Jazz Education For All Students: The Radio Hour for Developing

by John Kuzmich, Jr.

Beginning in the 1920s, jazz developed far beyond its New Orleans point of origin and quickly became a cultural phenomenon throughout the USA. And it developed early into a world-music with trans-Atlantic distribution of its recordings. Jazz education also evolved from its initial "industry" (such as publication, as initiated by Kendor Music in 1952) into highly-regarded jazz instruction and college degree programs of the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond.

Today, jazz education in the general music classroom is going through a significant development stage with the coordination of The Radio Hour, an interactive Internet instruction program pioneered by Steven Chetcuti in the Somers Central Schools in Somers, N.Y. Simply stated, general music instruction will never be the same again. This web site combines instruction and assessment through interactive modes including call charts of audio recordings, Flashcard builders/animators, interactive crossword puzzles, and testing. The "Ten Commandments for All Music Instruction!" is the philosophy behind how jazz education is being utilized on this wonderful site:

Rule #1: MUSIC IS FOR EVERYONE!
Rule #2: Music should be listened to.
Rule #3: Music should be discussed.
Rule #4: Music should be analyzed.
Rule #5: Music should be moved to.
Rule #6: Music should be created.
Rule #7: Music should be shared.
Rule #8: Music should be connected to history.
Rule #9: Music should be researched.
Rule #10: When you have a tough day, refer to rule #1.

These Ten Commandments are offered for creatively meeting the needs of students and teachers alike. Believe it or not, a traditional jazz-performing ensemble might not necessarily comply with these Ten Commandments. With a model curriculum like The Radio Hour and a performance ensemble, a general music class can meet these goals of instruction realistically, since they are available for implementation rather than "theory." With the versatile means of instruction over the Internet, teachers can view and use this curriculum beyond any words I can describe. Many teaching standards are well defined and covered, especially performing, composing, analytical listening, and understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts. See The Radio Hour web site for more.

The Radio Hour is an exemplary teaching environment comprised of four separate online curriculums that comprehensively cover contemporary music, including classical, jazz, rock, and the evolution of black music in America. Built on the concept of a radio broadcast, it has a myriad of teaching activities with lesson plans that can ignite any teacher beyond the simple presentation of information. Through this unique curriculum, it is possible to organize class periods into a creative learning environment for sharing, learning, creating, inspiring, improvising, moving, performing, discussing, and making connections to history and society. In this learning environment, the student, not the teacher, is truly the core of instruction.

The Real World of Music Education!
Have you ever taught a general music class with jazz ingredients and a systematic approach to lesson plans, resources, and audio/visual instructional materials? Whether you answered yes or no, it can be quite a challenge since there are so many individual resources to utilize. Steven Chetcuti has successfully provided materials and ideas for classroom teachers who are not necessarily jazz oriented. His curriculum and teaching methodology will get the students into the cultural phenomenon of the people, the places of origin and development, the music, the art, the dynamics and history of the society, and most important of all, how it all fits together. In addition, the national social studies standards are now adopting social and society connections rather than just historical content, and jazz history certainly fits into this social studies model. (For more, see www.socialstudies.org/standards/teachers.) Performance-oriented teachers can likewise augment their curriculum with in-depth historical perspectives involving musicianship behaviors.

Meet The Radio Hour and Jazz: America's Music 1900-1980!
The Radio Hour is an interdisciplinary curriculum that integrates research, technology, creative writing, improvisation, movement, and visual music analysis to produce a history-based radio broadcast connecting music and world events. It consists in two segments: detailed instruction materials with student and teacher notes, and an extensive web site that allows one to supplement significantly the classroom. Below is a schematic that outlines the versatile parts of its courseware.

Students attend the first day of class and receive a 120-page notebook that vividly presents the instruction as outlined by 30 headings. Units of instruction include early jazz, swing, bebop, post bop, harmonica, The Radio Hour Broadcast Projects, individual projects, and video review. The object of the video review unit is to bring famous jazz musicians into the class when "live" performances are not available.

All lesson plans are incorporated in the curriculum right from the very first day, and the lesson plans are detail-oriented. All tests are included as Flashcard software review presentations, and all recordings are available at www.itunes.com at $.99 per tune. Although this is an additional expense to the curriculum, this conveniently eliminates the need to research where and if the recordings are still available. Plus, the recordings all feature jazz luminaries. All students will learn to play the harmonica for the purpose of playing improvised solos. Students are also encouraged to bring in their school band and orchestra instruments for learning about improvisation on them as well. There's even a 50-page teacher's manual with all the lesson plans, instructional forms, answers, and an in-depth appendix.

The dynamic of the class is that students participate vigorously in a myriad of learning activities that go far beyond the lecture presentation. Because of the interactive web-based Internet instruction and assessment activities, it is estimated that the teacher saves about 25 days of class time and is able to teach other things more in-depth.

The heart of the instructional curriculum are call charts that present the elements of music composition parameters to students with graphic illustrations and synchronized audio linkage, guiding and directing students to a new world of musical understanding.

For each chart, students will 1) identify artists, title, style, idiom and form, 2) verbally identify significant musical events in the piece, 3) visually identify the function of each musical event by unique coloring (e.g., blue for introductions, interludes, and codas; yellow for themes, etc.), and 4) collect additional information about the artist or song. Students not only learn about the jazz repertory of jazz greats, but they also create their own radio station for reporting on the news (national, international, social, and sports). They interview musicians, create jingles for commercials, and devise slogans that connect products and sponsors.

Students must script the entire show from the research assignments in the workbook and present all research articles in their broadcast. Students evaluate their peers for each group presentation.

Individual projects delve into some really exciting endeavors. These projects reinforce the presented material through improvisation, movement, creative writing, puzzles, and video reviews. There are some important issues central to these learning activities that focus on research, composing and performing a blues song, ballroom, swing, or sock-hop dancing, creating a poem or song about jazz, and writing a comparative essay or personal call chart. Drawing from the ballroom dancing of the swing era, students can learn basic steps, and create and present a choreographed project. Other activities include review puzzles and contemporary call chart critiques. Students also create their own trading cards (much like baseball cards) as an intermediate step between individual research and the radio broadcasts.

Samples of open theme essays can be heard at: www.theradiohour.net/student%20work/studentwork.htm. Engaging on-line crossword puzzle samples can be seen at www.theradiohour.net/puzzles.htm.

Harmonica Instruction: Gateway to Improvisation!
No matter how successful general music instruction can be, students have to perform and improvise in order to truly experience jazz. Although there are other options (guitars are not cheap and not everybody can sing in-tune or well), harmonicas are very inexpensive; and it is possible to use them for improvisation, as serious "chops" are not needed. The Radio Hour treats harmonica as a legitimate instrument for the blues, in the crossharp style (the harmonica is pitched a fifth below the rhythm section). The harmonica lessons cover: dealing with the harmonica, care of the harmonica, holding it, producing a sound, advanced techniques (vibrato, bending, rips, and riffs), and combining skills. You must listen to some Somers Middle School, students playing hot, improvised solos and scat singing at:
www.theradiohour.net/student%20work/studentwork.htm.

Interactive, Coordinated Web Site
The Radio Hour's web site is incredible in how it supplements daily instruction. It is loaded with interactive instruction, assessment, and related activities. Constantly upgraded, the resources are all linked to the unit pages, and students have direct links to www.allmusic.com, which also eliminates needs for browsing the Internet for further information. Teachers' resources are likewise very powerful in providing many valuable reference materials for further augmenting the detailed lesson plans. Anybody teaching contemporary music will find www.theradiohour.net to be a first-class web site for improving his or her teaching.

Bonus Materials: PowerPoint Presentations and Electronic Gradebook
With the purchase of each curriculum, members have access to ready-made PowerPoint presentations that cover everything from back-to-school night to an introduction to harmonica, and include an overview for each unit of the curriculum purchased. A teacher's manual with lesson plans and discussion questions for each slice of the presentation is included as well. There is no need to have PowerPoint installed on your computer. A unique feature of these presentations is that they are converted into Flash format and can be played on any computer with a web browser.

Another unique bonus to the curriculum is the free electronic gradebook included in each curriculum that works within a spreadsheet such as Excel, Quattro Pro, or Lotus. The advantage of having this electronic gradebook is that all assignments and tests are already designated in the gradebook, and all you have to do is input the grades and dates for each assignment for each student. It is also a great organizer for lesson plans.

Closing Comments
In closing, The Radio Hour is an exemplary interdisciplinary curriculum resource because it actively incorporates writing broadcasts (English-creative writing), historical connections, fads (social studies), movement (physical education), research (media skills), broadcast time sheets (math /organization), presentation of broadcasts (public speaking), and combining pre-recorded broadcasts (technology). And best of all, it is available for use by all music educators in both classical and contemporary music to help students become "active listeners," and consequently, better consumers of music in their adult lives. It is available in three editions: 1) a free version (the web site), 2) fee version 'a' – the web site plus 120 pages, and 3) fee version 'b' – the web site plus 150 pages.

In addition, the recordings are all available on-line from Music Store at www.itunes.com at $.99 each, which eliminates the need for searching for the recordings. One of the fee-based versions is available for $250 for a PDF copy that allows the teacher to print and copy all student notebooks and distribute them without limitation, along with an extensive teacher's appendix with lesson plans printed, PowerPoint, electronic forms, and an electronic gradebook. The second fee edition (priced at $350) is identical to the above version except everything is printed out in a notebook setting, with no Internet downloading required. Once you have purchased the curriculum, any of the other curricula can be upgraded at a 50% discount.

For V.I.P. hands-on insight about the software programs used to comprise The Radio Hour, you can read an in-depth article of mine at www.sbomagazine.com from the August, 2006 issue. If you are interested in other creative multimedia general music applications that incorporate jazz, see: Jazz for Young People Curriculum by Wynton Marsalis, published by Alfred Publishing, and reviewed in the June, 2005 issue of the Jazz Educaiton Journal in the "Survey of New Teaching Materials" column, and Music! Its Role and Importance In Our Lives, by George DeGraffenreid, Charles Fowler, Timothy Gerber, and Vincent Lawrence, published by Glencoe McGraw-Hill.

Publishers and manufacturers who have innovative products with jazz education applications for possible review in the Watch Out! column are encouraged to contact me at 13888 W. 3rd Place, Golden, CO 80401 USA or at John Kuzmich's home page.