Wix site

Here’s a link to my new Wix site I created for my lesson:

http://jlehman777.wix.com/lehmangeneralmusic

Check it out and tell me what you think!

Digital Authoring

Here is a link to a really great article on digital authoring from NAfME and the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. The article gives some great insight on how to use an iPad in a music classroom in ways that I would never have thought of!

Two ways you can use an iPad in a music classroom:

1. A scrolling image with music is a great way to watch a score go by with music, or to have the class play along with an accompaniment track.

2. Use GarageBand to create an ostinato. Students can use their classroom instruments to improvise or play a melody by rote over a teacher-created accompaniment.

Hope this gives you some classroom ideas!

Looping in the Classroom

A really cool looping app was featured on Jimmy Fallon the other day, and it got me thinking about how to use this app, or other software like this, in a music classroom. Here are some ideas:

1. Let the students create a thick rhythmic texture using the software. Teach them about how to make certain rhythms work with other rhythms

2. For a small music class, have the students all play a certain ostinato or rhythmic figure on their classroom instruments, guitars, etc., then have them play the melody together over the loop

3. A great tool for teaching improvisation! Have the students create a loop, or create one yourself, that they can learn to improvise over (this can be on an instrument, or just singing!)

 

Those are just a few ideas for how to use looping technology in a music classroom

 

Also, here is a link to my lesson 3 (always in development):  https://w.taskstream.com/Lesson/View/0768E92F0CC4A27188C53B95EF6AF088

Links!

Here are some links I found to content relating to my final project.

http://stevenbryant.com/electronic.php – This is a link to Steven Bryant’s other electronic music. This might be valuable in teaching about how Steven Bryant writes his electronics parts

http://www.stevenbryant.com/blog/?p=1085 – Link to Steven Bryant’s blog post about the new iPhone/Android app for “The Machine Awakes”! The electronics on this piece are so easy to use that it is possible for a band director to cue the electronics themselves

http://www.stevenbryant.com/blog/?p=561 – Another of Steven Bryant’s blog posts, this one about his newest electronic work “Solace”. This post goes into slightly more detail than his program notes

http://www.alexshapiro.org/ASWorks.html#cwb – Link to the website of another composer who has written extensively for band and electronics, as well as solo instruments and electronics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdtw4L585Ls – The first of Steven Bryant’s how-to videos for the electronics in Ecstatic Waters. From this video, you can navigate to the rest of the videos

http://youtu.be/CqYGOk7Z9zY – A video of performance of Ecstatic Waters by New Mexico State University’s Symphonic Winds

http://www.amazon.com/Augenblick-Johnston-Catherine-University-Ensemble/dp/B007X128AY/ref=tmm_other_meta_binding_title_0 – Here’s an album (on Amazon) of the Cornell University Wind Ensemble playing pieces for Band and electronics. These pieces are somewhat underplayed (generally) but can still make for interesting listening outside of Bryant’s music

And finally, here’s a link to what I have so far in my unit. It’s still in progress, but I hope you like it so far!

https://w.taskstream.com/Unit/View/8123211643299B910BE277DEDE406063

Final Project: Three Pieces for Band and Electronics by Steven Bryant

 

The topic I’ve chosen for my final project is a three-lesson unit on pieces for wind band and electronics by contemporary composer Steven Bryant. The unit would cover what are currently Steven Bryant’s only three pieces for band and electronics: “Ecstatic Waters”, “Solace” and “The Machine Awakes”. Each lesson would cover that particular piece’s conception, instrumentation (both analog and digital), form and other musical elements, as well as each piece’s popularity and importance.

I believe that this unit would help educate my students by introducing very unique music that was written all within the last 5 years. These pieces demonstrate how cultural idioms can be integrated into “classical” music not just in an academic sense, but to be fun to play and listen to. Also, Steven Bryant comes from Arkansas, which could make this lesson part of a greater unit on composers (or other artists) from Arkansas.

The link to the TaskStream unit is here (work in progress)

Final Project Ideas

Here are a few ideas I thought of for my final project in MusicTech. All of them are based on band music, which is, frankly, my bread and butter.

1. Compare and contrast pieces for band and electronics by Steven Bryant (Ecstatic Waters, Solace, and The Machine Awakes)

2. Explore three pieces for band that were written for historical events (“The Leaves are Falling” by Warren Benson, “In Wartime” by David delTredici, “Music for Prague 1968” by Karel Husa)

3. Compare Percy Grainger’s band settings of folk-tunes from different cultures (Green Bushes, Molly on the Shore, and Spoon River)

Experimenting with Noteflight

I just created a Noteflight account (you can visit Noteflight here) and wrote a short little piece to test out the capabilities of Noteflight. This is a great program for entry-level music composition because it’s not quite as powerful as Finale or Sibelius (and, thus, easier to use) and it’s FREE! Here’s a screenshot of my piece:

And here is a link to listen to my piece. Enjoy!

My Musical Autobiography

My name is Jacob Lehman and I am a music educator, specializing in instrumental education. Over the years in my musical education, I have developed my own philosophy for music education and how I want my students to experience music. My goal in music education is to create a safe, supportive environment for students (of any age) to grow in their musical development and to learn how to have their own personal musical experiences. It is a teacher’s responsibility to do everything they can to set their students up for success in their field, because if a student is a successful musician, they will enjoy music so much more than being unsuccessful. However, a student’s success in music is not designated by any benchmark, but is determined by their own experiences and goals.

One of my greatest musical influences is my flute teacher from high school, Lisa Napier. I took private lessons from Lisa for all three years of high school and my playing absolutely flourished under her instruction. What really influenced me musically was when she would assign me to play pieces that I previously thought beyond my reach and led me to realize that I could indeed play these things, all the while making sure that I was successful in my endeavors. She also let me choose pieces for myself, allowing me to have an even more personal musical experience. These experiences in my lessons, and experiences like it that I would have well throughout my undergraduate years, shaped my teaching style and my philosophy for music education. Above all, I want to set students up for success so that they can take their music as far as they want to in life.  

Dave Brubeck

While I have always been partial to classical music in my practicing and also on my own time, I have always had a soft spot for really great jazz. And probably my favorite jazz musician of all time is the great Dave Brubeck. Dave Brubeck was born on December 6, 1920 in the San Francisco Bay area. Brubeck’s father was a rancher and Dave had always intended to work with his father, but was urged to change his major in college from veterinary science to music, studying piano. While Brubeck was most definitely a jazz musician, his jazz compositions were largely based on classical structure. He studied with composers like Darius Milhaud and briefly with Arnold Schoenberg. In 1951, he founded the Dave Brubeck Quartet, with him on piano, Paul Desmond on Saxophone, and various different drummers such as Lloyd Davis and Joe Dodge, and bassists such as Ron Crotty, Bob Bates, and Norman Bates. The track I’ve chosen for this lesson is “Unsquare Dance” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, from their 1961 album Time Further Out . This song is set in 7/4 time, which Brubeck points out  “is a challenge to the foot-tappers, finger-snappers and hand-clappers. Deceitfully simple, it refuses to be squared. And the laugh you hear at the end is Joe Morello‘s guffaw of surprise and relief that we had managed to get through the difficult last chorus”.

“Unsquare Dance” PowerPoint

Taskstream Lesson Link:  https://w.taskstream.com/Lesson/View/94DE1A7073E59820D6F4871FE819FD66

This album was the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s debut album released in 1959. This album included such landmark hits as “Kathy’s Waltz”, “Take Five”, and “Blue Rondo A La Turk”

Arranging Assignment

For our assignment, we were to pick a song and create a powerpoint to teach that song in an elementary classroom setting. I chose “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder, and I arranged it with guitar in mind, though you could adapt it for mallet instruments (perhaps for more experienced players), or even more experienced recorder players, but probably not because of the accidentals. This song is challenging because of the accidentals and the fourth finger notes like G# and C#, however, the song is really limited to the verse and chorus, which share a lot of the same chords, so the students will learn quickly because the song repeats. Also, it’s Stevie Wonder! What’s not to love??

 

Here’s the video with the song: