Amy Giddings
Submitted photo
Classical MPR's Teacher Feature highlights the lives and work of music teachers throughout Minnesota.
Amy Giddings
K-6 Music Specialist
North Shore Community School
Duluth, Minn.
What grade level(s) do you teach? What types of music classes do you teach?
I teach K-6 general music classes. In general music, we practice all the foundation concepts of music (steady beat, rhythm, melody, form, dynamics, tempo, etc.) through songs and games. It is a unique challenge we specialists experience to teach the range of students from kindergarten through sixth grade, but I love getting to know my students so well over the years and, as a person who thrives on variety and not repetition or tradition, teaching all seven grade levels every week is wonderful. I appreciate and enjoy each age for different reasons. My students and I are also fortunate to have classroom sets of beautiful xylophones and metallophones, world percussion instruments, as well as guitars for each student. One of our state standards in music is to have students accompany their own singing voices with classroom instruments, and I love that we can do this with the quality, beautiful sounds of mallet instruments and guitars.
Do you direct any ensembles? If so, which ones?
Over the years I have done different 'special' groups besides classroom music. Over the years, I have had drum ensembles, choirs, Stomp groups, and have had a couple of very memorable Medieval Feasts! Huzzah! I have also taught beginning band throughout my career. I am really lucky to have those different experiences with kids. When I was teaching band and general music and offering a special group, there were many students I saw every day for some kind of music experience. Not many elementary music teachers can say that — I know how lucky I was to get to know students so well at the elementary level. I do a little operetta in first grade every year. This is very often these little ones' first experience with a stage, a solo, using a microphone, being in front of an audience, wearing a costume — that's a really big deal to a 6-year-old, and I love giving them this experience.
Do you participate in music outside the classroom?
I sing year-round with the Echoes of Peace choir — a community choir with a mission, directed by singer-songwriter Sara Thomsen. As my schedule has allowed, I have also sung with the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra Chorus. One of my 6th graders, Fraya, plays baritone in a local community wind ensemble (of grown-ups!), and she actually inspires me to want to play in a band again, too!
Where do you see music education fitting into the broader educational spectrum? How does it help or enhance other curricular areas?
Music is the best connection we have between all other subject areas in school. Music connects students to math concepts, the humanities, social studies, other arts, literature — lyrics are poems and stories. Music is also one of the last remaining subject areas without an overzealous focus on testing, which ensures that students get to experience the arts simply for their VALUE AS AN ART, and not measured by the quantitative results of standardized testing. The value of music as a stand-alone subject, though, must not be diminished because of educational buzzwords like 'integration' and 'interdisciplinary learning'. I hope that we, as a society, can continue to remember that music/arts are essential to our humanity and essential to our students' education in ways we cannot measure.
If you were to help program a day of music at Classical MPR, what would be a piece of music you'd play in the morning? What piece of music would you play in the evening?
I must switch this to a question of mood, not time of day, as my mood soundly dictates my listening choices, and rarely vice versa!
If I am feeling melancholy, I like to hear or play Robert Schumann's Three Romances, Op. 28 No. 2. It's a piece I have played before, and the melodies in that movement are ones I have loved deeply since college. The work is so sweet and haunting at the same time.
K-6 Music Specialist
North Shore Community School
Duluth, Minn.
What grade level(s) do you teach? What types of music classes do you teach?
I teach K-6 general music classes. In general music, we practice all the foundation concepts of music (steady beat, rhythm, melody, form, dynamics, tempo, etc.) through songs and games. It is a unique challenge we specialists experience to teach the range of students from kindergarten through sixth grade, but I love getting to know my students so well over the years and, as a person who thrives on variety and not repetition or tradition, teaching all seven grade levels every week is wonderful. I appreciate and enjoy each age for different reasons. My students and I are also fortunate to have classroom sets of beautiful xylophones and metallophones, world percussion instruments, as well as guitars for each student. One of our state standards in music is to have students accompany their own singing voices with classroom instruments, and I love that we can do this with the quality, beautiful sounds of mallet instruments and guitars.
Do you direct any ensembles? If so, which ones?
Over the years I have done different 'special' groups besides classroom music. Over the years, I have had drum ensembles, choirs, Stomp groups, and have had a couple of very memorable Medieval Feasts! Huzzah! I have also taught beginning band throughout my career. I am really lucky to have those different experiences with kids. When I was teaching band and general music and offering a special group, there were many students I saw every day for some kind of music experience. Not many elementary music teachers can say that — I know how lucky I was to get to know students so well at the elementary level. I do a little operetta in first grade every year. This is very often these little ones' first experience with a stage, a solo, using a microphone, being in front of an audience, wearing a costume — that's a really big deal to a 6-year-old, and I love giving them this experience.
Do you participate in music outside the classroom?
I sing year-round with the Echoes of Peace choir — a community choir with a mission, directed by singer-songwriter Sara Thomsen. As my schedule has allowed, I have also sung with the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra Chorus. One of my 6th graders, Fraya, plays baritone in a local community wind ensemble (of grown-ups!), and she actually inspires me to want to play in a band again, too!
Where do you see music education fitting into the broader educational spectrum? How does it help or enhance other curricular areas?
Music is the best connection we have between all other subject areas in school. Music connects students to math concepts, the humanities, social studies, other arts, literature — lyrics are poems and stories. Music is also one of the last remaining subject areas without an overzealous focus on testing, which ensures that students get to experience the arts simply for their VALUE AS AN ART, and not measured by the quantitative results of standardized testing. The value of music as a stand-alone subject, though, must not be diminished because of educational buzzwords like 'integration' and 'interdisciplinary learning'. I hope that we, as a society, can continue to remember that music/arts are essential to our humanity and essential to our students' education in ways we cannot measure.
If you were to help program a day of music at Classical MPR, what would be a piece of music you'd play in the morning? What piece of music would you play in the evening?
I must switch this to a question of mood, not time of day, as my mood soundly dictates my listening choices, and rarely vice versa!
If I am feeling melancholy, I like to hear or play Robert Schumann's Three Romances, Op. 28 No. 2. It's a piece I have played before, and the melodies in that movement are ones I have loved deeply since college. The work is so sweet and haunting at the same time.
If I am feeling inspired and creative I like Prokofiev's Quintet in G minor, Op. 39 (the first movement, in particular). It is just so darn interesting and weirdly playful, so many different voices from just a few instruments, that I still hear something different every time I listen.
Nominate a music teacher for Classical MPR's Music Teacher Feature
As part of Classical MPR's educational programming, we are highlighting the lives and work of music teachers throughout Minnesota.
Is there a music teacher (or a non-music teacher who uses music in the classroom in unique ways) in your community that the Classical MPR audience should know about? Tell us about him or her:
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