Selecting Music With Students
A quick guide and plan for how to work with the students to select music for your class.
These resources focus on picking music with your students in a large ensemble setting. The practice of letting students help select music has huge benefits for engagement and culture building. These resources are designed in the large ensemble context, but the ideas should apply across contexts.
The main handouts are a music discovery guide to help students discovery pieces that might fit the group and to help them learn where to find music.
There is also a music evaluation guide that helps teachers and students walk through ensemble-focused decision-making. Basically: “What are some things I should be considering about this specific piece?”
The goal of this handout is to help students evaluate time commitment, appropriateness for performance, and fit for the ensemble. We want to go so much deep than “I like this” or “this is bad.” The goal is to get students in on the curriculum planning itself and help them understand the decision making process.
We’ve also included the slide deck from the video presentation: