Teaching Music Tomorrow - with Anne Mileski and Victoria Boler

In today’s part 2 of a three part series, Anne & Victoria talk about the next level of melodic arranging, in a way that allows for student agency and voice (pun intended). This episode is focused on models of melodic arranging that start specifically with singing and then allow for opportunities to expand to barred instruments or beyond.

Anne shares a way to take the same song and activity from last week and add another ostinato based on student speech to the arrangement of Peas Porridge Hot. This can be done first with the voice and a limited, prescribed toneset and then moved to the barred instruments. Victoria shares a similar activity that can be paired with popular music for older beginners. Her use of movement, student choice, composition, as well as repertoire selection serve as carrots for those older kids. We also discuss canons and rounds, as well as the difference between exploratory and curricular based goals in the music classroom.

Thank you for listening! Visit our website here to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram
victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram 

In today’s episode, we’re continuing on the arranging conversation, this time diving into all things melodic arranging. We start the episode with a conversation about why this might feel challenging to both you as the teacher-facilitator, as well as your students, and what makes melodic arranging a bit of a different animal than rhythmic arranging. (If you haven’t listened to the three part series on rhythmic arranging, now would be a good time to do so!)

Anne shares an activity for Pease Porridge Hot that starts as a simple rhythmic ostinato and can be expanded to provide a simple drone for barred instruments. She also shares how to take other simple text suggestions from students to create a simple layered ostinato.

Victoria shares another early elementary activity with Star Light Star Bright and vocal exploration. She shows that young students can still create and compose with these patterns, even if they don’t necessarily have the formal vocabulary or experience (yet!) to name melodic concepts.

Thank you for listening! Visit our website here to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram  

In today’s conclusion of our three-part deep dive, Anne and Victoria share two cumulative experiences that will incorporate all of the skills we have talked about thus far. These three episodes have truly built on one another to show how you can start small, add the simplest layer and guide students toward independent musicianship skills.

Anne shares how to take the different layers we’ve discussed with the song Apple Tree and how it can become a performance piece highlighting student choice. Victoria shares the ultimate Tideo mashup with rhythmic building blocks that inspire and incorporate students’ independent music-ing skills.

Thank you for listening! Visit our website here to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram  

In this second episode of a three-part deep dive, Anne and Victoria outline two actionable sequences for upleveling rhythmic arranging with your students. You might be surprised about what we consider “level 2” for arranging with your students, and it puts a lot less pressure on the teacher than you probably think.

Anne shares how to take the song Apple Tree and continue along the arranging spectrum, giving students more opportunities to express their creativity and musical fluency with quarter notes and eighth notes. Students have the opportunity to explore new avenues of music making as well as collaboration through this activity. Victoria shares “Obwasimisa,” a passing game from the Akan people in Ghana that reinforces steady beat. This is a great activity for older beginners, as Victoria highlights ways for students to make decisions in a way that practices this foundational skill.

Thank you for listening! Visit our website here to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram  

In this first episode of a two-part deep dive, Anne and Victoria outline two actionable sequences for starting the process of rhythm arranging with young musicians. Anne shares a layered arranging activity with the song, Apple Tree. Victoria shares a movement-based arranging activity with the rhyme, Zapatitos Blancos. Both activities encourage students to experiment with rhythmic durations in a focused and intentional way, while maintaining a playful spirit of exploration. Whether this is your first time facilitating a rhythm arranging experience for your students, or you’ve been leading rhythm arranging for a long time, this episode has something for you! 

Thank you for listening! Visit our website here to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram  

Last week on the podcast, we shared a couple of easy to implement rhythmic reading ideas. In that episode, we talked about how rhythmic reading is multifaceted and not a straight forward description. The layers of “reading” are only compounded when we add in melody, or pitches, to reading activities.

Today, Victoria shares an activity for identifying melodic patterns in well known folk songs as well as how to extend it into something that allows for student choice and agency, inching toward composition. Anne shares an activity for practicing stick to staff notation, where students have to read, identify, and translate different melodic notation types. Both processes are strategies you can easily implement in your classroom, asap.

Thank you for listening! Visit our website here to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram  

Reading can be used as a one-and-done activity on its own, or we can use it as the launch-point and facilitator of many other musical skills like memorization, arranging and part-work. Today on the podcast, Victoria and Anne share two reading activities you can use tomorrow. 

Anne’s game, “Clever Caterpillar,” can be found on her TPT store here. Victoria’s rhyme, “Pin Pin Jarabín” is sourced from “The Spanish-American Song and Game Book,” published in 1942.

Thank you for listening! Visit our website here to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram  

Steady beat is the foundation for all musical skill building. Today on the podcast, Victoria and Anne are talking about all the different ways we experience steady beat in our classrooms, and best practices to consider when thinking about steady beat activities.

Today on the podcast, Anne & Victoria share two of their favorite tried and true activities for steady beat. Anne shares “Umpi the Frog,” a fun passing game rhyme scaffolded for Kindergarten and beyond, and Victoria shares the perfect drag and drop chameleon activity for any music you or your students want to use in the classroom.

Thank you for listening! Visit our website here to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram  

Early childhood music is full of vocal development opportunities and explorations. Whether we are talking about exploring higher vs. lower, echo singing, or pitch matching, giving adequate time and care to developing and discovering the singing voice is one of the most important musical foundational skills.  

Today on the podcast, Anne & Victoria share a couple activities for vocal development. Anne shares the favorite, “No More Pie” for whole class and individual echo singing and pitch matching, and Victoria shares a fun vocal exploration extension for the rhyme “Jack, be Nimble.” Both of these activities can be part of your music class tomorrow!  

Thank you for listening! Visit our website to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:  

teachingmusictomorrow.com  

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram  

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram

The concept of fast and slow is one of the earliest foundational concepts we introduce to our students. In the land of comparatives, it’s one of the most accessible for our young musicians, because they have so much gross locomotor experience moving fast. The discrimination between learning slow and fast is an important scaffold for talking about tempi and note durations later on in music learning.  

Today Anne & Victoria share some of their favorite activities for using faster and slower, as well as some good teaching strategies to scaffold the experience appropriately for your young learners. Both of these activities can be incorporated into your very next music lesson to compare fast and slow.  

Victoria's song, "Sulla Rulla," was sourced from nordicsounds.info.   

Thank you for listening! Visit our website to listen to or watch new episodes. Make sure to click subscribe and leave a review from whichever platform you are listening on, and tell us what you’d like to teach in your music classroom tomorrow! For more from Anne & Victoria, click the links below:  

http://teachingmusictomorrow.com

annemileski.com | @annemileski on instagram  

victoriaboler.com | @victoriaboler on instagram