Together again, Martha Hilley and Fred Kern.(Padagogy Saturday X: THE ART OF TEACHING)(music education)

For the second plenary session Fred Kern and Martha Hilley combined their creative and expert talents to present a variety of practical suggestions to add creativity and effectiveness to music teaching. Kern opened the session with a strategy for practicing using a variety of sounds from a digital piano. Using J. S. Bach's Two-Part Invention in A Minor, Kern advocated using two different sounds for the subject and accompanying material to aid in more discriminating listening. In this demonstration, Kern used a nylon guitar sound for the subject and a clarinet sound for the accompanying material.

Second, Kern suggested another listening activity with the second movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. Pulling a string while the music was playing, Kern had a member of the audience cut the string at the end of each phrase. At the end of the first section the length of the strings help communicate the presence of two short phrases followed by one longer phrase. Additionally, the tactile learning experience may increase the effectiveness for some students.

Third, Kern presented a framework for creating an "instant ensemble" from an elementary arrangement of a popular song, "The Way You Look Tonight," with teacher accompaniment. In this "instant ensemble," Part 1 would be the student part as written; Part 2, the student part one octave higher; Part 3, the right hand of the teacher accompaniment; and Part 4, the bass line of the teacher accompaniment.

Hilley started her portion of the session with an idea for maintaining communication with students in between lessons. Using PowerPoint, Hilley presented an interactive tutorial for "Barry," a student who had conquered the challenge of uneven eighth-notes in his previous lesson. The PowerPoint presentation, which was emailed to Barry, contained audio-clips of four rhythms that Barry was to dictate. Hilley believes this allows a teacher the opportunity to "send herself home" with the student. Both students and parents will appreciate knowing the teacher thinks about students not only during the lesson time.

Hilley's second idea, "Seeing is Believing," encouraged teachers to help students find the ...