Music Teacher as Music Producer How to Turn Your Classroom Into a Center for Musical Creativities

"Now is the most exciting time in the history of music to be a music teacher. Band, choir, and orchestra are ubiquitous. Music education has much to be thankful for. However, we should not be comfortable with the successes of our past, we must look ahead to what is just over the hill on our collective horizon. The rise of digital audio work environments and the proliferation of computer-based composition tools has made it relatively easy to record, mix, and master professional quality music on very small and portable devices. What used to be relegated only to music professionals can now be mastered by all musicians and teachers of music. That opens the door to possibilities that have not yet been given full consideration by our profession. Over half of what music teachers should be doing from now on is helping students make their own music like art teachers help students paint their own paintings and sketch their own drawings. Music education could look and feel quite a lot more like art class than it ever has in the past. We could make the creation of new musical products the focal point of our efforts in school music-classrooms centered on musical creativities"--