Field Notes on Music Teaching & Learning

Apr 17 2024 7

Field Notes on Music Teaching & Learning Podcast artwork

This podcast is a collection of creative ideas, practical strategies, and thoughtful observations from the field of music teaching and learning. Music educator Ashley Danyew will dive into topics like how we learn, developing musicianship, time management, teaching sequences, planning tools and strategies, the art of teaching, practicing, and the creative process, and share personal stories from her own experiences and observations. You’ll find creative and pedagogically-sound teaching tips; fresh, new approaches you can use in your teaching; and insight into a few tried-and-true systems and creative processes designed to help you do your best work.

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071 - 3 Things I Learned from Hosting a Musical Informance

Apr 17 2024 11 mins

Welcome to another episode of the Field Notes on Music Teaching & Learning podcast. Today’s episode is part 3 of a series I’ve been working on this spring all about how to plan and organize a musical informance. I first mentioned the idea of a musical informance in Ep. 068. An informance is basically an informal performance or an informational performance where you share insigh

070 - The 3-Month Studio Recital Plan

Mar 12 2024 13 mins

The birds are chirping, the first Spring flowers are popping up in the front yard, and Rory, my dog, insists on laying in the middle of the daffodil bed whenever the sun is out. These are my seasonal cues that it's time to start planning for our annual end-of-year studio recital. As the title of this episode suggests, I usually spend 3-4 months planning all the details of this even

069 - A Musical Informance to Celebrate the Solar Eclipse

Feb 13 2024 14 mins

I did a poll on Instagram recently to see if any of my music teacher friends had ever hosted a musical informance. A few said "yes," a few said "no," but a surprising number of respondents chose the third option: "What's an informance?" An informance is basically an informal performance or as Eastman professor Dave Headlam describes, "A performance for the information age." (source

068 - How to Plan a Musical Informance

Jan 17 2024 14 mins

This year, Rochester, NY is in the path of the total solar eclipse. There are lots of special events happening in town—the orchestra is performing a special concert, the science museum is hosting a festival, and the schools are giving everyone the day off to experience this historical event. As I looked ahead at this year, I thought it might be fun to plan a special event of our

067 - Six Things I'm Documenting in the Studio

Dec 13 2023 16 mins

"It feels almost like if we don't document it, did it happen? And I need proof that it did." I was listening to an interview with Erin Napier of Home Town on Southern Living's Biscuits and Jam podcast recently and this statement stayed with me. "A major part of my personality is documenting," she said, and I nodded to myself. In this episode, I'm sharing what I've learned about the

066 - A Winter Improvisation Prompt for Elementary Piano Students

Nov 15 2023 19 mins

Do you improvise with your students? If you have a classical background like I do, you may not consider yourself an improviser, but researchers and educators Christopher Azzara and Richard Grunow remind us that "we are [all] born improvisers, as evidenced by our behavior in early childhood." (source) In their series, Developing Musicianship Through Improvisation, they define improv

065 - How to Build a Musical Vocabulary Using Tonal Pattern Cards

Oct 11 2023 15 mins

I received an email from a listener recently, a piano teacher in North Carolina. She had purchased a set of my tonal pattern cards and was looking for ideas and suggestions for how to incorporate them into her teaching this year. This prompted me to sit down and think through the importance of building a musical vocabulary (rhythm and tonal), how we learn to read music, and creativ

064 - How I Plan a Year of Student Repertoire

Sep 13 2023 14 mins

Last week, I posted a reel on Instagram of my annual planning process for my studio. At the end of the summer, I pull out all my books, curriculum charts, and other planning notes and spend several hours making repertoire plans for each of my students. There are lots of ways to go about this—it takes time to try things and hone in on a process that makes sense to you, helps you f

063 - When the Teacher Becomes the Student

Aug 09 2023 11 mins

"I found this piece that I'd like to learn," one of my high school students said to me in a lesson earlier this summer. He carefully laid out the pages of the score of Alexander Scriabin's Prelude in C Major, Op. 11, No. 1 that he'd downloaded from IMSLP. "I have a question about it, though," he said turning toward the score. "How do you count this?" He pointed at the first line wr

062 - The A-Ha Moments of Music Teaching

Jul 19 2023 12 mins

You know those moments when something just *clicks*? When something suddenly makes sense to you that was confusing before or you make a new connection or you realize you're able to do something you didn't know you could do. Sometimes we call these a-ha moments or breakthroughs. These are some of my favorite things to observe in my studio: when a student recognizes a new musical con