A Suggested Three-Year Program for High School Band Emphasizing Music Education as Aesthetic Education
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Date
1979-07Author
Fobia, Peter S.
Publisher
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
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http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/82084Description
For many years the author was involved in instrumental
music education in the public schools of New Jersey. Having
obtained the basic, all inclusive Music Teaching Certificate
through a state teachers' college, he entered the world of
public school teaching where his practical education began.
This education came through such varied avenues as discovery,
self-evaluation, development of programs and experimentation.
In addition to the methods mentioned above, he studied the
performances of several of the better high school band programs
in northern New Jersey.
A comparison of these "successful" programs with his
own revealed several important facts. First, each of the
"successful" organizations had large numbers of students
involved who were grouped by performance level into several
bands of equal size. Second, each organization had specific
written objectives stated in terms of expected behaviors to
be achieved by the end of a given period of time. Third,
each band program required its students to participate in
at least one performing group and, on a weekly basis, either
a group or private instrumental music lesson during school
time.
Much of the music studied in rehearsals in all groups
was to be performed in scheduled public concerts. The emphasis,
however, was on development of musical understanding
and independence with performance being a normal outcome of
the overall educational scheme. Of particular interest is
that the music rehearsed by each group demonstrated a variety
of styles and historical periods. The overall musicianship
of these groups was excellent. Even the bands with less
technical expertise played with expressiveness, good tone
and rhythmic precision. In short, they played musically.
As the author compared his own program with that of
the more established organizations, he discovered that he
was moving in much the same direction as they. He effectively
used many of the same instructional techniques, the same high
quality music, and had the same basic type of student with
which to work. However, his program was not achieving the
same degree of success. The major difference among the more
successful programs and his own could be measured in terms
of structure, organization, and definitive purpose. This
paper, therefore, is an attempt to set up a curriculum for
high school band which will be highly structured and well
organized, and will have clarity of purpose.