The Improving Musician

07/01/2023

Good Day,

After months and months of work, I am proud to present The Choral Musician!
https://theimprovingmusician.com/the-choral-musician-sales-page

As of now, there are three workbooks available: Digital Workbook 1: The Audiation Foundation; Digital Workbook 2A: Reading Foundations; Digital Workbook 2B: Next Steps in Reading (Scale Patterns).

All three of these workbooks are available right now for members of the Faculty Library. If you're not a member, you can join today!

For those that would like to purchase these materials separately, I am offering them as a bundle.

Try Before You Buy!
If you'd like to see what's inside The Choral Musician, I created a sampler, which includes 50 example slides from Digital Workbooks 1, 2A and 2B. Click below to check it out!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-6NJRE3DvNGlVHDzmQ-1wQPJJTJvKKAhefmJ9lMxdQ4/edit?usp=sharing

I hope everyone is enjoying their summers! Please let me know if you have any questions about any of these materials.

02/01/2023

Here's a new video which will be featured in the upcoming Choral Musician series!

In this video, we explore the pathways between tonic and dominant in major tonality. This video is inspired by the MLT pedagogy created by Dr. Edwin E. Gordo...

01/21/2023

Coming soon! 😲

10/15/2022

The Faculty Library is now open! Come and check it out.

https://theimprovingmusician.com/faculty-library-sales-page/

10/02/2022

I have a big announcement that I am excited to share: After almost a year of hard work, I am ready to share the brand new FACULTY LIBRARY!

The Faculty Library will open SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15th at 9 am ET.

Watch the video to learn more:
https://theimprovingmusician.com/faculty-library-sales-page

09/20/2022

Hello, good people! If you have been wondering where I've been, why, I've been very busy putting together a brand new resource called THE FACULTY LIBRARY. Much more information to come mighty soon! I attached a video scroll-through of the main page to whet your palette.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I am looking for a few people who would be willing to write a short testimonial (~3 sentences, with a picture) about the usefulness of my materials and/or teaching in general have been. I'd be happy to offer you either 50% off a one-year subscription to the Faculty Library, or any one of my digital products for free in exchange for a testimonial. Please DM me if you'd be willing to do this!

Be on the look-out for an email from me SOON with details about the launch of this exciting new venture from me.

Cheers!
~Andy

04/20/2022

Brand new course! Rhythm Reading 102: Enrhythmic Time Signatures

This brand new course is now available on my website where you and your students can learn how to read macrobeats and microbeats in 3 new time signatures.

04/16/2022

Brand new course: Reading Major Tonic

This brand new course is now available on my website where you and your students can learn how to read major tonic patterns.

02/11/2022

Composite Synthesis (abbreviated CS) is the highest level in Discrimination learning. There are two sub-levels: Composite Synthesis-Reading (CS-r) and Composite Synthesis-Writing (CS-w). It subsumes all of the previous levels of learning. At this level, students can 1) read a series of patterns and 2) bring contextual meaning (tonality or meter) to the notation. In the same way that Partial Synthesis synthesized Aural/Oral and Verbal Association, Composite Synthesis synthesizes Symbolic Association with Partial Synthesis....

In this article, I discuss one of the more confusing of Gordon's levels of the Skill Learning Sequence, Composite Synthesis.

02/01/2022

In the previous article, I showed readers ways that teachers can engage students at the Symbolic Association level with a focus on reading. In this article, I will show you how, just like with language, I extend the teaching of reading with the teaching of writing. To begin with, here is a video of me demonstrating this with one of my 7th grade classes a few years ago....

In this article, I explain the process used by MLT practitioners to teach students at the Symbolic-Association-Writing level.

01/30/2022

Symbolic Association (abbreviated SA) is the first time that students read musical notation. Students first heard the sound at Aural/Oral, gave it an aural label in Verbal Association, solidified musical context at Partial Synthesis, and now they are ready to read notation, and bring meaning to it. At this discrimination level, students are reading tonal and rhythm patterns that are familiar to them because they learned them at the first two levels (A/O and VA)....

In this blog post, I explain the first of Gordon's skill levels that deals with reading music notation, Symbolic Association.

01/09/2022

Modal Meditations

In my middle school general music classes, we are getting ready to delve into some unfamiliar tonalities.  If your situation is anything like mine, we are still playing catch-up from three very unusual school years, and curriculum and instruction has been quite different. It seems like I am still ...