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Greetings to all, from the Twin Cities! I hope you are taking some time to enjoy the amazing fall color. It’s one of the best benefits to living in the upper Midwest, no? I like to think it buffers us for winter, but I usually forget about that buffer in mid-February.
Our summer 2010 workshop was a terrific success! We had 61 participants (8 on the studio track) who attended the workshop held at Edgewood College in Madison. Many memorable and thought-provoking moments for all. And the usual torrential downpour or two. Congratulations to Tami Lang (DePere High School) and Nicole Silta (DePere Middle School), who received the Will Schmid Scholarship. Plans are underway for the 2011 workshop, so save the date! The workshop will be held at UW-Eau Claire, in keeping with our tradition of rotating around the state to serve Wisconsin teachers. Dates of the workshop are 20-24 June 2011. As you settle in to your classroom routine, and get busy with the work of teaching, give yourself permission to try new ideas and strategies. Consider this: a 3 x 5 card taped to your desk with outcomes for one of your pieces, briefly stated: know-do-feel. See how it goes, and let us know. The members of the CMP Committee are here to support teachers in whatever ways we can. Check out the website for more information, or to contact a CMP Committee member directly.
Yours in CMP,
Laura Sindberg
Assistant Professor of Music
University of Minnesota—Twin Cities
Chair, CMP Project
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The last issue of Insights addressed how our approach to teaching a piece can be radically altered with a thorough study of the score before we hand the piece to the kids. We asked readers to submit their favorite “aha!” moments from their time spent with score analysis. Here’s what a few of our readers had to report:
 I have never been a fan of Rachmaninoff orchestral music, mostly because it seemed like a bunch of good tunes without much depth or substance. This year I was encouraged to look closely at his 2nd Symphony, and started analyzing it. To my surprise, I discovered that the whole symphony--while full of great tunes--is actually a really carefully constructed 4-movement work, with each movement's themes all deriving from the opening 2 measures of the piece, a short, mysterious motif. My esteem for this composer is now sky high--it takes real skill to create 7 or 8 different themes, each with their own personality, that all derive from the same 6 note motif. The complexity and many layers of this beautiful piece would have been lost on me, had I not taken the time to dig deeper. My youth symphony is loving digging into this piece and discovering its layers, too.
While analyzing the score for Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, I was tempted to skip over the basic musical elements including Melody. But to be thorough I went through the motions of documenting the melodic content looking at melodic motifs and contours. To my delight I discovered that the main motif at the beginning of the B theme (four notes descending) was actually an inversion of the motif at the end of the A-theme (four notes rising). I have known this piece for years and had never noticed! Geeky? Maybe. But what fun to get into the composer’s head, and to find a springboard for rich class discussions about musical building blocks.
I have been exploring using canons with our beginner orchestra (4th and 5th graders). In choir, we've always used canons as "starter" pieces to get kids singing in parts early in the season. But I never considered using a Telemann vocal canon or the Boyce "Alleluia" as great material for young string players, for exactly the same reason. When I started analyzing them from a string playing perspective, I realized they provided everything I needed: a variety of rhythms, bowing styles, articulations, and phrase shapes, a chance to play in parts (with everyone playing melody), and rich music of substance and history.
In studying the Dance of the Tumblers from the Snow Maiden (the middle school arrangement), I was struggling with the form, trying to determine exactly what labels to stick on where. I got frustrated until I realized that I was looking at the form through the melodic material. As soon as I moved on to analyzing the harmonic content, it hit me like a ton of bricks: it was a sonata form. The substantial material at the beginning was purely introductory; the first theme was delayed. Now I get it! Had I not looked at each element of music it would not have made sense to me, and I would have passed the ambiguity on to the kids.
And the fundamental “Aha!”: There is no substitute for good analysis of a piece. No matter how busy we are, finding the time to analyze the music repays us twice fold.
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Looking for a meaningful and practical experience at your next staff development in-service? The CMP Committee continues to provide clinics, workshops and in-services to current teachers and college music students throughout the year as part of its continued commitment to music education through outreach opportunities. You may schedule a CMP workshop in your school, your district or your area music conference by contacting Laura Sindberg at laurasindberg@gmail.com or any member of the CMP committee. An introductory session is ideally 3-5 hours, but shorter sessions are available as well.
Do you have colleagues looking for innovative new professional growth opportunities? Forward this newsletter to them! Suggest attending the CMP summer workshop or arranging a workshop in their district!
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 Looking for the definitive CMP resource? The book: Shaping Sound Musicians includes chapters that describe each point of the CMP model. It is designed to serve as a workbook for teachers to construct teaching plans. It will also contain some of the best examples of materials, innovative teaching ideas and resources developed and field tested by the CMP Project. The CMP Project is excited about a text written by music teachers, for music teachers.
Copies of the book may be purchased from the WMEA/WSMA office. GIA Publishing gives a discount on books ordered through the WMEA/WSMA office. We are able to sell them for 25% off ($30 instead of $40). Proceeds will go to support future CMP projects.
To obtain a copy of Shaping Sound Musicians, contact the WMEA/WSMA office (800-589-9762) or complete the order form (PDF) and send it to the WMEA/WSMA office.
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