nafmeadmin.
nafmeadminAnyone have any advice (or regrets) from your own experience with a new or old room?
nafmeadminTook a graduate course with Peter Boonshaft this summer. He advises against the ‘tiered seating’ design with different levels. Also, if you set up so that students are arched out and facing a corner instead of a front wall, it allows for easier storage of percussion, and more seating. Plus it gives you more flexibility to ‘mix it up’ with walking around the room, changing seating locations, etc.
nafmeadminLots of storage! As your band room goes through the various stages of planning, keep your presence known and check periodically to make sure that needed features aren’t suddenly subtracted. A friend was part of the process of building a new middle school, but didn’t keep on top of it, and by the end of the process his band room was half the size and the storage was almost all gone. Of course, that’s life in California at 48th in the country in education spending. It’s probably better where you are.
nafmeadminI agree that the tiered seating is a pain! I can’t fit in my room anymore because of the tiers they built here 30 years ago or something for a 30 piece band… And the percussion have no space on the top tier! I ended up switching my kids to going sideways on the tiers anyway because it wasn’t working. Maximize space as much as possible! Are you getting practice rooms? Make sure they have internet drops and a couple outlets… And get internet drops around your room, you never know when you’re going to want to switch up the “front” or if you need a computer hook-up somewhere near the timpani or something… I never had an opportunity to build a room, but we can all dream, right???!!! Haha!
Christopher M. Johnson, Professor of Music Education and Music Therapy, is currently the Chair of the Music Education and Music Therapy Department and Director of the Music Research Institute at the University of Kansas. Johnson earned his Ph.D. from the Florida State University.
Since his arrival at The University of Kansas, Johnson has taught courses in Instrumental Conducting, Teaching Instrumental Music, Managing Behaviors in the Music Environment, Psychology and Acoustics of Music, and Research Methods in Music Education and Music Therapy. Johnson served two terms as the editor of the International Journal of Music Education: Research, the research publication of the International Society for Music Education. He is currently serving his second term on the National Association for Music Educations Executive Committee of the Society for Research in Music Education. He also served on the editorial board of the Journal of Research in Music Education, and one earlier term as the Chair for the MENC Executive Committee of the Society for Research in Music Education. Johnson also served as the Chair for the Research Commission of the International Society for Music Education.
Johnson’s research interests include applied research in music education, and basic research in all aspects of the psychology of music. He has published articles in many journals including the Journal of Research in Music Education, the International Journal of Music Education, the Journal of Music Therapy, Journal of Band Research, Contributions to Music Education, and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, among others. Johnson has also been an active member and contributor to the Research Seminar of the International Society for Music Education and World Alliance for Arts Education.
Johnson received a university teaching award – the Ned N. Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching and received the recognition for Graduate Teaching Achievement from the Center for Teaching Excellence. Johnson was also awarded a lecturing & research award as a J. William Fulbright Scholar and recently received the Ella Scoble Opperman Citation for Distinguished Achievement from the Florida State University College of Music.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.