MMEA Conference: Avoiding Music Teacher Burnout

This clinic was with Dr. Kenneth Raessler, Director Emeritus of the Music Department at Texas Christian University. Dr. Raessler gave many ideas on how to cut down on music teacher burnout. Ideas included creating positive relationships with your administration/fellow faculty, learning how to polietely say "No" when asked to do too many thing, and remembering that we are here for the kids and the music.

Dr. Raessler noted that often music teachers are asked to conduct and teach a lot of students all at once. It is important to try and not be the one conducting/teaching everything. Reflecting at Pentucket, it is excellent that David Schumacher is here to give his talent and energy to the jazz program. Zach Field and Paul Dumas do the same with the percussion ensembles. This helps me focus my energy on the concert band, marching band, and musical pit orchestra. Marching Band alone takes up almost 9 straight Saturdays of performances in the fall. If I were to offer some more ensembles, I would like to bring in specialists to start chamber groups through community education.

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Band Room: A New Design

Just in case we ever get a new or renovated high school (I might be dreaming), I wanted to be prepared for helping input the best design possible for a new band and chorus room. I ended up attending a clinic by the Wenger group. Wenger is the company that made the acoustic shells on our high school auditorium stage along with the two "soundproof" practice rooms that were installed back in the 1960's. The company is now the standard company used in the United States for music room design. I learned many things at this clinic. Firstly, I learned that most bands and choruses have their own rehearsal rooms, practice rooms, and offices. We spent a long time focusing on where sound goes after it leaves the instrument. Our music room has a ceiling that needs to be at least four feet higher. Additionally all the equipment in the room cuts down on reverberation. It is suggested that any closets or storage areas in a band room have open grilled doors so that air and sound c...

Learning Theory through Pop Music by Matthew F. Finnegan

Did you know that most pop music has a four beat pattern where the snare drum usually accents beats two and four? Example: "Get a Grip" by Aerosmith! At 8:00 am I attended what I consider my favorite clinic thus far at the MENC All-Eastern Music Educators Conference. Titled "From Simple to Complex: Leading the Listener to Learning," clinician Mathew F. Finnegan gave great examples of how popular music can be used in the classroom to teach music theory. The idea is this: teaching music theory through the old school fashion of notes on a page and through classical music does not work in today's classroom. In order to create the motivation for students to want to learn theory, we need to reach out and use the music which relates to them the most and connect it with the content we want to teach them. I found this clinic to be very inspiring. Here we just focused on the beat, but this clinician has already established how to incorporate pop music with the teach...

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