Modern Band and Special Learners
For the greater part of the past 50 years, music educators have advocated for contemporary approaches to music education that reflect the interests of students. This has recently manifested in an approach to music education that scholars call Modern Band. Though the term lacks any one definition, Modern Band classes [...]
Engaging Students with Social-Emotional Learning through Songwriting
As the school year ends and music educators transition to summer, there is a lot that is unknown about the coming school year. While some school districts have announced a combination of in-person, hybrid, and online models, other school districts are still waiting to see how the COVID-19 virus continues [...]
Popular Music Education and American Democracy: Why I Coined the Term ‘Modern Band’ and the Road Ahead
In this article, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Music Will describes how his early work as an elementary school teacher providing an extra-curricular guitar club, evolved into him founding a music education nonprofit organization. By inventing the term, ‘modern band’ and joining nationwide leading efforts for systemic change [...]
Approximation and Scaffolding in Modern Band
Many K–12 teachers face hurdles when it comes to running a Modern Band, including the pedagogical challenges of facilitating large scale ensembles with unfamiliar repertoire and instruments. Approximation and scaffolding are two important tools teachers can use to help learners thrive in this environment. This article uses music examples to [...]
Integrating popular music and informal music learning practices: A multiple case study of secondary school music teachers enacting change in music education
The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine the practices and perspectives of four music teachers who integrated popular music and informal music learning practices into their secondary school music programs in the United States. A primary goal was to understand music teachers’ process of enacting change. Data [...]
