top of page

MUSIC 445W

MUSIC 445W, Capstone Experience in Secondary Band, is the final music education experience prior to student teaching.  In this course, taken in the Fall 2012 semester, I had the opportunity to work with Francis McBeth's Chant & Jubilo with the 9th grade band at State College Area High School, and Flourish for Wind Band with the Altoona High School Wind Ensemble.  These experiences provided me with valuable experience in lesson planning and execution in front of actual school students in an organic teaching environment. 

The "W" in MUSIC 445W stands for "Writing Across the Curriculum" - the focus in fulfilling this course requirement was to construct our own Unit Study Guide for a composition of our choice. The purpose for the guide is to create a template for a wholly encompassing experience for one particular composition for students in a high school concert band setting. I chose Fortress by Frank Ticheli as my focus for this unit study.

 

The Unit Study Guide covers content in separate director's and student's guides, addressing the information that is most important. The guide's intent is for any director, not just myself, to utilitze this to teach a wide range of musical concepts within the context of Ticheli's composition.

 

 

 

The guide is available for download here, and may be used without my permission.

bottom of page