Perspective

Tech Is Helping Keep Music Programs Alive

This month’s issue touches on several things that I hope will be helpful to our readers navigating the madness of reopening school music classes this year. First, I asked our associate editor Victoria Wasylak to interview an old friend of mine, Dr. Jim Frankel, who has been a pioneer in integrating technology into music instruction for well over two decades now.

Seeking Wise Counsel

Since 1996, my jobs have involved giving a voice to teachers, experts, and people who know far more about a subject than I do. Though I only wrote a couple, I published over 200 books and videos on music, audio production, music business, and technology. I seek out smart people and give them a vehicle.

Summertime, and the Living is Queasy

Well, remember when they were saying the summer heat would just about wipe this COVID-19 thing out because viruses don’t like heat? I guess none of the viruses in Florida and Texas got the message - or any of the other seasonally oppressively hot states, which is most of them. It’s a scorcher in Tennessee as I type, and we too are experiencing a surge in cases.

Fall Math, Science, English, History Classes Canceled

Now that I have your attention — I am appalled. Indeed, a tad ticked, frankly. Over the past five years or so that I have been editor of SBO, I have seen amazing music programs that inspire, from the smallest to the largest level of service to students in districts rich and poor. 

School’s Out Completely…

Out for summer

Out till fall

We might not come back at all

School’s out forever

School’s out for summer

School’s out with fever

School’s out completely

When Alice Cooper sang the words that every school kid in the 1970’s rejoiced in as their own personal triumphant end-of-spring anthem, they had no way of knowing just how the lyrics would apply some 48 years later. Yet, here we are. All across the world, and certainly all across the U.S.A., school is out with fever. Completely.

Music Educators as First Responders

I can’t believe my luck, last month talking about the Type A Flu I got coming home from TMEA (in my Choral Director editorial) and segueing into the need to make your program infectious, um, so to speak. Who saw this coming this severely and happening here?

Is it Contagious?

I have a quick couple of weeks in-between the TMEA show in San Antonio and the upcoming American Bandmasters Association meetings, which I had the misfortune of spending fending off Type A influenza, even though I had my vaccine.

Milestones for Music Ed Orgs

The year 2020 marks a special anniversary for a couple of organizations near and dear to me – namely, Technology in Music Education (TI:ME), which was organized 25 years ago this summer, and the Texas Music Educators Association, which celebrates its centennial.

Like A Road, Leading Home…

This issue marks the beginning of my sixth year as editor of SBO, the end of my fifth, and a small but significant milestone for me.

Days of Future, Passed

We are now officially entering the second decade of the twenty-first century. That is a little mind-blowing, but it is the decade, which toward its end, will find me turning 60.

If I Contact You in November, It’s Not Spam and I’m Not Selling Anything! Reply ASAP!

I can basically recycle this November editorial every year now, with a few modifications. The message is the same. So, allow me a little self-plagiarizing, if you will.

Time to get those nominations in!

For over two decades now, SBO has honored an instrumental music educator, one from every state. The tradition continues, but you can imagine the process is involved, and chasing down a nominated band director times 50 is daunting.