Category: Music

I would like to propose three rules of growth:The more you enjoy something, the more of it you will do.The more you do something, the better at it you will get.The more you can draw on the experiences of others, the less you will plateau. Some new skills can be mastered in a day. Others…

I’m going to try to put you back inside the head of an adolescent choir member:You arrive at middle school. The difficulty of the schoolwork starts to ramp up, and grades become more important, increasing the pressure. Puberty starts. You start forming more intense relationships with your peers. Your body starts to change, and you…

When designing music curriculum, I have an almost overwhelming array of options. To help, I am organizing these options like colors on a palette. These colors can then be mixed and used to paint the curriculum for a course, unit, or individual class. Colors of Musical Experience Aesthetic experienceMusical instruments (performance, ensembles, for self, others,…

We all experience the world differently. From a very young age, I was surrounded by music, aware of its presence, interested in it, and developing a sensitivity to it. I believe this is why, growing up, my musical development was far ahead of my peers. I was constantly attuned to and critically engaging with the…

My school music experience taught me that American music consisted of classical, jazz, and pop. It taught me that Chicago was home to world-class classical and jazz musicians, but it said nothing of its hip-hop, EDM, folk, or so many other musical cultures. Last month I moved to Denver. When I begin teaching here, I…

Summary Kruse questions whether schooling, as it is done today, is relevant to all American children. Through researching and befriending a hip-hop musician named Terrance, Kruse questions his belief that schooling is fundamentally a positive force in the lives of all students. He comes to understand that Terrance’s decision to drop out of a high…

Teaching students to “express themselves through music” is an admirable goal for a music teacher. But what does that really mean? And if we can’t articulate it, how exactly are we going to teach it effectively? When we express ourselves through spoken language, we do so through the words we choose, the order we put…