Today we talk about something that can make or break your music classes: at-home practice. How do you get kids to stay engaged enough that they want to practice at home? How do you track or grade it when they do? To help me answer these questions, I’ve brought on Dr. Giovanna Cruz, the education services manager at MakeMusic and an experienced musician, private teacher, and public school orchestra director. She shares actionable advice from not only based on her own teaching experience, but also from the many teachers she’s met and worked with in her work at MakeMusic.

Barbara Freedman is here to help us navigate the tech that teaches music and creates composers and musicians and performers alike. This may just be the way you reach the other 80% of the students in your school, those students who aren’t in band, orchestra, or choir.

Shawna Longo was recently awarded the 2019 “Mike Kovins Ti:ME Teacher of the Year” award. Shawna's passion for sharing coding and technology with music students is fully evident in this week's episode.

This week my topic is innovation; how we strive for innovation in the classroom, and how there are innovative ways to learn about new ways to do things in the classroom.

Chris Munce is an accomplished choral performer, conductor, educator, clinician, and arts administrator. He’s also the host of the Choralosophy podcast. We talk about setting realistic expectations for yourself, your program, and your students.

David Beil is an expert band director and host of the “Beyond the Clef” podcast. This week David and I share some of our personal critique stories and talk about why we take groups to festival (and other performances) in the first place. We also discuss how we deal with criticism from judges, fellow directors, students, parents, and administrators.

Scott Burstein is director of teaching and learning at Little Kids Rock. Soctt and I talk about modern band, music as a second language, and more.

This week my guest is GRAMMY-nominated music educator Steve Holley. Steve and I talk about ways we can incorporate more of the music kids listen to every day into our programs – and what can happen when we do. Should we shift our traditional music ed paradigm to be more inclusive of pop music? Is it possible to implement pop music during festival season? Can we really fulfill our curricular responsibilities by using the songs that most of us wouldn’t consider to be highly educational?

We’ll answer all of those questions – and more – in this episode.

Today we are continuing our celebration of Women’s History Month. My guest is Adriana Linares, a professional violist, music educator, entrepreneur, and mother. A member of the incredible Dalí Quartet, she’s also one of the most positive and encouraging people I’ve ever met. Together we'll talk about life as women in music education.

Because today is International Women’s Day — and because March is Women’s History Month — I’m going to share some stories of amazing women in music.