Matthew Thibeault

The April issue of General Music Today has a focus on creativity and composition. For my column, I present a simple improvisation for a duo at the piano, which I relate to games as John Dewey spoke of them, and what Stephen Nachmanovitch calls “the power of limits.” In other words, I present a simple game but relate it to some of the ideas I have found key in cultivating a disposition to play, improvise, create, and have students develop their own musical ideas.

The power of limits and the pleasure of games: An easy and fun piano duo improvisation awaits you (behind a pay wall, but free for NAfME members and through most higher education libraries). I also provided a podcast where I demonstrate the game and some of the variations.

I’ll be giving two presentations at the Illinois Music Educators Conference (IMEC, the conference formerly known as IMEA).

What Movement Teaches and How It Shows: Introduction to Dalcroze Eurhythmics
Thursday, 2:15–3:30 PM, Convention Center room 222

The Ukulele Ensemble: Sustainable Musicianship, Lifelong Learning
Presented with Julianne Evoy and Channing Paluck
Friday, 12:30–1:45 PM, Convention Center room 401
http://homebrewukuleleunion.wordpress.com/

For those at the movement workshop, I built the session around this quote, which I find to be pure poetry about a central challenge of music education:

Simply to prepare you to hear these moments as I hear them, I begin to describe them to you—but barely—with words. And immediately I begin to lose them. When we listen, both of us, and when I sense, as if by telepathy, that what you are listening to is so far from what I would have liked to make you hear, I tell myself: this moment might not have been my own, after all. For what I wanted to hear you listening to—yes: to hear you listening to!—was my listening. Perhaps an impossible wish—the impossible itself.

Despite my vexation (it is always immense), I wonder: Can one make a listening listened to? Can I transmit my listening, unique as it is? That seems so improbable, and yet so desirable, so necessary too. (p. 5)

Source:
Szendy, P. (2008). Listen: A history of our ears. (C. Mandell, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press.

I truly enjoy sharing ideas with a practical orientation, these days primarily via my General Music Today column, “Secondary Scene.” Like most scholars, I sometimes don’t know if I’ve really connected, but two nice bits of feedback this week put a glide in my stride:

1. Alex Ruthmann’s flattering tweet about my newest column, “Wisdom for Music Education from the Recording Studio.” [available on my publications page]

2. Having my first column, “Hip-Hop, Digital Media, and the Changing Face of Music Education” [Open access post-print version via IDEALS, or definitive final version behind a paywall]reach number one on the “most-read” charts for GMT in December:

About a year ago, a graduate student and I were lamenting the complete lack of free software in the “Technology for Teaching” section of Music Educators Journal. I theorized that this had to do with the review process (namely, that developers must send NAfME a copy of their software for review, which non-commercial developers are unlikely to realize, and who rarely have a physical copy to send).

We approached the editor with the idea to review some free software, and I’m pleased to report that the resultant review of Audacity I coauthored with Nick Jaworski can be found in the latest issue. In the 500-word limit we were able to discuss the merits of free software, suggest potential projects, make a few specific recommendations, and hopefully not scare off teachers. One small step…

http://mej.sagepub.com/content/98/2/39.full.pdf+html

The current issue of Teaching Music has a letter I wrote concerning an article in the August issue, “The More You Play, The Better You Read.” The letter notes five problematic aspects in the way they describe an otherwise interesting piece of research (misrepresenting a correlational finding as causal, failing to consider alternative explanations, presenting a conference presentation as settled knowledge, the use of imprecise terminology, and treating anecdote as explanation).

I had brought the article into my graduate research class, for discussion and critique. After class I was even more certain that these issues needed to be raised, and it’s great to see the editors of Teaching Music taking concerns and criticism seriously. The letter appears on page eight of the November issue, and NAfME members can access Teaching Music online in addition to the print copy they receive.

I had a great time as a virtual visitor (via Skype) with two of Patrick Schmidt’s music education courses. We discussed my General Music Today article, “General Music as a Cure for the High-Stakes Concert.”

For those in the class, I mentioned two sources you might like to further explore:

1. Tom Turino’s distinction between presentational and participatory music is captured in his book Music as Social Life.

2. My work with the ukulele is best understood through a column for General Music Today (here’s a link to a blog post that describes it, or see the entry after this for some recent press).

3. With the second class, we spoke a bit about the philosophy of technology as it relates to music education. I spoke of how much pleasure and insight I’ve drawn from Albert Borgmann’s Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life, and you can read more about my perspective in the recent response to John Kratus I’ve posted.

Email me if you have additional questions, or if you try out some of the things we discussed.

Update on 10/31: Another short piece about the class ran in the campus newspaper, the Daily Illini, “Ukulele gives music education class a new dimension.”

Update on 10/30: The local paper, the News Gazette, ran a nice piece in the Sunday paper (page G-4). They didn’t put that article online, and it is a rewrite of the New Bureau press release.

A nice item just went up on the University of Illinois News Bureau site. It details the HUU/Designing Musical Experiences class, and also helps to promote a singalong we’ll lead at the Blind Pig on Wednesday, November 3. As always, singers, pickers, and dancers are welcome! There’s also a video interview with class footage, which can be viewed here.

I was delighted to be invited to respond to John Kratus’ talk at the CIC/New Directions conference today at Michigan State University.

My response focuses on the importance of a critical perspective and pragmatic approach to technology in music education. To assist those who might like to follow up on some of the ideas, I’ve posted my response, with additional footnotes and references, right here:
Thibeault CIC 2011 Response.pdf

And here’s the picture from the Ellnora Guitar Festival sing-along from my slides:

Nick Jaworkski is a current MME student, and his amazing blog attracted some national attention via a nice mention in today’s USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-10-02/high-school-music-programs/50635878/1