Standard No. 2: The teacher of PK-12 music has skills in creating, arranging, and improvising.
To accomplish this standard, the teacher must be able to generate new ideas for their students in the categories of listening, playing and vocalizing. It is important to create new ideas and methods for general classroom day activities by performing through music. The teacher must be able to design a piece of music, a warm up, for example, that will help benefit the students in a band setting. Creativity derives from the term improvising, and the teacher can serve as a model for the students in a jazz setting for example. For my arranging, I have taken an Instrumentation and Arranging class that has given college undergraduates the opportunity to arrange classical literature. All three words: creating, arranging, and improvising have creativity built in them. There is a foundation that needs to be set, a couple of ground rules before anything goes. With creativity, not every student can go at once, for an example, one student or groups of students will have the chance to perform their improvised part while the other students listen and observe. Students are to follow specific chords set out in the music and can’t just play any type of accompaniment except the one that fits the style of the piece. I have various skills in creating and improvising music. In my jazz band class at high school our teacher would do an activity of call and response. The teacher would play his improvisation on the saxophone and the whole rest of the band will play the same rhythm but hitting their own note that works within the chord the rhythm section will be playing. For my classroom improvisation, I can use my vibraphone or drum set to play rhythmic studies in a call-response fashion. For drum set I’ll play on the snare drum, rhythms the entire jazz band will play on a note of their choosing. On the vibraphone it is more a listening melody exercise. Students will have to focus on finding the starting note I play and then connect it to the rhythm. With improvisation being a big factor in jazz class, it helps express the student’s feel about the piece. Improvisation helps the musician communicate back with other musicians in the band, they tell the story from their point of view. I have personally been trained on how to start improvising and creating various melodies within chords. In a school setting this will be a strongpoint for me in guiding the students branch out to different storytelling ideas than the main melody of the work. It is also important that the teacher is able to perform accompaniment on the piano or other melodic instrument to spell out chords and then be able to transpose to different keys. The teacher should have a general rule of thumb on how they are going about with the ratings of works. If the ensemble is missing a part or has different instrumentation it is the responsibility of the teacher to arrange a part that works within the piece on the sense of blend.
Students in my classes will be able to improvise over a Bb blues scale. They each have four bars to solo over and then the next student in line will have the opportunity to perform. I would also have the students go home and record 12 bar blues playing the melody of the song the first time and then the second time at the top solo through all twelve, understanding what notes work within each chord change. Students with programs like Finale or Sibelius will have the opportunity to write out a solo for 12 bar blues or just rhythmic ideas while they still think ahead of what notes fit into a chord structure for the blues piece. Students will have the opportunity at home to practice soloing over all 12 keys because being adaptable in real world applications is important. Being flexible in all 12 keys will enhance musicianship and increases technical skills on his/her instrument. Students play an improvised part of the blues and then the band has to try and mimic back the same type of notes. The students will have gained some type of retention learning about creating and hearing different styles of storytelling from everyone in the classroom. To conclude we must generate new ideas out of our curriculum, have a plan B incase plan A goes south. The teacher must have an improvised plan while still keeping to the curriculum focus. Creativity lives and breeds within the students in your classroom so letting them explore different notes on a beginning level jazz class over 12 bar blues is a probable starting point for enhancing creativity skills. General goals for the students are to enhance their skills playing in different keys and to become comfortable sharing improvisation to their peers in the classroom. Later on to expand the student’s musical horizon’s they will compose a small 16 bar melody over a jazz swing piece. The last week of the semester we can all sight read and increase our reading skills while discovering the creativity, the student’s have been working on for a couple of weeks.