201 | Unlocking the Repertoire-Based Curriculum Framework for Music Teachers

In this episode, Bryson introduces a fresh way of thinking about your curriculum by flipping the script: instead of hunting down songs to teach concepts, what if your repertoire guided the concepts you teach? He breaks down his Repertoire-Based Curriculum Framework: a practical, cyclical approach to choosing, organizing, and using high-quality music that’s both authentic and pedagogically powerful. Plus, Bryson shares how you can get hands-on with this approach in the free Repertoire Detective Challenge. If lesson planning ever feels like a hamster wheel, this episode might just be your off-ramp.

Episode Chapters:

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:33 Why repertoire matters in music education
• 3:47 The 5 key points of the Repertoire-Based Curriculum Framework
• 9:10 Why this framework is essential for effective teaching
• 10:30 The Repertoire Detective Challenge
• 11:38 Takeaways

Links and Resources: 

• The Elementary Music Summit®
• Elementary Newbie Guide
• Disabilities Guide
• Steady Beat Survival Guide
• Join Elementary Music EDGE™
• Join the Repertoire Detective Challenge

Have questions or want to share feedback? Reach out to us at hello@thatmusicteacher.com - we’d love to hear from you!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:33 Why repertoire matters in music education
• 3:47 The 5 key points of the Repertoire-Based Curriculum Framework
• 9:10 Why this framework is essential for effective teaching
• 10:30 The Repertoire Detective Challenge
• 11:38 Takeaways

Transcript

Bryson Tarbet: 0:00

What if you stopped looking for songs to teach a concept and instead figured out what concepts you could teach from a song? Let's talk about it. You are listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tart, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher in the elementary music summit. Each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found@thatmusicteacher.com. Welcome back to that music podcast. Today we're gonna be talking about something foundational and something that I truly believe can transform your elementary music classroom and bring you new life to your teaching. Which is your repertoire. Raise your hand if you ever felt like you either, A, don't have enough repertoire and you're just trying to find pieces to teach a concept, or B, you're drowning in resources and you're not sure how to pull out the ones that you really are really worth including in your curriculum. Regardless, we're gonna be talking a little bit today about what, what I call the repertoire based curriculum framework, which is just a fancy way of saying how we can make sure our repertoire is leading our curriculum. Rather than the other way around and stick around, because I'm gonna be telling you how you can dive deeper into this framework with a free hands-on challenge that'll turn you into a repertoire. Detective. So why does repertoire matter? I think it's really easy to understand this in a coral or an ensemble, a aspect of, you know, your repertoires, what you perform and your repertoire is, is you know, the vehicle that you use. To teacher concepts, but I think sometimes we forget that it's the same thing in the elementary music classroom too. The really, you know, the, it's beyond just songs. It's about making sure that you have the right songs, um, songs that are engaging, that you enjoy, that your students enjoy, songs that cover all of the concepts that you're supposed to cover. Um, ideally songs that can cover more than just one concept, so you're not just drilling a bunch of repertoire for one concept and then have to move right along. And it really. There's a correlation between the strength of your curriculum and how your. Your repertoire is supporting that your curriculum is really only gonna be as strong as the repertoire that you're including inside it. Um, because that quality repertoire is really the, the foundational bedrock of music teaching, right? If you have songs that you don't really enjoy. Raise your hand if you've ever had to teach out of a curriculum or a textbook series that you didn't really enjoy, but that's what you had to do. Um, I'm gonna get in trouble now. Uh, but that's really, that's the thing is like the students will know that when we are not really checked into it. Um, but then also there are things that even if we love, our students don't necessarily, and there needs to be that connection and that buy-in from. Everyone in the room or it's just not gonna work. Um, and making sure that, you know, kind of going off of that point, making student sure our students feel connected to the repertoire that we're using. Make sure they feel represented. Make sure they see new ideas. Make sure they see ideas that, that they already understand, you know, or they can connect to or, or make those connections to. Um, and really make sure that we understand that students are quite literally experiencing music. Through the repertoire that we are selecting. That's a lot of pressure If we don't choose good repertoire. Our students aren't really gonna have a great interaction with music, so let's do something about it and let's really make sure that we are building musicality through high quality repertoire. Like I said, I'm gonna be talking a little bit about how you can join us for a free challenge to dive deeper, but I wanna talk today about the five main points of the repertoire based curriculum framework. Uh, the repertoire based curriculum framework is. Exactly what it sounds like a framework, a lens, a way, you know, kind of a step-by-step approach, a cyclical approach to finding repertoire, pulling out all the bits and pieces, making sure it's worth including, and then putting it into your curriculum to make it work. Um, so step one is finding a reputable source. This is knowing where to look for quality music is, that's the first thing that you need to do. Um, so this could be print resources, online databases, or even other teachers that you've, you've known. You know, in previous episodes I was talking about, you know, last week I talked about some steady beat songs that I learned, uh, in my KO levels or in my elementary field placement. A lot of the songs that I used in my curriculum, I actually didn't find in a book until I needed to, to do my Kodi retrievals. I learned them. Through other music teachers. Now, I will say this as the cowe person, you know, talking to you right now, if you use folk songs, that's great, but I also don't feel like you need to, there are plenty of composed songs, um, like, quite frankly, apple Tree. I don't think it as a folk song. I think we've just kind of accepted it as as close enough. Um, but there are plenty of composed songs that are really engaging, that are a lot of fun that the students enjoy and have really good concepts. So don't feel like you need to get stuck in this will. There's no folk lore behind it. No. Finding a reputable source is whatever that means to you and your, your framework and your kind of understanding. It doesn't mean mean it needs to be from a folk song anthology. So this really takes a moment and kind of looking at the piece itself and say, all right, what are some of the concepts that are naturally visible in this piece, or naturally apparent or kind of really, really evident? So for me, I really like to think of it in three different categories, rhythmic stuff. Melodic stuff and all the other stuff, feel free to create your own categories, but for me, that's gonna cover all the mean bits and pieces, right? So, so in me, that's gonna be a melodic thing. Toss and tts, that's gonna be a rhythmic thing. If there's a repeat sign, great. That's a, I would include that in the other stuff. Um, but really kind of see what are all the things that you could use this song to teach. After that, I think it's really important to ensure authenticity. This is really crucial into making sure that the piece of music that we are including in our curriculum deserves to be there. Um, so first of all, make sure it's accurately representing its origins. So if it's a song that says it's from a per specific culture. Is it, um, because there are a lot that were composed in a way to quote unquote sound like a culture. Um, and it's really just appropriation. It's just, it's not from that culture. It's not from a composer of that culture. It's just supposed to give off those vibes, and I hate that. And there's so much good repertoire out there that is actually authentic. Don't include any of that. Find the stuff that is authentic and use that. Um, beyond that, making sure that it doesn't come from a hateful past. Um, we talked a lot about, um, folk stuff a little bit earlier. Um, the, the ugly truth that I think we all need to remember, especially if we're using um, north American folk songs, is a lot of them come from. Menstrual roots. So finding those, pulling them out and putting something else in there in its place that deserves to be there and has that merit of high quality repertoire that's not coming from a place of racism and hate. Step four is collecting and organizing, because it really doesn't matter if you have all these songs, if you don't know how to organize them so that you can use them. Um, let's be honest, we all have a little file folder or a drawer or something where we, we, when we go to our state, MEA conferences or when we go to things like a elementary music summit, we print everything out and then we put it in the store and then we never look at it again. I always called mine my folder of shame, um, because I never, I never looked into it. I always had wonderful hopes that I would go in and, and look at it, but I never did. Um, so fi, figuring out a way to organize your collection in a way that works for you is important. Obviously I have a full on Codi folk song collection that I did for my masters. Um, there's a lot to be said about what I learned doing that, but I also understand it's not for everyone. And quite frankly, as I add to it, I'm probably not gonna go into as in depth as I did in grad school. It's just the reality. So whatever works for you, whether it be physical, whether it be digital, whether it be a combination of the two, finding some way for you to collect and organize in them so that you actually remember what you have, so you stop reinventing the wheel every time you're looking for a song. Right? We've all been there, we've all found songs that we forgot about from 10 years ago, and we're like, oh, it totally was, I, I, I learned that at a conference and I was gonna use it, and then I never did. So finding a way to co, to collect it and organize it is really important. Lastly is putting it into action. So this is where we're going to take that high quality repertoire that you found, that you've already kind of vetted as you've gone along and put it into your lessons. Develop extension activities. So it's not just teaching a song and moving on, um, giving some low stress assessment so that we understand what our students do, do know, and need, need a little bit more support, really putting it into a place where it's not just, this is a song, learn it. Moving on. Really we're using it to get at those concepts to really get into the nitty gritty of those pieces, of those curricular concepts and really make them work. So why do I think the repertoire based curriculum framework is important? First of all, it really changed my life. Um, I developed this framework after being stuck on that hamster wheel of lesson planning, of needing to find more songs and for repertoire and, and. Not wanting to sit, looking at a blank lesson plan and, and really have. I wanted, I wanted something that I could use. I wanted something beyond my Kodi collection that was really practical and was built for the understanding of the, the students that were actually in front of me. Um, so that's why I kind of created this, this framework in the, the first place is because once I did this, it made my lesson planning go from. Maybe an hour for one 40 minute lesson plan to being able to pop out two to three lesson plans in an hour and even more sometimes, depending on the framework. And, and I think that is not without sacrificing lesson quality, let me be very clear, keeping that lesson quality super high, high, high, you know, engaging and the students are loving it and making active music. But I was able to be such more efficient in my planning time so that I stopped taking work home. You can too. And I really think that the repertoire based curriculum framework is an option to help you get there. This framework isn't just a theory, it is a practical process that you can implement in your classroom right away. And I have created the perfect way for you to get started, which is called the Repertoire Detective Challenge. I invite you to join our free challenge. Um, this challenge is gonna help you take you step by step through each of those par different parts of the framework, give you some action items. So by the end of it, you'll have the beginnings to a song collection that you can use in your classroom. You'll have the beginnings to a, an organized database so that when you're lesson planning, you're not starting from scratch. You already know what songs you can use to teach all the different things you need to teach. And we're gonna talk about how you can really take those songs. Put it into action. Develop extension activities so it's not just one and done. So you're gonna find all these gems and all the ways that you can understand their pedagogical potential, ensure their quality and authenticity, organize them for use in a hands-on, practical and designed specifically for you. Challenge. For elementary music teachers. So to join us for this free challenge, you're not gonna wanna miss it. Head on over to that music teacher.com/challenge to register for free and get started. We are kicking off soon, so you are not going to want to miss it. With that being said, I hope to see each and every one of you inside the Repertoire Detective Challenge. You can check out the show notes or description wherever you're listening or watching now for all the links. Um, and we would love if you would leave a review wherever you're watching or listening that not only helps us in the algorithm get in front of new music teachers. It helps us understand what you want more of, what you want less of, and when you want me to stop talking. With that being said, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of That Music podcast, and as always, thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of the students that you teach.