share their work in small-groups and large groups. You ask your students how to assess their project outcomes, and they decide and will help by evaluating themselves and their peers.xi


They


accompany themselves with digital media of their choosing and styles of music. In their ensemble groups they create missing ensemble parts from digital sources or record themselves playing the others parts.


They perform live with digital


accompaniments or play their recorded performances for audiences. They share their performances with peers using a class sharing software program such as Google Drive or Blackboard.


Let’s shake off the baggage of the past


traditions and start anew. Adopt a new version of your teaching this year through experimenting with student-centered engagement and discovery.


It’s


okay––really––to put the students in charge of their learning. You might think or feel like you’re not “teaching” if you’re not in the front of the room disseminating knowledge, but remember,


teaching isn’t telling. Let go of the control of their learning, and provide them a seemingly messy space to informally learn on their own; you and your students decide the project idea and the administration of the project, then step away from the students and see what they create. Providing the space for your students to


discover and work together on solving real-life musical projects allows you to free yourself from the oppression of thinking that teaching is only being in front-and-center and “in control” of the classroom. Take a risk and use your ensemble space differently this year—at least for one project and see what kinds of truly creative outcomes the students will produce. Guide and challenge your students’ thinking about creative artistic processes and for at least one unit or project, release yourself from training the behavioral technique of playing and learn to ask deep, thought-provoking questions.


To begin the process creating your new


version of band or ensemble teaching, think Figure 1


 Are you making all of the musical decisions in rehearsals?  Are you choosing all of the literature?  Are you deciding all performance outcomes and public performances and venues?


 Are you controlling the instrumentation based on some archaic band tradition? Let the student who plays bass guitar or Quechua qina (a traditional Andean flute also known as the quena) into your ensemble.


 Are you creating all the assessments and doing all the evaluation?  Is all of your music performed still traditional band music? Does this type of music keep a lot of students from wanting to join band?  Are all of your concerts solely of your bands or do you partner with community groups of different mediums or styles of music?  Are beginners allowed in your high school program?  Do your students still sit in a traditional seating arrangement every rehearsal?  Are students always seated by chair tests? Do you rotate their parts?  How do you facilitate peer learning and assessments in band?33  Do you foster discussions for musical decision-making that involve everyone?  Is your jazz ensemble only for certain instruments?  Is improvisation only for jazz ensembles or combos?34  Are your uniforms like the military and gendered?  Are all leadership positions open to both genders and all races?


 Do you fundraise for private lessons or benevolent outreach?  Do your music teachers in your district look like the students in your ensembles?  Do your ensembles engage in more than one artistic process aligned with the new national music standards:create, perform, respond, connect?  Do you foster multiple music literacies: composing, improvising, playing by ear and reading music?


 Do you ask your students to listen in your ensemble rehearsals, and do you help them hear? We often make assumptions that they can hear what we ask them to listen for.35


 What ways are you integrating technology to help your students be creative and expressive? ala breve 49


through the questions in Figure 1, perhaps do this exercise with a colleague and share your responses and challenge each other to grow into 21st Century ensemble teachers.xii


I hope something in this article


might spark a bit of change in your band classroom this year:


i Jill M. Sullivan, “A Century of


Women’s Bands in America,” Music Educators Jour- nal 95, no. 1 (2008): 33.


ii James Keene, “The Rise of Instru-


mental Music,” in A History of Music Education in the United States, 2d ed. (Centennial, CCO: Glen- bridge Publishing, Ltd., 2009): 287.


iii Sullivan, “A Century of Women’s


Bands in America,” 33–40. iv


Raoul Camus, “Band: American Wind


Band,” New Grove Encyclopedia of Music and Musi- cians, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 635.


Questions to ask yourself. Strive for a new version of band or ensemble teaching in a way that inspires you and your students. Ask yourself “Why?” or “Why not?” after each question.


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