Kinda sounds like a mojito but without the punch (No Extra Liver Needed).

Aloha, everybody!

Believe it or not (and I’m totally flattered by this, btw), I have been asked on numerous times to teach my “famous” (or is it infamous?) 13 hour method of making kalua pig. So, I’ve finally decided to put together a short tutorial on how to go about making it. This method is tried-and-true; I’ve used it to serve over 500 pounds of kalua pig in the last 3 years. I think this tutorial should be pretty easy to follow, but in case you have any questions, please drop me an email at randywong@randywong.net!

Ingredients for Randy’s Famous 13 Hour Kalua Pig:

1. Pork butt, pork shoulder, or some other piece of pork with fat on it*

2. Water

3. Hawaiian-style “rock” salt or coarse Kosher salt

4. Liquid/hickory smoke flavor concentrate

5. A big deeeep roasting pan (two if you can)

6. An oven

How much pork should you buy to make kalua pig?

First, you need to know approximately how many people you are expecting, what type of event you are cooking/catering for, and what the context is of the kalua pig with the other menu items. Generally, a good rule of thumb is that the average person will eat anywhere from 1/4lb. of kalua pig, if it is served in conjunction with other items, such as a buffet line (i.e.: rice, poi, chicken long rice, laulau, curry stew, etc.). However, if the kalua pig is one of the only dishes (i.e., a dinner party with kalua pig/rice and vegetarian curry stew), people will be more apt to eat 1/3lb. - 1/2lb., or more if they are really hungry or homesick. Then, take into consideration that most cuts of pork have bones that are relatively heavy. If you are catering a large-ish event (100+ people), then you can opt towards having about 1/4lb. per person; not everyone will eat the kalua pig. For small gatherings (~30 people), I will usually buy about 15lbs., because I like to have extra to save for later.

I will now describe each step in making my 13-hour kalua pig.

The Trays

You need to get realllly deep trays. This is to collect the juices and steam the pork. You need to double the pans so that there is enough support to hold the pork (it’ll be really heavy).

The Pork

This is the raw pork. Notice the big slabs of fat on top. This is what you want, if you want juicy kalua pig. We’ll remove most of the fat later (after cooking) but for now, keep it on.

The Flavoring

Coarse Kosher salt is a good substitute for Hawaiian-style “rock” salt. It comes in a big box like the one pictured here. Liquid smoke concentrate usually comes in smallish bottles like the one at right. (Sorry for the blurriness picture).

Prepare & Season the Pork

Place pork in pan, with fat on top. Lightly sprinkle the Kosher salt over the pork and around the sides of the pan. Empty one capful (or less) of hickory smoke flavoring onto top of pork and around sides. Be careful; the smoke concentrate is very strong; a little goes a looong way!

Cover the Pork with Water

Cover the pork with water. Notice how the pork is mostly submerged; however there is at least one inch of space between water surface and top of pan. When you pour the water into the pan, pour some on the top of the pork to make it moist. You can add a little extra salt around the the pork if you want. The water and salt will steam the pork.

Prepare Pork for Cooking

Cover the pans tightly with foil. It is crucial that the foil be wrapped as tightly as possible; this will ensure that the meat stays moist and won’t dry out over the next thirteen hours. As tight as the foil has been wrapped, you still must be careful when loading the pans into the oven; these pans will be heavy with salty water, and cleaning up any spills will be a big mess.

Cook the Pork in the Oven

Preheat your oven to somewhere between 175-200 degrees Farenheit:

I know it sounds like a really low temperature, but trust me. You wanted the 13 hour method, didn’t you? …

Place the pork in the oven, and say “a hui hou” (until we meet again). Bon Voyage, dear pork, see you in 13 hours.

THIRTEEN HOURS LATER…

Take the pork out of the oven. It will be swimming in its own juices. Using two forks, wrestle free a chunk of pork and place it on the cutting board.

Start shredding the pork into threads as thin/small as you can, again using your two forks. If for some reason you encounter a tough section (typically whiteish in color), you will need to use extra caution and be sure to shred it as finely as possible. However, you likely won’t encounter any tough sections (unless the cut of pork is bad), due to the 13 hour duration of cooking. In my experience, the meat should be so tender that it literally falls of the bone and apart from itself. The color of the juiciest meat will typically be dark brown with a reddish tinge. You can leave some fat with the shredded meat, but remove all of the larger pieces, along with any bones or tendons. I collect these in a bowl to toss out later. The shredded meat should be placed back in the pan with the original juices. You can remove some of the juices, but the pork should essentially be saturated with its juices. Give it a taste, and decide if you want to add just a touch more salt. Extra hickory flavoring should never be added because the taste of the concentrate won’t blend well with the already-steamed pork.

After shredding, mix pork and juices by hand. This is also an excellent time to further refine the shreds, and to remove any pieces of fat, bone, or cartilege that you may have missed previously. If you are serving right away, you may want to quickly reheat the pork in the oven. If not, re-cover pans with foil and refridgerate or freeze. Reheat frozen pork at 350 degrees Farenheit for 15 minutes, and then dial temperature back down to 175-200 degrees. Refridgerated pork may be reheated directly at 175-200 degrees. Before serving re-heated pork, stir pan contents to even out mixture of pork and juices. If you plan to refridgerate pork and re-heat before serving, be sure to include an extra helping of juices - this will help keep the pork moist and fresh.

This recipe, text, and images copyright 2004 by Randy Wong.

I believe that bass study - and music learning, in general - should be a learner-centric process. Which means that I focus my instruction around what the student brings to the table, regardless of his/her age, ability, and past musical experience (if any). I believe that every student is unique and presents his/her own case for instruction. That said, I let the music that the student is working on dictate what technique s/he needs to develop. I am first and foremost interested in helping a student to develop his/her own natural musical intuitions and instincts, because it is these traits above all else that will guide the student along his/her own path of self-discovery as an emerging musician.

Once I have started to identify my students’ musical traits, I map out an individualized curriculum that I believe will help to strengthen and scaffold what skills need additional support. This scaffolding is not limited to building physical facility on the student’s instrument (i.e. double bass, if applicable) - it can also include the development of music literacy skills like improving a student’s fluency in music reading, dictation, aural skills, sight-singing and sight-reading using fixed-do Solfege, score reading using multiple clefs, various degrees of improvisation, and rhythm training. Each of these skill sets holds its own value as a tool in any musician’s toolkit, and I introduce these skills as appropriate to my students.

Music learning is one of the most natural forms of experiential learning. However, musicians not only learn through their own experimentation, but also through the critical analysis and reflective practices that take place when listening to themselves and one another. With this in mind, I try to structure my classroom teaching (whether in individual/private or group settings) with the following lesson criteria in mind:

• Listening. Students shall develop active listening skills, and be engaged in listening-focused activities (i.e., hearing performances by other musicians; listening to recordings of themselves or professionals).

 

• Questioning. Students shall be encouraged to ask questions about the subject material, and be taught the value and importance of asking such questions.

 

• Creative Work. Students’ work is at the forefront of their study, and is treated with the utmost respect. There are no mistakes, only opportunities for learning and improvement. In group settings, students are encouraged to share this philosophy, and participate/share their work with others as much as possible, thereby creating a safe environment for experimentation and learning. Additionally, improvisation and experimentation are both valued as important steps towards further development.

• Performing. Students are given the opportunity to perform what they’ve learned, both in the traditional definition (i.e. playing in formal settings like concerts and recitals) and in alternative contexts (i.e. teaching peers the intricacies of certain passage work, sharing lesson journals and notebooks with parents). Students recognize that performance opportunities are not an “end-all, be-all,” but rather milestones marking their individual learning explorations.

 

• Reflecting. Students are encouraged to reflect on lessons, work, and their own questions. This is often prescribed via journals and notebooks, but could happen informally within the lesson as well. Students become aware that their own thought processes are central in guiding them as learners.

• Documentation. Students are strongly encouraged to keep process-portfolios (”processfolios”) of their work throughout their study. Documentation can include reflective writing, recordings of concerts, practice tapes, practice logs/notebooks, comments from teachers, correspondence from parents, concert programs, lists of musical interests and activities, videos & photos of playing/practice, student compositions, repertoire lists, goal statements, statements of self-assessment, learning narratives, learning maps/webs, and more.

Teaching Contexts

I am most familiar/comfortable working in private (1-on-1) and semi-private (small group/sectional) contexts. As a private bass instructor, I have worked with students as young as 4th grade (10 years old) as well as adults.

Students come to me with varying degrees of musical experience: Some have had basic study on other instruments (i.e. flute, cello, or piano) but have never played bass; others have already studied bass in school or privately, and come to me looking for further development of their natural musical intuitions.

As a clinician, I have lead the Bass Workshop at the Hawaii Youth Symphony’s Pacific Music Institute for two years, where I have worked with students from age 14-18, and have also coached sectionals for various high school and college-age players. I have no pre-requisite level of experience for potential students; all I ask is that they set clear musical goals and stay committed to attaining those goals throughout their study with me.

I am currently available to teach a limited number of students in the Boston area. I am also available on an hourly basis as an educational consultant (frequently requested topics include: preparing for college music study/auditions; development of personal musical style; tutoring in music theory, aural skills, or music history).

Please contact me at randywong@randywong.net with your inquiry.

Hawaii Youth Symphony: www.hiyouthsymphony.org

Overview | Strategies | Rubrics | References

Most, if not all, of these books should be available at the NEC Bookstore (Music Espresso), located at 295 Huntington Avenue.

• Dandelot, Georges. Manuel Pratique: Pour L’Etude Des Cles Sol Fa Ut. Editions Max Eschig: Paris, 1928.

• Dannhauser, A. Solfege des Solfeges, Book III. J. H. Cornell, Trans. G. Schirmer: Milwaukee, 1891.

• Weber, Alain. Soixante Lecons de Lecture Rythmique, 1st Cahier. Editions Musicales Alphonse Leduc: Paris, n. d.

• Rueff, Jeanine. Etudes D’Intervalles: 18 Lecons de Solfege. Editions Musicales Alphonse Leduc: Paris, 1964.

• Bach, Johann Sebastian. Chorales.

• Ottman, Robert W. Music for Sight Singing. Prentice Hall: New Jersey, 1996.
• Thomson, William. Advanced Music Reading. Belmont: California, 1969.

Overview | Strategies | Rubrics | References

I created these rubrics for use with Larry Scripp’s courses on Solfège. More on the development of these rubrics, and other assessment strategies later.

• Note Reading Rubric
• Melody Singing Rubric
• Rhythm Reading Rubric

This section will serve as a guide primarily for students who are enrolled in Solfege classes with Larry Scripp, for whom I was a Teaching Assistant at New England Conservatory. I’m including some help for each of the main areas of Solfège study: Melody reading, rhythm decoding, practice methods, and note reading by pattern.

In Solfege 4, the exercises we learned are much more complicated than simple major/minor melodies. Sometimes, the key signature would have little to do with the example at hand. Students in Solfege 4 encountered modal melodies (with either the basic key signature with accidentals, a different key signature with lots of accidentals, or no key signature at all), interval-based melodies (Rueff etudes), or melodies that switched keys every two or three bars (Dannhauser, books III and IV).

This example is from Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony no. 2, “The Age of Anxiety.” (Taken from the Contemporary Melodies Course Packet, page 42). Here, there is no printed key signature, but the melody (Voice 1) doesn’t look like it’s in C Major or A minor, either. So, the question arises, “What key do I warm up in?”

Ok, for those people familiar with their modes, the answer is Phrygian (think: Major scale, starting on its 3rd scale degree), but of course, not everybody has their modes memorized, let alone performance-ready. So the next step, I think, is to identify a conceptual frameset from which to work.

I try to find two notes in the example from where the melody seems to be rooted, which sometimes simply means, “which two notes appear the most,” but not always, especially if the two most often occurring notes are close in interval. In this example, however, the two notes I chose are E and B, a perfect fifth apart. Then, with my two chosen notes, I take a look at what other notes are frequent, try to decide which (if any) I would leave out when first reading through the melody, and consequently devise a warm-up.

The notes I most often leave out of a read-through are the ones that aren’t diatonic to the scale/mode/tonality I’ve warmed up in. Luckily, there are hardly any non-diatonic notes in this melody. I look at the melody especially for half-steps, for places where a note might act as a leading tone to the one following it. Here, both the E and the B act as leading tones, in a way. E is often followed by F-natural, and B is often followed by C-natural. All the other notes that occur (G, A, D) are in whole step relations. By assembling a scale from the notes … E, F-natural, G, A, B, C, D, E, I see that I have an E natural minor scale, without the F#; my warm up can be based around E natural minor, as long as I’m sure to flat the second scale degree.

This sort of method works fine, as long as there aren’t too many accidentals in the melody. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. But what happens if there are accidentals in the melody, and not just accidentals of one kind (sharps or flats), but both kinds?

This was the first intervallic etude studied in class. The real focus, however, is not simply on intervals, but actually on referential tuning. The key here is not necessarily even in the warm-up, but actually on figuring out what notes are tuning to what. Enharmonically, a G-flat and a F-sharp may be written the same way, depending on the composer’s inclination, but sonically, the two notes can (and will) sound very differently. The F-sharp will sound often sound as a leading tone to G, thus raising it slightly. The G-flat, on the other hand, will sound closer to F than it does to G, because it is the flatted 2nd scale degree (Neapolitan scale degree) of F-major/minor. I tend to think to myself that when I’m ascending, the scale will be brighter, and when I’m descending it will sound darker, to aid in the intonation. (An aside: String players think of this concept as expressive intonation. Cellist Pablo Casals explored this idea thoroughly, as did violinist Joseph Szigeti.)

Larry stresses three criteria for pattern reading in music: Continuity, Exclusivity, and Proximity. Here I’ll give a short demonstration of how one would mark patterns based on these criteria; the circles around the noteheads in the example above represent such pattern reading. The patterns that will be discussed here are visual ones; even someone with little
or no musical training could be easily taught to mark patterns.

Starting on the second notehead, the first pattern is based on thirds, both ascending and descending. Patterns can be continuous, regardless of direction. I consider the first notehead to be its own “pattern,” because it does not connect intervallically with the thirds pattern that follows it. The next two groups are both thirds as well, but are not considered
to be part of the same group (or even as part of the second group) because of the major second that separate them. I tend to mark groupings that transverse across note beams, rather than marking groups that fall under the same beaming; for me, my eye will automatically read beamed notes as groups, so I like to mark patterns separate from that.

“I thought I was on singing on track, but when I checked with the piano, I found myself to be a half-step sharp/flat.”

In most cases, I’ve found that people (myself included) tend to be on the flat side, rather than the sharp side. From a psychological standpoint, I think this occurs because if the performer loses energy or concentration when singing; the melody becomes bland and loses its focus, expressive intonation, rhythmic articulation, etc. From a physical standpoint, Dr. Scripp has told me that (especially for non-singers, like myself) the performer needs to start each syllable with a little more aspiration; more air and energy will help give life to the syllable and brightness to the phrase. Quite often, I’ll make small suggestions to the performer to help him/her keep his/her focus on the Solfege task clear: “Try singing your half-steps and whole-steps with a little more integrity, to keep them clear,” is one that I find I have to say frequently.

“Ack! Triplets and duplets in the same measure? What do I do???”

Ok, calm down. There are really only two kinds of rhythms in the world, those based around twos, and those based around threes. Composer/conductor Gunther Schuller suggests that the difference be remembered this way: Duple meters/rhythms are stately, feel fairly stable and static, as in a march. Triple meters/rhythms, however are the opposite; they flow, like water in a river. Even in slow tempos, they feel like they are slightly moving ahead, such as in one of Strauss’s (Johann, not Richard) waltzes. Both duple and triple meters/rhythms can have dance-like feels, however.

Mathematically, the difference between a triplet and a duplet lies in the second tuplet of each.The musical answer, then is that in order to make clear which is a duplet and which is a triplet, one has to make some sort of articulational distinction. The common tendency is to hurry a triplet group, and slow down a four sixteenth-note group. In class, Dr. Scripp suggested that we think of triplets as broader figures, as if there were a tenuto marking underneath the second note in the triplet rhythm, thus lengthening it (and the note following it) so much that it couldn’t possibly be misconceived as a duplet figure. In response to the other concern, of the four sixteenth-note group, the answer would be to slightly accent, and place, the second sixteenth-note.

In class, Stop Method is used mostly during note-reading exercises (such as in Dandelot) that involve awkward (such as baritone, mezzo-soprano, or alto) or multiple clef changes. In all practicality, however, Stop Method can be used even when one is practicing on his/her instrument. In fact, all the techniques I shared over the course of the semester can be applied to one’s personal practice routine.

B. Go-Ahead Method

Go-Ahead Method is the antithesis of Stop Method. Whereas Stop Method advocates the performer to stop as much as is needed, Go-Ahead Method pushes the performer to run right through whatever is heckling him/her.

C. Some Misconceptions about Stop and Go-Ahead Methods

Some people argue that Stop Method doesn’t teach you to read ahead, and that that is the merit of Go-Ahead Method. Actually, this thought is contrary to what Stop Method actually does; because the performer needs to stop before s/he makes a mistake, s/he MUST read ahead. Similarly, Go-Ahead Method doesn’t necessarily make one perform at any less of a standard than someone who performs using Stop Method: The performer who uses Go-Ahead Method doesn’t need to go-ahead at lightening-fast speeds; tortoise speeds are fine, as long as s/he goes-ahead.

The Artist-Teacher-Scholar (A-T-S) framework and Learning Through Music (LTM) teaching strategies guided me as I journeyed to China over Summer 2002, to teach English as a Second Language at South Ocean School Dalian’s Intensive English Immersion Camp, and as an emissary of American culture and Western teaching.

My China trip allowed me the unique opportunity to simultaneously implement the A-T-S framework and Learning Through Music model with students who had most likely never encountered their equivalents; in fact, the camp’s administration specifically wanted Western teachers who could teach using non-traditional methods.

I engaged English Language Learners at the South Ocean School Dalian in Dalian China in classroom activities that use my Learning Through Music principles and practices in conjunction with their language arts studies.
(Photo by Alan Yang)

One of the most interesting transformations my students and I observed were the elimination of accents from phonetic pronunciation in their English. Most of my students, since they were taught by non-native English speakers, came to camp with severe accents. But when we practiced singing simple conversational phrases, using familiar melodies, their foreign accents began to disappear. And disappear they did, as we took steps further by gradually eliminating the pitch element, so that their phrases really did become understandable. I also experimented with composing melodies that matched the conversational tonality of each phrase; for example, question phrases were marked by rising contours. Because my students’ overall English proficiency ranged from zero to moderate, implementing the Learning Through Music teaching model and A-T-S framework was not only helpful, but highly appropriate.

While observing classes taught by Nellie Yang, my Chinese co-teacher (who herself is an ESL teacher at the Qingdao School, a sister school to the Dalian School that I taught at), and other Chinese teachers at the school, I noticed that students were barely given the opportunity to speak out during class - few, if any questions were asked by the teacher; if a question was asked, a simple “yes” or “no” response would do, and hardly anything more. Certainly, the Five Processes of Learning (Listening, Questioning, Creating, Performing, Reflecting) central to the Learning Through Music philosophy were not present.

I encourage classroom students to approach music learning through multiple arts domains and entry points. Students in this picture are working together to build “log” cabins in an activity that helps to make concrete a metaphor linking musical forms with English grammar and sentence construction - and also ties in with a unit on American history in which students learn about colonial America through traditional songs. (Photo by Randy Wong)

By nature, I made it a point to invoke the Five Processes as often as I could - at least to me, lecturing all day about how English should be spoken couldn’t possibly be engaging, let alone useful. As I anticipated, my teaching methods were initially met with hesitation, both from my students and my co-teacher. After my first teaching period, Nellie approached me in the hall, and asked “Why do you ask the students so many questions? They think that if you ask so much, you yourself must not know any answers. And me, if I ask them questions, I don’t know what they will say. Maybe many things that I do not want to hear.” (Ironically, this response was one that I was hoping not to hear; nevertheless, I continued asking my students questions which required them to respond after thinking for themselves).

Apparently, reflective writing was not among the strongest facets of my Chinese students either. When I first handed out journal forms and explained the idea of keeping daily learning diaries, I was faced with a classroom of students who: a) were stunned that I, their teacher, was interested in what they had to write, and b) consequently had no idea what to do or say. One student stood up and said, “Thank you, Teacher”; his peers sat, wooden and silent. Eventually, one of my best students, Amanda Shi Yan-ru, broke the silence and scribbled a few words on her journal form. “Here, Teacher: I wrote, “Today we learned about America.’ ” As she finished, I could hear all the other students quickly write on their journals. “Great,” I exclaimed, “I’m glad that Shi Yan-ru has inspired you all to have something to write.” But as I glanced at papers on desks around the room, I discovered that each of Amanda’s peers had merely copied down what she had said.

For the remaining weeks, I made valiant attempts to ensure that my students would be exposed to as much of the Five Processes as I could. Because I was in the classroom with my students every day from 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. (!), we had plenty of opportunities to practice reflective writing and critical thinking. I also made it a point to have several listening sessions, in which we would sit in a circle (unheard of, apparently, in China); I would play a variety of recordings of solo, chamber, orchestral, vocal, folk, and jazz/contemporary music for them; I would ask them to draw something depicting what was played; and we would discuss our listening experiences.

• Sample Lesson Plan: State Culture Class on “The Commonwealth of Massachusetts”

• Sample Lesson Plan: Language/Culture Class on “American Slang”

Overview | Strategies | Rubrics | References

I first started studying fixed-do Solfège at the age of three, under the tutelage of my piano teacher Jackie Darvill. Solfège (sometimes referred to by its Italian name Solfeggio) is a French pedagogical tool used to help musicians discriminate and articulate pitches and rhythms by ear and voice. It is sometimes a method for attaining what’s known as “perfect”/”absolute” pitch, and also for training musicians’ ability to hear pitch qualities in comparison to one another (what’s known as “relative pitch”).

At New England Conservatory, all undergraduate students are enrolled in a four-course sequences of classes that give instruction in Solfège.

From the NEC Academic Catalog:

This four-course sequence develops essential music skills. You will attain fluency in sight singing and sight reading through a fixed-do pedagogy, where the focus is on problem solving in performance instead of memorizing materials. Solfège and rhythmic development are measured by sight singing drill and practice in class, and exams. Appropriate clefs are used to negotiate various transpositions. Aural development is measured through daily drill and exams. Competence in each semester is demonstrated by passing a departmental exam.

As an undergraduate classical bass performance major, I took all the Solfège classes offered by the Conservatory - not so much because I “needed” to take them for credits or curriculum requirements, but more because I was interested in learning about how the courses would be taught. Because after all, I couldn’t honestly remember how I had learned to sight-sing, or remember intervallic relationships between notes, since I had done it so early on in my musical training.

In many ways, my interest in learning about the methods and theory of Solfège teaching was my first major entry point into the realm of education. I say this because, even from my first Solfège classes at NEC, I was able to focus on observing how classes were taught and what strategies were being used. In my sophomore year at NEC, I took Solfège from Dr. Larry Scripp, who was both the director of the Music-In-Education program, and also a founding father of the way Solfege is currently taught & assessed at the Conservatory. That same year, Larry asked me to help him as a Teaching Assistant for his Solfège classes, and I’ve been working in similar capacities since.

I’ll be detailing some of his teaching strategies here, perhaps as a reference for other students who take his classes, and also posting rubrics and worksheets that I have developed.

I have always been intrigued about what makes teaching and learning “grab” and engage an individual. For me, this feeling came very early on; from a childhood experience with Mongolian yurts, to my advanced musical studies, my experiences with teaching and learning have been memorable and intense. As a high school student, I desired to take difficult classes, even when I knew that my final grade wouldn’t reflect what I had actually learned that semester. So when bass playing became my passion, and classes and homework seemed to create an insurmountable challenge, I was faced with a dilemma:

How could I use my performance artistry to enhance my learning in the classroom?

My first venture into the investigation of learning processes came as part of a class I was taking at New England Conservatory (where I earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Classical Double Bass Performance), taught by Dr. Larry Scripp. The class, an introductory course for NEC’s Music-In-Education program, opened my eyes to the importance of three concepts: process-based learning; Learning Through Music, a music-oriented approach to teaching using hands-on, interactive methods; and, most importantly, the notion of the conservatory student as an evolving Artist-Teacher-Scholar (A-T-S).

Although I am hardly a stranger to process-based or interactive learning methods, the way in which NEC’s Music-In-Education program framed these concepts helped me to bring more focus to my own efforts in teaching, learning, researching, and performing. Over the course of the past two years, I participated in several opportunities to implement my ideas in schools, both public and private, domestic and abroad.

The Artist-Teacher-Scholar framework presented me with opportunities I had never imagined possible; at NEC, performance majors are encouraged to teach subjects other than their instrument because the Artist-Teacher-Scholar model challenges students to find ways to link their performance artistry with scholarship and teaching.

A key example of this is a fellowship NEC gave me in Spring 2002 to teach Solfege at the Boston Arts Academy (BAA), a public high school near Fenway Stadium. Because it seemed that Solfege (a very traditional form of music pedagogy) would have no room for innovation, I found myself wondering, “how do I engage urban high school students in a centuries-old tradition of teaching music literacy?”

I found an answer when I experimented with a juxtaposition of Solfege with urban hip-hop music (like that by Jennifer Lopez, Eminem, and A Tribe Called Quest). Often, the class and I explored how bass, drum, synthesizer, and vocal tracks on pop tunes interact with one another harmonically and structurally, the same way that violins, violas, and cellos do in a string quartet or a Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and a Baritone does with a Bach Chorale. One of my favorite memories was a class in which we had dug head first into learning each of the rhythm section tracks in Solfege, explored how conventional Bach-like voice leading principles were followed, and then took the next step by improvising melodies that used the same voice-leading but sounded different. With my bass in hand, I accompanied my students as they spontaneously composed their own arrangements of Jennifer Lopez’s hit, “If You Had My Love” - not bad, if I may say, for students who previously had never had lessons in Solfege, improvisation, or composition. My experience at BAA, although only a semester long, demonstrated to me that teaching from a performance background can only help to further one’s teaching and learning experiences; for example, the importance of Bach’s voice leading rules, in order to be truly understood, need to be applied in a concrete way.

The Artist-Teacher-Scholar framework guided me as I journeyed to China in 2002, to teach English as a Second Language at South Ocean School Dalian’s Intensive English Immersion Camp, and as an emissary of American culture and Western teaching.

My China trip allowed me the unique opportunity to simultaneously implement the Artist-Teacher-Scholar framework and Learning Through Music model with students who had most likely never encountered their equivalents; in fact, the camp’s administration specifically wanted Western teachers who could teach using non-traditional methods.

One of the most interesting transformations my students and I observed were the elimination of accents from phonetic pronunciation in their English. Most of my students, since they were taught by non-native English speakers, came to camp with severe accents. But when we practiced singing simple conversational phrases, using familiar melodies, their foreign accents began to disappear. And disappear they did, as we took steps further by gradually eliminating the pitch element, so that their phrases really did become understandable. I also experimented with composing melodies that matched the conversational tonality of each phrase; for example, question phrases were marked by rising contours. Because my students’ overall English proficiency ranged from zero to moderate, implementing the Learning Through Music teaching model and Artist-Teacher-Scholar framework was not only helpful, but highly appropriate.

The Artist-Teacher-Scholar framework has guided me in one other way as well - scholarship. Both my teaching experiences at BAA and in China, in addition to the hands-on/interactive foci, allowed me to do extensive research regarding how students respond to multiple methods of teaching and learning. For example, at BAA, I made sure that the entire experience was documented by requiring that all my students keep journals of their learning; for me, journal writing has always been a key part of any successful teaching/learning experience. Initially, when I agreed to teach at BAA, I was more interested in the overall teaching experience, and had never anticipated being so intrigued by students’ journal entries; by the time the end of my internship came, I was also interested in teaching as a method of research.

These research interests have stayed with me throughout my student career, and have influenced me to continue my research at NEC, under the auspices of the Research Center for Learning Through Music and the Music-In-Education National Consortium. At NEC, the most viable way for me to look at the documentation of engaged learning was to review student portfolios from Solfege and Music-In-Education classes that I assist. Teachers at the Conservatory use these portfolios as another method of assessing student learning. My research, however, has led me to focus on how the same student portfolios can also act as teacher preparation tools for students who are interested in teaching; a topic completely relevant to my own life.

The overall diversity of my teaching and learning experiences has helped in shaping my outlook on what it means to be a responsible, engaging educator. As a result, I felt that the Arts-in-Education (Master’s) program at HGSE would be a good match for me because its flexible curriculum allowed me the opportunity to immerse myself in a similarly diverse learning environment, all while supplementing the conservatory education I have already had with classes focused specifically on arts-in-education. While at HGSE, I found my interests particularly lay in the work of Jessica Davis, because of her dynamic perspectives on children as artists, and her views of schools that use the arts for passion and industry; Steve Seidel, whose current research with Harvard Project Zero and The Evidence Project serves as a great model for my own research on portfolios and their usefulness for teacher preparation; and the work of Howard Gardner, whose theory of multiple intelligences can/does contribute to engaged learning through the arts; that is, examining the extent to which one can integrate it with the Learning Through Music and Artist-Teacher-Scholar models that I am already familiar with.

• Exploring Initation Through The ‘Other’: Cultural Variety Through Tiki & Exotica

  Download PDF or read online here. 

• Evolution of Pre-Professional Portfolio Assessment for New England Conservatory’s Music-In-Education Concentration 

  Download PDF  or read online here.

• Data and Documentation Collection Methods for Music-In-Education Interns

  Download PDF or read online here.

• Evolving Social Roles and Contexts for Portfolio Assessment

  Download PDF or read online here.