Catalysts & Connections - Evan Tobias

The MENC 61st National Biennial Conference is just around the corner, taking place from April 9th-13th in Milwaukee, WI. You can take a look at a preliminary schedule on the conference website. It looks like it’s going to be a fabulous conference! It will be interesting to compare the sessions available at the conference […]

When I worked on a “Copyrights and Wrongs” project with my 7th grade general music students several years ago, one of the various issues we focused on was how they would choose to treat their own music in terms of rights management. We discussed various positions and potential pros and cons of copyrighting or applying […]

I mentioned the Sept. 25th hearing on degrading stereotypes of women in media a couple of days ago in a post regarding the discussion of rap and misogyny. The House Subcommittee hearing titled “From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images” provides some interesting material to raise in music classrooms for students’ […]

One reason why many music educators are hesitant to integrate rap music in the classroom or even discuss it, is the misogyny present through much of the commercial rap music and videos that the general public and many students are familiar with. The difficulty in navigating through the complexity of this and other […]

The grassroots campaign to save internet radio and audio streaming sites took an interesting turn the other day when many organizations that host these types of resources held a day of silence to draw focus to the change in royalties that may mean the end to these resources. This has interesting implications for music educators […]

Both James Frankel and I have blogged about our concern over the potential loss of internet music streaming due to recent changes in royalty rates as determined by the copyright royalty board. The board recently denied webcasters a rehearing and the new rates and possible demise of internet streaming resources will happen 20 days from […]

Do you or your students ever make use of internet “radio” streaming sites? Sites like Pandora or non commercial radio stations affiliated with NPR or Pacifica for example offer wonderful teaching resources, that is if they are able to afford the recent royalty rate changes for digital streaming.
While the issues of legality and […]

I haven’t written much on this blog on issues dealing with early childhood music but find it a fascinating area. The New York Times recently reported on the television show Jack’s Big Music Show. I wonder what impact shows such as this have on young children and their music education. Are students watching it passively […]

The Christian Science Monitor had a very interesting article a couple of days ago that raises several important things for music educators to think about.
The article discusses music school graduates and urban cultural institutions providing urban schools with music programs.While it is very positive that students are receiving music programs, one might be concerned that […]

While music sites on Myspace have become ubiquitous there are many other interesting models for musicians who want a web presence and a way to distribute their music without dealing with large labels. Besides being a phenomenal trumpet player, Dave Douglas brings a visionary outlook of distributing live performances via his label greenleaf music. Douglas […]