Music Inspires – Music in our Schools Month (MIOSM)

March is Music in our Schools Month and is a great time to get kids excited about music in all its many forms and styles!  In case you don’t know about Music in our Schools Month, here’s a brief synopsis from the NAfME website:

Music In Our Schools Month or “MIOSM” is NAfME’s annual celebration during March which engages music educators, students, and communities from around the country in promoting the benefits of high quality music education programs in schools.Music In Our Schools Month began as a single statewide Advocacy Day and celebration in New York in 1973 and grew over the decades to become a month-long celebration of school music in 1985.

How can I get involved in Music In Our Schools Month?
Music teachers celebrate MIOSM in many ways by offering special performances, lessons, sing-alongs and activities to bring their music programs to the attention of administrators, parents, colleagues, and communities to display the positive benefits that school music brings to students of all ages.
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NAfME provides many special resources for teachers and schools to use in their concerts, lessons, and advocacy events that highlight the importance of school music.

Music Inspires – Three of My Favorite Videos

I teach K-8 at a little school in the middle of Michigan.  It’s hard to get my students to see live performances and expand their schema about music.  So, one of the things that I love to do is share videos of great performances and musical moments that might help to inspire my students.  I may not be able to take students to a Drum Corps International show, but I can show them a really cool video of a DCI group performing.  I may not be able to take them to see a professional symphony but I can absolutely show them a video of a group performing a well-known piece.   The more cool and inspiring videos that I can show them, the better.

Below are a couple of fun videos that I’ve come across recently.  I’ve added a whole page to this website devoted to videos that are fun and interesting and teach special concepts.  You can access all the videos HERE (be advised, that it might take a little while to load).  

Michigan Marching Band, in the Dark!
I live in Lansing, MI which is home to Michigan State University.  There are huge ties between people at our school and MSU.  Showing off something from the University of Michigan instead of MSU usually doesn’t earn me any points, but the kids at my school absolutely loved this video.  Before I introduced this clip I showed them a video of a couple other marching bands to give them perspective.  I wanted to get into their head the idea of what another marching band in the daylight so that they can see why this video is so cool.

Super Dancer by Nathan Barnatt
I love showing this video to students and saying something like “he’s just a nerdy guy but gets so inspired by the music that he can’t help himself!”  I talk about how music gets you tapping your toes and moving to the beat.  In the same way, the music inspires this nerdy guy and he just can’t help but dance.  See for yourself.

Roundtable Rival with Lindsey Stirling
This video is one that an orchestra student of mine brought to me.  It’s a fun video themed in the wild west and shows off the rivalry between an electric guitar player and an electric violin player.  I like to talk about sound waves (that you can see in the video) and bring about a discussion about how the music is helping them win their battle/inspiring them to move.  Most of all, I like showing this video because it makes the violin more contemporary and fun for all students.