Bridging Music Worlds

Piano teacher Adrienne McKinney of Lexington, KY posted a comment to Greg Sandow’s blog that has generated some great ideas about how to bridge the gap between classical and not-classical music – inviting music students to bring in their favorite tunes for reworking or improvisation, giving them the vocabulary to communicate about what music means to them, teaching jazz and composition in addition to classical technique and repertoire.  I wrote in to suggest that From the Top’s PBS series has some terrific examples of kids’ doing these things (and enjoying it greatly).  What do you think?  How can we loosen up classical music teaching?  Should we?!

–Laura Breeden, Director of Education