Instrumental Music Education Pedegogy - Class #6

Instrumental Music Education is a capstone pedagogy course for junior and senior instrumental music education majors preparing to lead a school band/orchestra program at any grade level, beginner through advanced — concert ensembles and marching band alike. Taught by Dr. Onsby C. Rose, this course draws on five foundational texts in the band-director profession, the course opens with the philosophical and organizational foundations of running a program, moves early into a dedicated marching band methods unit (since most programs’ fall semester starts with marching season), then continues through recruiting and teaching beginners, rehearsal technique and assessment, literature selection and student leadership, and finally to sustaining a healthy, lifelong career. Content that appears in more than one text (for example, classroom management or program communication, which are treated separately for high school and middle school in two of the assigned books) is taught once, as a single set of principles that the director adapts to any grade level. Because the field does not divide neatly by grade band, this course is organized by function — the things a director actually does — rather than by textbook chapter order. Students will leave the course with a working philosophy statement, a draft handbook excerpt, a marching-rehearsal observation report, a marching-unit content mastery check, a recruiting and instrumentation plan, a beginning-band lesson sequence, a rehearsal plan, an assessment plan, a concert program with a defensible rationale, and a personal plan for sustaining a long, healthy career in the profession.