Teaching in a not-so-standard way

(Please note that a free resource is available below to any music teachers!)

As a teacher in a private school (and also a private studio), I have a great deal more flexibility in my teaching style and curriculum choices than public school teachers.  I (thank God) do not have to follow a core standard or teach every child the exact same way with the exact same book at the exact same rate, which is what brings me to my current topic.  As a first year college student many years ago, my now favorite professor of education imparted this one thing on our class: one of the golden rules is that not all students learn by the same method or through the same book or at the same rate.  I saw a pin on Pinterest the other night (but did not pin it at the time) and, now that I am specifically looking for it, I cannot find it, of course...so I will just state up-front that the credit goes to another. The quote read something like this: "one of the problems with standardized curriculum and testing is that not every student has a standardized mind."  I am a prime example of this. I learned by anything but the standard way all through my education career and most thought that, because I couldn't do well on standardized testing, that I wouldn't succeed in college...much less graduate school.

I have a couple young piano students who struggle with note naming, even after many hours of practice and in-lesson note naming activities.  In reality, there is only so much of going over something one way before you change your approach because you are so obviously just spinning your wheels.  I have sometimes exhausted the books so-to-speak in some of my old resources from other people, so I decided to come up with some new ones of my own.  One of the ways that I like to teach is not to just teach something new, but something new that also reinforces something else previously learned simultaneously.  That is why I spent about thirty minutes earlier this morning creating this new note naming activity which utilizes some memorable scriptures for two of my piano students this afternoon.  It is my goal to continue compiling and creating resources to help my music students reinforce their method books in ways that will hopefully be more fun than some of the activities in their books...hopefully they won't see some of them as "boring old theory."

In the meantime, I want to offer them to you!  Below is a sample of what I am working to compile. They are simple in layout and can be tailored to suit your needs.  If you would like full PDF copies of any of the materials, please comment below OR email me at bkbh (dot) music (at) gmail (dot) com or simply use the contact feature from the blog.  If you would like the original blank copies so that you can change up note placement or switch clefs, please specify that in your message and I will email those to you as well.  To help make things easier, I have also created an answer key page so you can send home with parents to help them help their children between lessons.  Please note that, since most of my students are through a private church/school, the note-naming activities are based on familiar scriptures from the Bible.

I hope you enjoy this resource with your young musicians.  :-)

Through the Stained Glass

The picture above is one that I took a week or so ago in the sanctuary of the church where I serve as Director of Music and Organist. I went into the sanctuary to practice on the organ and stopped because the light of the afternoon sun was coming through the windows so beautifully that I wanted to stop and take a quick picture with my phone (then played with it and made it black and white).  I serve a church which has a beautiful building in which worship is held.  However, that can also be a distraction from the purpose.  I remember when I went to Europe with one of my college choirs.  We sang in everything from huge cathedrals in Vienna to tiny country churches which dotted the hillside of the rural European villages we got to visit throughout Hungary and Austria.  That summer choir tour had a great influence on who I am today.  Before I went there, I was always swept away in the beauty of whatever church/sanctuary in which I was serving at the time.  Looking back, I was sometimes more interested in the building itself rather than understanding the true purpose of being there.  So, in many cases, I was worshiping the building, or at least the "prestige" that a certain position gave me in serving there versus worshiping God authentically.  That is something that I notice today more than ever.  When I was visiting these churches in Europe, I found myself constantly distracted by the artwork and the carvings and the ornately decorated naves.  I believe that most churches today suffer from at least some degree of this blindness.  I would be willing to bet that, if their magnificent buildings with beautiful stained glass windows and symbols of religion frequent around them in the sanctuary were to burn to the ground in a horrible fire, they would be unable to "worship."  That is because they have put their focus, and their identity on the building in which they worship (so things built with human hands) instead of focusing solely on the Word of God.  We are all guilty of idol worship...sometimes we just don't realize that what we are doing is worshiping an "idol."  I heard a sermon from a few weeks ago where the pastor related to this, "in the days of the Bible, idols were much easier to recognize to the naked eye than they can be today."  When we place our identity in other objects, then we devalue, and therefore dishonor God.

Being one of the tallest people in the 50 member group that traveled abroad that summer in college, and having a rather short tour guide, I was "assigned" to stay next to her at all times so that, as we moved through the sometimes crowded city streets, so that almost everybody in our group could see and follow "Big Ben."  One thing that I observed during the travels was how, when we sang in a huge cathedral along the "tourist traps" our crowd would be much smaller (sometimes 15-20 people and many of them would be our chaperons from the college), whereas when we would sing in a smaller country church (especially in Hungary), there would be standing room only of 150-300 people who came and packed in to hear us.  Being "stationed" so close to our tour guide, I asked her why that was. She responded with something like, "well the people here are very poor and don't always get opportunities to hear a concert whenever they want...they are few and far between and so they appreciate them more...it isn't that the people around Vienna and Salzburg are not appreciative, but they are literally overwhelmed with concerts all the time, so it is nothing 'special' anymore to have a visiting choir from another country."  I hadn't thought of it that way.  We are so inundated with materials and wealth all around us that we take so much for granted. We neglect to see the little things that others may take as huge things.  I hope we can all start to see how blessed we are. 

"The Beautiful Isle of Nowhere"

The bike this morning said that my riding distance was six miles...but...I never moved outside of the room, much less outside of the house and certainly not six miles. Oh...yeah, that's right...I was technically peddling to nowhere on a stationary exercise bike.  My brain being the way it is began to do a bit of free association, complete with rambling thoughts as I biked through my imagination.  It is a beautiful place this time of a year, Nowhere.  It has everything you could possibly imagine or want; a place where nothing is wrong with the world and nothing is going wrong whatsoever---a fairy tale. Then, a flat tire....that is, back to reality...back to the reality that the world is a mess, and that I am stationary.  I haven't been peddling through the beautiful countryside on a beautiful summer/fall day, but rather I've been peddling on a stationary bike in the corner of the room...going nowhere.  I think that is a horrible thought, feeling, or whatever you may call it...to be stationary...stuck.  I've been dealing with that reality of feeling stuck for awhile now (in my work life).  I feel like, no matter what I do in my work life, I am just stuck some days.  So why do we keep peddling like this? Why do we keep fighting and plodding along as if nothing is wrong.  I guess we could answer, "it is what we have to do to provide for ourselves and our families," or, "it is what is expected."  While those two statements are very true, I prefer the words of C.S. Lewis: "There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind."

Here we go

Hello Folks!

I want to start out my blogging journey by saying that this is a personal blog written and edited by me.  It is not intended to have a specific topic as I know myself to be a very random person.  I am involved in many fields and hobbies so I do not want to limit myself to a specific issue or topic.  I also want to warn any potential readers...I am a Christian and so will post scriptures or other information about faith from time to time.  If you ever have any questions, please comment below.

Blessings,
Ben