Welcome back! It’s that time of the year to organize, regroup, and get excited about enriching the musical minds of our wonderful students! I hope you all had a wonderful, restful and inspiring summer! It is going to be an amazing fall!! Th e AOSA (American Orff - Schulwerk Association) is in town! Yes, the 2007 AOSA National Conference The Art of Play is November 14–17, 2007 in San José, California! Go to www.aosa.org to sign up and get details! It is always fabulous when a general music organization is holding its National Conference right in our own backyard!

We all work hard each year to teach the musical concepts outlined in the California State Music Education Guidelines — but have you ever felt that you need to put those standards on hold while you prepare for a concert? It can be difficult to manage the short amount of time you get with your kids. Often as general music education teachers we need to put together a performance or two (or three….) together for the parents and administration. These performances are rehearsed during your music class — probably starting anywhere from 6–10 weeks before the concert. It’s a struggle that we all tackle each year.

I have the following suggestions to help plan for these concerts, without loosing the important music education elements that you teach in your music classes:

1. Sit down with a 2007–08 calendar — and plan exactly when your concerts will be. Make sure to check with your school calendar to avoid scheduling issues with sports, school board meetings, field trips, and other school activities. Request that your concert date(s) are put on the school calendar (in the offi ce, school newspaper and on-line).
2. Read through your resources and pick out the repertoire — making notes of which concepts are taught in each piece and which methodologies are highlighted in that piece. Don’t forget to pick extra songs for those special concert situations that come up (celebrations — birthday, retirement, grandparent’s day, patriotic days, harvest festivals, and even a song to help heal during sad times).
3. Plan out how you want to present your music education program to the parents, community and school administration. When I was at a workshop many years ago, I learned about “Informances” — where you use your classroom materials to present songs, instruments and dance — citing examples of the music education philosophies. Th e students speak to your audience before each song (or group of songs) about the benefi ts of the philosophy they are about the present in music. Th is kind of concert can help educate your community about the values of music education.
4. Begin the music in the fall, pepper it through out the year — leading up to the concert — so that you only need to do more intense, specifi c practice for the presentation a few weeks before the concert. If you decide to present a musical or composed themed unit — you can still incorporate these songs into your weekly music classes and teach the appropriate musical concepts to which each song lends itself.
5. Have an organized music class. Start and end the class the same each day — start with singing a greeting song/dance — and end with a bow — a bow that they must all properly do together. Make sure you remind the students through out the lesson to smile, clear diction, and have proper posture. Th ese small, easy to insert exercises (smiles, bowing, diction, posture) will make the performance incredible!
6.  It is very important to give specifi c feedback to your students. For example, “John, I like the way you smiled during that song. I could also understand the words you were singing — great diction.” (Instead of, “Good job, John.) With using clear, descriptive feedback, you not only told John what he was doing right, so he will do it again, but your just taught the whole class how to improve on their skills. It is important that is your student is doing something that is not working — to tell them specifi cally how to fi x it. “John, I like the way you are smiling during this song. I can see you really enjoy the music. Would you try one more time, and this time relax your shoulders, stand tall and take a deep breath and you will sing stronger!” (Instead of, “Louder, John.”) Again, you are not only teaching John, but also the whole class in a helpful, supportive fashion.

I encourage all of you to consider the National Board Certifi cation process for your next professional development project. Stanford University has an amazing support program through their resource center. Th ere is a new an exciting way to begin the process of your National Board Certifi cation by doing the take one. Program. Th is program allows you to start with only one portfolio — really dive into the process — but only have the responsibility to fi nish one portfolio. Learn more about this program by emailing me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or checking it out on the National Board Website www. nbpts.org. You may also want to look at Stanford’s support program at http://nbrc. standford.edu. I wish you all an amazing school year! I look forward to seeing you at the Bay Section CMEA Winter Conference this January at San José State University.