The fight for relevance in music education has always been a struggle. Whether it is fighting for sufficient funding or campaigning for enrolment, it seems life is never dull in the band room. It is an exciting time at the Calgary Board of Education; the transition to Google has begun. This will provide teachers exciting new ways to assess, communicate and collaborate with students. The only problem is the board makes no mention of how this new technology will be implemented in the band room. It is assumed that music directors make these wonderful grand gestures with their hands, provide brief formative assessment and teach the same way music has always been taught. Perhaps this is true in some band rooms. Maybe we are relics teaching irrelevant music with antiquated, obsolete instruments to an apathetic, digital generation. Perhaps the current model of music education really is a "Picture of a Gone World". Just as the ability to record and playback music forever changed the role of the concert hall, it is time to look beyond the walls of our current tonal repertoire of concert band music and accept all forms of music creation.
“…today all sounds belong to a continuous field of possibilities lying within the comprehensive dominion of music” - R. Murray Schafer
As I work towards integrating technology into the band room I look forward to sharing the small victories and grand failures that are sure to come.
Onwards and upwards,
Michael.
