.”

and …

2) Why do we conduct?

“To verify where a beat should lie.”

Professor Scripp introduced the class to contextual conducting, which is a method in which the conductor chooses hand gestures and specific subdivisions that best represent the music. Such conducting can be used not only when sight-singing, but also in warm-ups and perhaps themes.

The breadth of information in each class is extensive, but is usually in the form of discussion rather than lecture. The students show quite a bit of enthusiasm for participation, and the atmosphere is such that mistakes are welcome and fear or embarrassment is rather low. Another wonderful aspect of this class is the varying backgrounds that the students have in music. The class is approaching a point where it can be a forum for each of the students to draw on each other’s various histories and experiences.

The Artist-Teacher-Scholar framework has been around for over a decade. As far as I know, the term was first coined when during the years I served as the Founding Director of Research at the Leonard Bernstein Center for the Arts in Nashville (along with Eric Booth, Teaching Artist Director, David Steiner, former Head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Alexander Bernstein) where the term was used to understand the Leonard Bernstein’s persona and his life’s work as a synthesis of his artistry, teaching, and scholarly publications and lectures.

Nine years ago at NEC, I worked with Alan Fletcher (now CEO and President of the Aspen School of Music and Festival) to establish the Artist-Teacher-Scholar (ATS) Framework as the conceptual framework for NEC new Music-in-Education Program. It was the ATS framework – employed as an educational model for MIE students at NEC – that attracted years of federal funding to help NEC establish its Music-in-Education Program and the Research Center, representing the two key components of the Center for Music in Education.

Today I understand that the success of both NEC programs is aligned with the inter-related principles of the ATS framework. That is to say, as many students develop musically over time, they become increasingly interested in both the ‘teaching of the musical arts’ and the ‘artistry of teaching’ in schools or in outreach programs regardless of what career path they choose. And eventually it is not unusual for these musicians to recognize the importance of building both a personal ‘scholarship of artistry’ and a ‘scholarship of teaching’ as they develop career paths.

As evidence of this ongoing progression, NEC faculty whose courses count toward the MIE program – all highly trained and experienced musicians – engage in scholarship that takes the form of publishing, lectures, research, advocacy, community leadership, curriculum development, outreach programs, assessment, social action and policy shaping through our local programs and national collaborations relevant to music in education and our society. I believe that the ATS model helps to explain the genisis and effectiveness of these faculty initiatives.

Further evidence of the impact of this framework can be understood through changes in institutional policy. Nine years after the creation of NEC MIE programs and its research center, there are now guided intern programs, concentration programs in Music in Education, and even new research institutes in our partnering organizations nationally. Googiing on the internet I discovered there are now Music-in-Education programs established internationally independent of our work. I think these events have not occurred in absentia of an evolving conception of the artist’s developing persona as an artist-teacher-scholar.

Personally, the conception of the ATS clarifies the need for research and assessment in music-in-education practices. For me, artistry and education have limited impact on public policy, practices or leadership without ongoing research that is both rigorously conducted and aimed at practical significance for musicians, teachers, parents, administrators and students. Without having to arrive at a lock-step view of the ATS framework as a model for NEC faculty or students, I think it is fair to say that Patrick Keppel, Randy Wong, Lyle Davidson, Warren Senders, and Paul Burdick and our many other colleagues at NEC and in our partnering schools, see this framework as a driving force behind NEC’s national or local initiatives, Journal publications and the presentation of student portfolio work coming out of the NEC MIE and outreach programs.

I look forward to seeing more alums presenting their work on the www.mieatnec.org website and blogs. I hope everyone reading our new Journal in May will be stimulated through seeing the work of fellow MIE interns in other institutions. Nonetheless, it is my fondest hope that anyone investigating the publications, student, and alum work will appreciate the evolving forms of artistry, teaching and scholarship represented by NEC faculty and students as a resource and inspiration for advancing music in education and our society.

- Larry Scripp

Larry Scripp is Director of NEC’s Center for Music-In-Education and Executive Director of the MIE National Consortium. Scripp is also on NEC’s Music Theory and Music Education faculties, and is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

From the Journal for Music-in-Education:

This first section of the Journal for Music-in-Education tells the stories of several musical artists at different points in their careers: a promising young composer, a celebrated concert pianist, an extensively recorded improvisation artist, and a recent conservatory graduate embarking on a career in world music.

These portraits are not intended to foreground the impressive trajectory of their musical accomplishments, but rather to draw out a clearer understanding of how a life in music can be defined by the deep yearning to learn, teach, serve, and connect with others. These portraits show—in the words of the artists themselves and in commentary from their mentors and peers—that musical endeavors take on greater depth through a broad range of social encounters, role modeling, reflective thinking, and community involvement, all of which are becoming better understood as essential to the successful education of the performing artist in society today.

Thus, the enterprise of learning music for the highly trained artist, as represented in these chapters, takes on a particular significance as a “transformative”model for public school education. Time-lapse documentation of Julia Carey’s childhood notations presents an intriguing mosaic of how children’s understanding of music evolves over time. Yet her simultaneously expanding interests in academic excellence and role modeling through community engagement provide the larger picture of a musician preparing herself for rich and mutually satisfying connections to people and thus for meaningful contributions to society itself. Lorin Hollander’s precocious sense of music’s interdisciplinary association with physics,literature,and psychology and his depiction of personal transformation through mentorship can help educators appreciate the potential contributions of musical understanding to young children’s cognitive, aesthetic, and social-emotional wellness and to the solution of systemic social problems, such as the disillusionment ofour youth,cultural intolerance, or violence in our schools and among nations.

The divergent roles musicians play in society is also emphasized in the reflections by Michael Cain and Randy Wong. Both provide extensive detail of their experiences sidestepping their early classical training and choosing to “take delight”in exploring other forms of musical genre and culture. Here again, the evolving models of musicians and music in education are seen from the perspective of how engagement in ensemble improvisation and world music outside the conventions of classical traditions can support our youth, who yearn to connect contemporary modes and media of self-expression to our changing society,as Mr.Cainputs it,“around the world and around the block.”

• Download JMIE 2007, Part I. Yearning to Connect: The Enterprise of Music and Learning [2 MB, .pdf]

“What are the purposes for having artifacts in portfolios? What is the purpose of the portfolio itself?”

Sometimes the obvious answer to a question isn’t the most open-ended response. These questions are just two of many ‘questions of purpose’ raised yesterday in conversation from yesterday’s session of “Music as a Fundamental Medium and Model for Arts and Arts Integrated Teaching and Learning: A Portfolio-based Professional Development Seminar,” which is being taught by Larry Scripp at the Harvard Graduate School of Education this Spring.

The response that I think is most fitting to these questions is one that Larry posed: that ‘we’ (the portfolio’s audience) don’t know what those purposes are yet; at least, not until the portfolio’s author has developed his/her persona and inquiry questions.

Larry’s answer soundly resonated with me, not only because of its open-endedness, but also because it reminded me how much the portfolio process helps to initiate personal growth, in tandem with professional growth. In my article, “Portfolio Documentation in Context” (which will be published in the Journal for Music-in-Education 2007, I write that

Portfolios . . . cannot exist in a vacuum. There must be a community of like-minded individuals who can appreciate the work of the student or professional. Without a supportive environment of peers, mentors, and teachers, the reasons behind portfolio documentation and assessment would be lost on our students.

On an explicit level, this language refers to the Music-in-Education community at the Conservatory and in the MIENC. But on an implicit level, what I am implying is that there is a certain amount of personal investment, commitment, and exploration that must take place when undertaking a project like that of portfolios.

Imagine your portfolio as your work, in dialogue: In conversation with people who know you, and people who don’t.
(Larry Scripp, class lecture, 2/26/07)

My response to Larry comes in the form of the ‘obvious’ questions: How does one engage in constructive dialog with unknown others? What forms can that dialog take?

In order to answer these questions, I must first define for myself who I am.

I can already see that I have multiple roles in the seminar: as a co-teacher with Larry, a mentor from the field of Music-in-Education, and as an active participant in class. Each of these roles translates to a slightly more developed persona, from which I will develop my own portfolio.

These personae are as follows:

• HGSE alum as a module participant and mentor (since I did the Arts In Education program at HGSE –and took Larry’s course then– and am now working as a professional in the field of Music-in-Education);
• Higher-Ed administrator, evaluating my own college’s curriculum (which happens to be a MIE program), and re-imagining the workforce
  (both as music professionals and professional teachers) with Artist-Teacher-Scholars being developed by my MIE program;
• A professional Artist-Teacher-Scholar, crafting my own professional development workshop with themes from this module, and experiences as program evaluator and Information Architect for the MIE National Consortium

A portfolio crafted for each persona could have remarkably different artifacts. I could choose which readings I do for the course based on which articles are more relevant towards my work. For example, Arnie Aprill’s article “Rules for Arts Ed Radicals” might be more applicable to the Higher-Ed or Professional A-T-S profiles, while Gail Burnaford’s “Crossing Boundaries: The Role of Higher Education in Professional Development with Arts Partnerships” might apply to all three. Presumably, more useful readings for the A-T-S persona would be found in the first issue of the Journal for Learning Through Music, because that Journal’s focus has very specific examples of music integrated curricula, whereas the second issue is more philosophical. (Although, it would depend on what sort of professional development seminar I’d be thinking of creating).

Thinking about my portfolio as a conversational view of emergent practices is helpful, not only because of the fluidity it lends towards the collection of documentation, but also because it forces me to always be mindful of the role that context plays in displaying and communicating information. Merriam-Webster defines conversation as “an exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas,” and I think that definition assumes that the parties involved have some sort of mutual understanding of those sentiments. So, in terms of the creation of my portfolio, this means to me that any artifact that I include should only be included if it helps to satisfy the way that I can help others to mutually understand what it is that I’m trying to convey. Melody Marchman, a student in Scripp’s “Graduate Seminar in Music-in-Education” (taught at NEC as the Conservatory’s parallel to the HGSE module), said it best when she paraphrased minimalist composer Phillip Glass:

You don’t truly know yourself until you can see yourself objectively.

Regardless of which persona I choose to focus my efforts toward, I believe that by contributing to the HGSE module (in the aforementioned roles/personae), and by creating portfolios to showcase various aspects of my work at New England Conservatory and the MIENC, I will be exploring an emergent world: that of professional development geared towards Artist-Teacher-Scholars.

-Randy

Randy Wong is Program Coordinator for the Center for Music-in-Education and Information Architect for the Music-in-Education National Consortium.

As MIE Program Coordinator, I am often asked what advantages the MIE Concentration Program sees with using portfolios to help students keep track of their learning. While the answer to this is long, and varied, I thought I’d take the time in this post to list some very specific applications for portfolio use as career-building tools.

For starters, sometimes it helps people to think of their portfolio in the same way that they would think of a press kit. More than a business card, and often more ‘official’ than a website, artists use press kits all the time to show off their accomplishments, repertoire, references, media reviews, and etc. An MIE Portfolio can be used the same way – it’s like a press kit for teaching artists. A well-organized portfolio is like currency, when it comes to applying for teaching jobs or artist residencies! Prospective employers, whether they are at music schools, youth symphonies, or even parents looking for a private teacher for their child, can look at your MIE portfolio and get a very good glimpse at who you are as a teacher. Most likely, your MIE portfolio will include at least a learning narrative, rationale towards teaching, or a statement of self-assessment; and many peoples’ portfolios also have sample lesson plans, article responses, and pictures or video of past teaching experiences. This collection of documents says far more about who you are, and your experience as a teaching artist, than just a resume could.

While the sharing of some types of artifacts may be more relevant to some jobs than others, it’s important not to overlook the potential that ALL artifacts can have, if they are presented in an appropriate fashion. For example, just because you may be being considered as a private instructor for a young instrumentalist (as opposed to an assistant at a research center), I would encourage you to include some reading responses in your portfolio. If you chose articles (i.e. from the Journal for Learning Through Music) that are relevant to your teaching approach with young students, and included thoughtful reading responses, then prospective parents would see that you are not only familiar with current research in music-in-education, but that you strive to let that research inform who you are, in your own practice, as a teaching artist.

Another example of this deals with MIE alums who apply for jobs in arts administration. On occasion, one might find a community organization who wants to start a music program at their site, but isn’t sure what would be an appropriate approach. In an interview for such a job, the organization might ask its applicants what approaches similar organizations have taken. Or what trends are current in the field. Or if there might be an already-established program somewhere that could be replicated at their site. For the uninformed applicant, this could be a daunting question. However, for the MIE alum, who has done readings in national music-in-education journals where the journals report on similar programs across the country, the question becomes very easy. In fact, some of our Guided Interns at the Research Center have decided to focus their internships on gleaming that kind of information from sites across the MIE National Consortium, and their portfolios will reflect these trends.

Finally, I wanted to address some concerns that making an MIE Portfolio is a “daunting task,” especially for non-native English speakers. Portfolio work, like most types of homework or class assignments, is meant to be done in stages. This means that, along the way, students have the time to edit, proofread, and adjust their writing so that they can get it to the most professional standards. Working with an experienced English coach or writing instructor can have profound, and long-lasting, positive effects. Luckily, students of any degree program at New England Conservatory have the services of Patrick Keppel and the Writing Center at their disposal. (Patrick Keppel is the Editor of the Journal for Learning Through Music and the soon-to-be-published Journal for Music-in-Education, and is very familiar with the portfolio strategy used by the MIE Concentration Program).

Anyways, those are some specific ways that MIE portfolios can be applied to career-building situations. If you can think of any others, or have some questions, please post comments below!

-Randy,

P.S.: I cannot stress enough how effective a well-written and organized portfolio can be.

Randy Wong is Program Coordinator for the Center for Music-in-Education and Information Architect for the Music-in-Education National Consortium

We’d like to draw some attention to the links listed in the side panel on the right of this page. We have listed links to other Internet resources for those interested in the emergent field of music-in-education; in particular, portfolios and teaching blogs that our MIE alums started while they were students and have continued in their professional careers. We regularly hear from our alums that reflective writing, collecting documentation, and keeping portfolios of their work is extremely helpful as they apply for jobs in education. Many alums, in fact, bring their portfolios to job interviews to help showcase their work and rationale towards music-in-education. We will be sharing links to the work of our alumni, and also are more than willing to help current students publish their work on our website.

Links to MIE Alumni Teaching Blogs:

Links to MIE Alumni Sample Portfolios:

–Randy Wong,
MIE Program Coordinator

I’m watching “Ice-T’s Rap School” on VH1 again. This time, the episode is putting its emphasis on the business/entrepreneurship aspects of being a hip-hop artist: show promoting, making business decisions, deciding what kind of music/rhymes are appropriate for a show, and also the social pressures that come with being an artist. Ice-T is confronting the students and trying to reinforce that he thinks that the quality of the music should reinforce how much effort the students put into their work.

I see Ice-T’s response as a real-world example of the need to look at student work from an objective point of view. In other words, if student work is at the center of the conversation, rather than the relationship the teacher has with the student or the context of the work (i.e. previous work the student has done), one can really pay attention to what the student is learning.

Harvard Project Zero researcher and Arts In Education program director Steve Seidel has done a lot of work in the area of how to evaluate student work, and in fact, we take a similar approach when evaluating MIE student portfolios. Seidel runs an occasional conference at the Harvard Graduate School of Education known as ROUNDS, in which educators and researchers of different backgrounds come together to discuss student work and learn various conference protocols (the most “successful” of which is known as the Collaborative Assessment Conference) that Project Zero has developed to help facilitate reflective discussion.

Although Ice-T’s approach to evaluating his student’s work seems to be pretty effective, what I have noticed is that the show doesn’t really give the viewer much idea about what other students think about their peers performances or lyric writing. Because of the age of the students (middle school?), and the nature of the project (fairly informal), I suppose it might be awkward to show students engaging in lengthy reflective practices — though in the reality-cutaway sequences, we do see snippets of students reflecting on their work. We also see students practicing for their performances and engaging in both group and individual work. In a way, each episode ends up working as a mini-portfolio of Ice-T’s residency. [Note: Could this be a model for documenting internships? Perhaps... ] Anyways, this makes me wonder how a tool like Seidel’s Collaborative Assessment Conference could be used to help faciliate student reflection, and what effects it would have on student learning.

Finally, and on a separate note, I find myself raising the following questions (now that I’ve seen a couple episodes of the program):

Although ‘entertainment’ is probably what the main focus of Ice-T’s show is, I would urge other MIE advocates to look closely at the world that surrounds them, and see how they might find other environments or situations that could fit within the context of our world: though the field of music-in-education may seem specialized upon first glance, programs like “Ice-T’s Rap School” help to show how ubiquitous, and closely-connected, the world of interdisciplinary music education really is.

-Randy