Engaging Musical Practices - by Suzanne L Burton & Alison Reynolds (Paperback)

About the Book

In this book authors share their expertise and resources with music teachers who seek to confirm, renew, and extend their philosophies and practices in elementary general music.

Book Synopsis

In this book authors share their expertise and resources with music teachers who seek to confirm, renew, and extend their philosophies and practices in elementary general music.

Review Quotes

As I read this book, I pictured a whole team of wise and gracious experts in elementary general music here in my classroom with me, providing me with concise information on a range of topics and suggesting ways to enhance my teaching and my students' experiences. Engaging Musical Practices: A Sourcebook for Elementary General Music is a needed companion to existing writings on general music. In this work, the distinguished group of authors write with approachable and engaging style, ensuring this work will be accessible and applicable to practicing teachers and undergraduate music education students. The wide range of topics supports the breadth of work elementary general music teachers undertake, with chapters providing an ideal combination of philosophical foundations, clear explanations, specific lesson ideas, and practical considerations. This is essential reading for pre-service music education majors and general music educators, both those new to the profession and those looking to refresh their pedagogical practices and knowledge of the field.

Editors Burton and Reynolds have gathered together the key scholars and thinkers on teaching and learning in the elementary classroom who are able engage readers in strategies for moving, singing, playing instruments, listening, composing, improvising, and reading music with all children in developmentally appropriate ways. The work has a healthy grounding in research and scholarship with a writing style that is readable and practical. Each chapter keeps individual learner musicianship at the core and will be useful for elementary music teachers as well as preservice teachers and teacher educators.

Engaging Musical Practices is an important resource for elementary general music specialists, and music teacher educators. This comprehensive text puts musicking at the forefront of a child's music education while also considering how each child experiences music in their own culture and community. This inclusive approach empowers music educators to facilitate music making among all stakeholders in a child's life.

With one foot in two worlds, Engaging Musical Practices... (edited by Burton and Reynolds) blends source readings on tried-and-true topics of literacy and assessment with updates on current technologies and arts standards. Viewed with an eye towards fostering communal musicking, the wide variety of topics covered provides insight into the many ways and modalities in which children experience music. A "who's who" of leading thinkers, essayists, and scholars in the field, Engaging Musical Practices presents a valuable resource for practitioners, scholars, and administrators in elementary music education.

About the Author

Suzanne L. Burton, Ph.D., is Professor of Music Education, Director of Graduate Studies, and Program Director of Music Education at the University of Delaware where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music education and advises student research. She specializes in music development from early childhood through adolescence with scholarly interests in music literacy as well as music teacher preparation and professional development.

Alison M. Reynolds, Ph.D., is associate professor of music education, Presser Center for Research and Creativity in Music, in the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University. Her scholarship, teaching, and service focus on policy/advocacy, research, curriculum development, socially interactive music learning and development among learners from at least birth through 12 years of age, and guiding research and practice among preservice and in-service music teachers and future music teacher educators.