Editor’s Note:  This is the 2nd post in a long series with an inside view of the planning and production for our department’s first-ever intra-departmental MIE Concert!

Planning for the MIE Concert continues. Devin Ulibarri, our MIE Graduate Assistant and also faculty at NEC MusicLaunch, shares the following:

Purpose

To showcase MIE teaching artists in the context of MIE philosophies. Allows MIE
students to connect with an audience in the context of their rationale for MIE- one
can experiment in creating a concert that communicates music to an audience in a
unique way.

I also understand the need for MIE concentration students and the department as a
whole to express themselves through performance. I also hope that the department
can gain more exposure through performances, however it is imperative that this is
within the context of the MIE concepts and values.

Possibilities

• MIE concentration students could collaborate – solo, chamber within their
  discipline, or chamber cross-disciplinary (CI+classical –personally, I think this
  is great, because MIE is the one place where all different backgrounds can come
  together and learn from one another so the process of collaboration itself would be
  a learning process)
• MIE projects performed – A kick-ass version of a cups exercise, Pachelbel’s canon
  etc.
• MIE students perform (with or without teachers) – Students display what they
  have learned from internship
• Between pieces and within the program, MIE students can detail their philosophies
  and their rationale for MIE
• Experiments in audience contributions
• MIE concentration composers may write pieces for event that reflect their
  rationale for MIE

The MIE Department has been kicking around an idea to produce a MIE “concert” this Spring. One of our grad students, violinist Rob Flax, sent us the following (AMAZING!) pitch:

This concert centers around two concepts central to the Music In Education’s core: “Music + Music Integration” and “Artist-Teacher-Scholar.” Music + Music Integration is the belief that education in any subject becomes enriched when injected with music and, conversely, that music is a powerful tool that can be used to create interdisciplinary connections. An Artist-Teacher-Scholar is a complete musician, who uses skills from each arena to enrich the others, e.g. the artistry of teaching, the scholarship of artistry, etc.

Each piece performed is developed with/around MIE concepts: perhaps the music serves as a teaching tool for learning another subject (e.g. Rob Flax’s “Chess Piece” explores the sounds of chess, and “Autumn Leaves” can be used as a ‘Power Song’ for a unit on harmony), or perhaps the concept for the piece arose from a teaching concept (e.g. the “Cups Piece”).

Basically, [we] want pieces that (a) can be used to teach other things, (b) are examples of teaching influencing artistry, and/or (c) demonstrations of pure artistic prowess by folks otherwise labeled as “teachers.”

We will let you know as this idea develops!

Editor’s Note: This post is the eighth in a series by MIE guided intern Devin Ulibarri. Devin is a first year graduate student of Eliot Fisk. His internship at the Wang YMCA is supported both by the MIE department and NEC Prep’s Community Engagement program. Read others in the series here.

“I Think that the Camera to be a Casual Thing”

Having a camera in every class could be a very scary thing and I didn’t want anyone to be scared of the camera so I chose a couple of tactics to lessen the camera’s ‘intimidation factor.’ One of the things I decided to do is have transparency of the footage, which is one thing the blog is about. The students and their families all have access to the blog at anytime, so they know what the purpose of the footage is – it is for my development as a teacher and for their own feedback. The other thing that I decided to do from day one is to let the kids hold the camera and record each other. I wanted them to feel somewhat in control of the documentation experience. This has been a success. They are aware of the camera throughout the lesson, but in a very beneficial way. For example, Jason and Janea both have adjusted the camera for me so that I can get the best shot of the class for my research. This shows me that they are not only comfortable with the camera being around, but that they are willing to help me and my research. I really enjoy this kind of positive feedback. Thank you both for being such wonderful sports about this!

At long last, we have posted a video of the violin program’s learning demonstration, presented at the Atrium School’s Winter Solstice Assembly. (Video of the choral program coming next!)

In addition to the demonstration and performance by Atrium 2nd and 3rd graders, you will also hear reflections from violin teacher Helen Liu, program visionary Larry Scripp, Atrium parents and co-principals Susan Diller and Linda Echt.

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve posted any new reflections or videos about our violin program… but not to worry, many new developments have occurred, and we have just been a little backlogged with all the new material to report. Since the new year began, we have made several improvements to our weekly violin sessions at Atrium.

Smaller Cohorts

We are now meeting in smaller sections of 30 minutes per session; about 4-6 students per section rather than 8-10. This improves each class because we are able to give each student more individual attention, and the students receive more teaching time per capita. It also makes our collaborative learning activities more manageable.

Words of the Week

Each week we are now ‘theme-ing’ our classes using a Word of the Week. The idea came because we wanted to encapsulate each week’s lesson with one word, giving students the ability to define those words experientially.

This week’s word is “deliberately,” which Tyler defined as “doing something with purpose,” and how Beatrice defined as “being careful.” In violin class, this means that everything we do is decisive and with purposeful intent. When putting our bows on the string and preparing to play, we do so with exemplary posture (bunny ears holding the ‘carrot’, feet in the right position, etc.) and without making a single sound.

Student Portfolio Work

Our continued emphasis on reflection has resulted in multiple venues and opportunities for students to reflect. In addition to informal verbal reflection throughout the class session, we challenge students to express themselves in written and artistic forms. As described in these two previous blog posts (11/11/09 and 11/3/09), our unit and lesson plans are organized around the ‘Five Learning Processes’ framework (a.k.a. LQCPR—Listen, Question, Create, Perform, and Reflect). Though most of our previous written reflections have fallen into the last category, we are now starting to propagate the other sections too. In fact, we filed this week’s reflection activity under the Questions & Explorations section in student portfolios because of the explorative questions it poses:

• What does it feel like to play your violin with the bow?
• Did anything surprise you the first time you bowed your violin?
• What kind of sound or sounds would you like to make with your bow?

We have also started building time for our written reflection activities into our sessions. Part of this is more possible because our classes are now being taught in the Library. There’s an alcove that we use for the instructional portions of class, and then the students move to a large study table to write their reflections.

Multiple Entry Points for Rhythmic Study through Symmetry and Social Studies

In addition to using animals (zoo, monkey, buffalo, alligator) and Indian rhythms (cha, taki, gamela, takidimi), violin students are finding connections between  Violin students are using their school project heroes (e.g. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, etc.) to explore the connection between word prosody and rhythms. More on this to come.

This was a good day. Everything went as smoothly as planned (thanks to Beatrice who was a great model in the dress rehearsal) and there were many great moments which I will share and reflect on.

I don’t know if it’s because of the holiday spirit or the emotions that come with the “end of the year,” but I am truly grateful for each person on our Music Plus Music Integration Team at Atrium: Beatrice, Randy, Michael, Linda, Susan, and Larry. When we arrived at Atrium in the morning, I was relieved to find all the student violins lined up in order. This made my job easier to tune and put the shoulder sponges on each of them, which did take about 20 minutes. Randy  worked on the PA system and setting up the two video cameras, one floor and one roaming. Michael made sure the each child has a foot chart and place on the risers.

After everything was all set up, Randy asked Larry and I to say a few words on video, in anticipation of the event. We had a good time, doing different takes and speaking from different angles. We even got to interview a violin parent who was nervous but super excited about the performance.

The whole Atrium Winter Solstice Assembly program opened up with the Explorers class, and I could tell that they were really excited as we stood in line to enter the Hall. But when they got to their violins, they immediately sat down (they still need to work on their listening skills as we told them to stay standing). After a few minutes, they held their violins in rest position and started filing on the platforms. I was a little nervous for them because they had no idea was going to happen in the next few minutes. Larry, Randy, and I had made some changes to our performance because we wanted to show the PROCESS of what we are going to do. So Larry opened with vocal solfege warmup with scales and short call and response segments. The kids responded and sang very well (they have such sweet soft voices!) and to my surprise and delight, Larry took the assessment one step further: instead of having them imitate what he sang, he pointed to syllables on the matrix and they sang the melody back. Amazing. Next, I did my segment with the rhythm cups and explained to the parents the purpose of this. The culmination activity was to sing Re and La in different rhythms shown by the cups along with a recording of Pachelbel’s canon. It was a great 3 minute show and we ended with the parents singing along to a Re scale and ending with a ringing “Cha….” I loved their finishing choreography!

I think some cool ideas to expand on this would be to split the group into teams and have each one sing a different rhythm that ties in with the symmetry unit. Larry also suggested having them pluck Re-La but sing the scale to Pachelbel. I want them to march so their inner rhythm is strong. So many things to work on and so very exciting! Next year we will definitely tackle the bows.

This will be a compilation video made by Randy this week which will summarize and zoom in on the key points of the violin pilot program. I think it was a big hit with the school, teachers, and parents. We look forward to more violin-ing next year!

Beatrice was back and we reviewed everything we knew from violin posture to lion hold to singing the matrix up and down. We also learned that the unit theme for math class was symmetry and asymmetry, and tried to integrate that idea into our violin lesson. First we discussed all the visual aspects of the violin — which parts were symmetrical and which weren’t? Then we talked about our feet and violin holding posture and what aspects of those are symmetrical or not. These kids were quick to observe the details and soon we learned that most things related to the violin are symmetrical.

Following the symmetrical theme, we introduced the idea of a symmetrical melody — a melody that sounds the same when sung both forwards and backwards. For homework we asked each student to create their own symmetrical and asymmetrical composition, which will be sung in class next Friday! Maybe all of them will end up on the hallway walls in school! It’s so exciting….