It’s Time to Play is a new first year Band method book written to help music teachers connect the first year of Band lessons to the elementary General Music curriculum in order to maximize student achievement and engagement!Students are more ready than ever to begin playing a Band instrument, thanks to the foundational work being done in elementary General Music classrooms. Today, elementary school students engage in a wide variety of musical activities which include singing and playing recorders, bells and rhythm instruments. The songs that students learn and the skills that they develop can be easily transferred from the voice, recorder and bells to the new Band instrument.
It’s Time to Play musically. By the time students are in the fourth or fifth year of General Music classes, they have become young musicians who are ready and able to apply what they have learned to playing a Band instrument. Over the past three to five decades, tremendous strides have been made in teaching and learning in the elementary General Music classroom thanks to the research and methodologies of Zoltan Kodaly, John Feierabend, Edwin Gordon, Carl Orff and others. With an emphasis on sound before sight, students engage in rich music making experiences that lead toward significant musical skills and literacy. It’s time to reimagine traditional first year Band method books to match the capability and musicality that our students are ready for, thanks to the amazing work being done in elementary General Music classrooms.
It’s Time to Play a wide and varied repertoire of songs in the first year of Band and then to offer an expanding repertoire of songs to students in every year that follows. The first year of Band lessons should be engaging, enjoyable and musical as students play songs that are familiar using the skills and knowledge that have been developed in the General Music classroom. The repertoire of folk songs in this new method book continues to increase in range and challenge; and by connecting with what students already know and are able to do, they are able to learn twenty to thirty songs in the first year of playing a Band instrument.
Join the mialing list on my website (mfsmithmusic.com) and download a free advance copy of It's Time to Play. The book launch will be on June 15, 2023. Let me know what you think.
The first year of Band is the most important year of Band,
and it lays the foundation for all the years of Band that follow.
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