Knowledge

1. ■The teacher can develop and use criteria for evaluating and selecting materials for reading and writing musical compositions.
   

Performance

1. ■The teacher conducts from a variety of scores, reading multiple staves, transpositions, clefs, and contemporary notation.
   

2. ■The teacher performs music notation at sight vocally and instrumentally.
   

3. ■The teacher notates music from aural sources.
   

Reflection/Elaboration on Standard

    In common western music practices, the ability to read and write music has become a standard to being a well-trained musician.  As an educator, it is important to be exceptional in the ability to read music in a variety of contexts.  This includes having advanced proficiency not only in reading single lines, but in reading piano accompaniments, scores (transposed and not), as well as understanding how to read chord changes and other typical notations.  When working with students, teachers are constantly working on the spot to find mistakes and fix them.  This could mean realizing a wrong note, inaccurate rhythms, or other issues.  The quicker the teacher can see this issue in the score or in the students music, the faster they can articulate what needs to be fixed and smoother rehearsals will be able to flow.  Sometimes, the teacher may also need to demonstrate something; they should be able to read music quickly enough to be able to sing or play the line or chord structures.  This again helps with rehearsal pacing.  If the teacher is well-versed in the different clefs as well as the transpositions of different instruments, this will make them more effective and reliable in rehearsals.  The ability to read the score and be able to demonstrate these parts will give a better aid to student learning.

    Along with reading music, teachers should be able to notate music.  This includes transcriptions from other parts as well as aural transcriptions.  This can come in handy in many ways, including when working on arranging as well as reorchestrating a piece.  This would also be helpful to beginning jazz students who are beginning to learn improvisation.  The teacher can help in notating the proper notes to go with chord changes as well as notating a solo that the students can begin working to play.

    I have had lots of work while in school reading music of my own, as well as working on reading scores and transposing instruments.  Beginning in theory classes, often times examples would be given in clefs that we don’t usually see, such as alto and tenor clefs.  This helped develop my ability to read these clefs quickly.  Aural skills courses helped me develop aural recognition to notate what I hear.  I first began reading multiple parts and condensing them in piano class, starting with voices and working up to trios and quartets of instruments.  In my conducting courses I spent lots of time working on score reading, transposing all parts and vocalizing corrections needed.  I was able to get extended practice on score reading through my time as a University Band conductor as well as working on Student Staff for the marching band. 

Artifacts

    The first example that I will include is evidence of my senior recital.  I have both the recital program as well as a recording of my favorite work performed - Tableaux de Provence, movement III by Paule Maurice.  I have studied saxophone at Kansas State for nine semesters and given two hour-long solo recitals on saxophone.  This recital was my second senior recital, occurring the final semester before student teaching.  On this recital I included a variety of repertoire.  There are even moments of different notational techniques used, helping me to become acquainted with contemporary notational practices that can be seen.

    Through my studies of saxophone as well as this recital I was able to continue to develop my music literacy.  I believe that the most effective way to continue to improve in literacy is to continue to play music.  Beyond being able to play music in rehearsals, performing music allows the musician to realize how much practice is needed to go into giving an effective performance.  Knowing how much it took for me to put together my recital helps me to know the level of preparation I should expect of my students and how to make realistic expectations about student abilities and improvement through the process.

    My second example is a score and video of me conducting on the final concert for university band.  The score is for Norse Song, my small ensemble piece that I conducted on the May concert for University Band.  The score shows my rehearsal markings, helping me to catch all of the most important parts of the piece.  It also includes an analysis of the piece to help me during rehearsals.  When using this score, I had to be able to read across all four staves.  Since the score is in concert pitch, I had to be able to transpose the notes for each of the different instruments on the different parts - something that I got better at as the semester progressed. 

    This experience of conducting an ensemble was a good opportunity to really become familiar with all of the skills necessary simply to be proficient when on the podium.  I learned how to read a score as opposed to reading a normal part and how to mark it to guide my eyes in the most effective manner.  This was my third time working through score marking, so I have a basic system down, though I still learned that each piece has its own variables that will make this system a little different.  In order to be an effective teacher, reading a score needs to become as much second-nature as reading music on my primary instrument.