Music as a Language - Reading Together - The Teaching of Voice Production and Songs

Home lists here some qualities that any children's choir teacher must have: vitality, an understanding of children, and a genuine love for music.

Music is a means of self-expression.
Home proposes that those who are in charge of making decisions about the structure of schools "should realize the real function of music in education - that it is not to be taken as a mere accomplishment, or technical art, but as a means of self-expression." (loc: 148)
If music then is a means of self-expression, how do we as music teachers help our students connect with this? Some ideas are to teach students how to do basic improvisations, to think about how music connects with and conveys lyrics, and to identify the mood that various music communicates.

Music education should be grounded in the classics.
Home also argues that in the same way that literature classes focus primarily on the classics, so also music classes should revolve around the classics. "Our reason is that the only way to create a standard of taste is to take our children to the classical fountains of prose and poetry. We must do the same in music." (loc: 195)

note: I'm reading this book from through my Kindle app, so quotations are shown by the location in the Kindle document.

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