My Music History

I grew up without a lot of formal music training, and to this day I'm the only "musical" person in my immediate family. I had general music in elementary school and my first year of junior high, but other than that, my musical experiences consisted of my mom singing simple nursery rhymes, Disney, some dance classes, toy glockenspiels, hand clapping games with neighborhood kids, and my dad’s rock and roll collection. I always liked to sing, though, and I’m surprised no one ever pushed me toward any kind of lessons (I sometimes like to make my mom feel guilty she didn’t “make” me take piano). I think I would have played flute in elementary band if I hadn’t accidentally asked to try a clarinet instead on the demo day, not liking how difficult it was to produce a sound. We didn’t have chorus in elementary school (and I didn’t belong to a church), and I had no interest in joining in junior high: I preferred a daily study hall, restricting my arts-related extracurriculars to drama club.

I didn’t actually join chorus until my sophomore year of high school. My best friend since second grade had taken piano lessons as a kid and had been in chorus since junior high. I became enthralled with The Phantom of the Opera after she gave me tickets to see it for my 15th birthday and decided I wanted to pursue singing with her. I was in my high school’s musical sophomore and junior years, and I began to teach myself piano. I also began taking private voice lessons. Senior year, I wanted to audition for the top choir, but it was offered the same period as newspaper, and I was the Editor-In-Chief. As a result, I never participated in the IMEA All-State Conference as a performer. Still, I sang duets with my friends in variety show performances junior and senior years. And since I was a year ahead in math, I opted out of calculus and took music theory my senior year instead.

When I began looking at colleges, I first looked at musical theatre majors. I ended up attending North Central College in Naperville (having grown up in Naperville), beginning as a vocal music performance major and taking my first-ever private piano lessons. When I laid out my four-year plan toward the beginning of my freshman year, I realized I had almost an entire year open. At this time, I had begun teaching group beginner piano lessons for four- to six- and seven- to ten-year-olds. I really enjoyed it, and I could always remember wanting to be a teacher (I gave my career speech on it in seventh grade), so I decided to switch to music education. By my junior year, I was teaching group and private piano twenty hours per week at a studio in addition to my full-time course load and practicum hours. I realized almost immediately that I preferred elementary school music, despite the college’s strong focus on the choral setting. I managed to land outstanding placements in Naperville for both my elementary practicum and student teaching. These cooperating teachers introduced me to Kodály and Orff concepts and the World Music Drumming curriculum.

After I graduated college in 2005, over 20 of my piano students left the studio and began taking lessons privately out of my home. My first year of teaching was at a junior high in a rougher area than I was prepared to handle, and I looked most forward to days when I could come home to piano students. I took my Orff Level One training at the University of Nevada Las Vegas summer 2006, and it completely reshaped my teaching philosophy. I was very fortunate to get an elementary school position the following school year in the same Naperville school district I student taught in and grew up in; my school feeds into the junior high and high school I attended! I decided to focus on my development as an elementary general/vocal music teacher and cut my piano studio down to five students. Summer 2008 was extremely busy: I completed my Orff Level Two at UNLV, Kodály Level One at Indiana University Bloomington, and World Music Drumming Level One through the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

I am now in my third year of teaching at the same elementary school, and I look forward to moving from my initial to standard certificate next year. I see early childhood and kindergarten students once per week for 20 minutes, first and second grade students twice per week for 25 minutes, and third through fifth grade students twice per week for 30 minutes. I conduct a before-school chorus that meets twice per week for half the school year. This year, I have 70 fourth and fifth graders involved. Second graders give a music demonstration night in February, and fifth graders have a program in May. In my classroom instruction, I place a strong emphasis on learning to sing in-tune with a light head voice. I’ll go into more detail in my “philosophy” post.

The four graduate classes I completed in 2006 and 2008 will transfer into my Masters of Music Education at NIU. I completed Assessment in the K-12 Music Classroom with Dr. Cosenza this fall as well. After I complete this Foundations course, I will take theory and history in the summer, Techniques of Research in the fall, and I’ll complete my final project spring of 2010. After finishing my M.M. Ed., my next course of action (perhaps after a pause to get married and start a family) will be to pursue my National Board Certification and to complete my Orff and Kodály levels. I would also love to sing in a chorus again if I’m ever able to find the time. I'd also like to become more active in my MENC, AOSA and OAKE memberships.

On a random side note, my tastes have certainly matured beyond musical theatre. My favorite era is the Romantic (in terms of music as well as literature and art), but my favorite modern artist is Loreena McKennitt. She blends traditional Celtic styles with different world instruments, sometimes leaning toward a Middle Eastern or Indian sound. I'd highly recommend checking her out! I also still love classic rock (Tom Petty puts on an amazing show) and alternative rock (so do the Foo Fighters!)