Even though I mainly wear composer or flutist hats these days, I've done various teaching gigs since I graduated from UMass Amherst with a Music Education degree. Music pedagogy is a subject that remains near and dear to my heart. Here are the various fruits of my labors in this area:
the flute book.
The main impetus for writing a flute-book-as-blog was to fill in a gap I saw in teaching people to read music: there aren't enough easy folk tunes. And when I say easy, I mean really easy — using only, say, do re mi and whole, half, and quarter notes and rests. You might think, "Well how many tunes does that take before you get it and can move on?" More than you might think. And every student is different. So I started putting this together to provide more materials per musical concept. Right now, it's on a bit of a hiatus as I do three things: a) finish my dissertation which has nothing to do with music pedagogy; b) write more tunes; c) go through a slew of existing tunes to classify them for my devious pedagogical plans (mwah ha ha!). I plan on kickstarting this again in early 2009. In the meantime, there's a good amount to get you started.
three thoughts on improvisation:
• a jazz improvisation primer I made up for some sixth graders I was teaching back in 1997.
• a jazz improvisation primer based on notes from a jazz history class I took at The Boston Conservatory with Jeff Stout back in 2000.
• a free improvisation primer I made up just cuz back in 2003.
Also see the open instrumentation pieces I have on my composition page; most of those also contain opportunities to improvise that should be comfortable for those new to improvisation.
Four classes I taught at Brooklyn College: