Choir Baton Podcast Episode 13. The [Sequential] Path is Never Straight with Anne Mileski

Anne Mileski is a leading elementary music educator, podcaster, lover of all things purposeful, sequential, and joyful. Her story will make you consider what your elementary music experience was like as a child and how teaching or learning in the elementary music classroom can be so different today. Anne didn't intend to be a music educator, she was pursuing her master's in trumpet performance. But during this experience her passion for teaching young musicians was unlocked and the rest "is history." 

One of the things I love about Anne is how versed she is in different music learning pedagogies and how she gleans what works for her from them. Anne briefly breaks down what it means to be "Kodaly-inspired" and gives us a refresher on Dalcroze, Orff, and Music Learning Theory. 

Be sure to follow Anne on IG and FB - @anacrusic and Anacrusic or on her website www.anacrusic.com

Choir Baton Host: Beth Philemon @bethphilemon | www.bethphilemon.com

Visit Choir Baton Online: @choirbaton | www.choirbaton.com

Choir Baton Theme Song by Scott Holmes

Anne Mileski: But my most influential musical experience was when I was in children's choir in middle school. And the reason why is because it was the first time I was in a professional ensemble. And Mary Alice Stollak was the director at the time. And I just remember the attention to detail in those rehearsals. I mean, it was intense. There were some intense rehearsals. The development of my ear happened in that experience, because as instrumentalists and as a pianist all through elementary school, I could fake my way through lessons till the cows came home. I mean, I'm sure my piano teacher knew, right, we always know. But still, I could get through my lessons without having to do a whole lot. And it was when I got into my Masters, I told the story before, where there were times I would go in and play an Etude and my trumpet teacher would just look at me and he'd be like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm playing trumpet. He's like, not really, you’re pressing down fingers and hoping the right notes come out. Because you have no idea what this is supposed to sound like. And I had a handful of lessons my first semester at SMU where I sat at the piano and basically made it so I could sing these Etudes before he would even let me pick up my trumpet. At that point my body had enough knowing in it that if I wanted that note to come out, I knew what to do mechanically, kind of without thinking about it, right? And so if you could sing it, you really could play it.

Beth Philemon: Welcome to the Choir Baton, a podcast designed to engage with people and stories, ideas and inspirations stemming from choir. No other art form, no sport, no hobby, no business requires a group of people to execute a communal goal with just their voices. Join me, your host Beth Philemon, as I interview guests who are singers, teacher conductors, instrumentalists and community members. Together we’ll ask questions, seek understanding, and share insight from our experiences in life and in choir. You're listening to the Choir Baton podcast where we want to know, what's your story?

I talk about anacrusis all the time in my class. And the first time we had a piece with an anacrusis, one of my girls raised her hand and she goes, don't you have a friend on Instagram with a name like that?

Anne Mileski: Because your kids follow you on Instagram. That's so funny. That's so funny. 

Beth Philemon: So you are making an impact into my classroom even beyond just things that I learned from you.

Anne Mileski: That's amazing. I love it.

Beth Philemon: Oh, man, but I started started following and I guess last summer started listening to her podcast because I had fallen in love with podcasts and discovered there's lot more now out about music ed, but you were really one of the first ones out there and just does such an amazing job with the content that you're producing. And I really fell for it, and Anne will tell you she is very geared elementary wise, but I was fortunate enough to be a guest on her podcast last December, that we talked about correlations between high school or secondary music and elementary school music. But basically, I'm just teaching elementary music, oftentimes to younger singers. And so I was really able to utilize all of your episodes on the different methodologies. It's so helpful. 

Anne Mileski: Awesome, I'm so glad. Yeah. 

Beth Philemon: So Anne, I know your story, but tell us a little bit about your journey. I know you're a music educator’s daughter and have gone through music school and all that, but tell us your backstory for those that don't know.

Anne Mileski: Okay, I'll try to make it the somewhat abridged version because I feel like every time I'm asked to tell a story, I give way too many details that people don't need to know. 

Beth Philemon: I think it’s important, I think it's fine. We're people first, musicians second. 

Anne Mileski: But you know, what's funny is, the more that I've had people on my podcast, I thought that my story was so unusually windy and indirect. And the more I talked to more people who are kind of where they are, that's just everybody. It's just-- the path is never straight. It's always this winding, winding road, and everything has an impact on you and all that woo-woo stuff. But anyway, so yes, I am the daughter of a music educator. I grew up in a very small town in Michigan and my dad was the high school band director there for 30 years. And he's still very active in the Michigan school band/orchestra kind of world and doing a lot of judging and clinicianing and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, so growing up with him and a very large program. So I think my high school-- my graduating class was 240 kids. And our band program, 9th through 12th grade, was always at least 200 kids. So usually about a fourth of the school participated in the band program and it was very active and very successful nationally. And that's just kind of a brag on my dad a little bit. 

So I grew up in just a really great culture, and very close to Michigan State University. And so all through my childhood, I was a member of the Michigan State University Children's Choir, and took lessons with college professors and students and all that kind of stuff. I was just really active in the music community. But when it came time to actually go to college, I decided that I wanted to kind of keep everybody guessing what was going on and decided not to be a music major when I went to University of Michigan, and after about my first semester of kind of dropping music after it being my entire life for as long as I can remember, I felt really lost. And I remember there was one night I called home in November and talked to my parents. I was just crying. I was like, I just want to be playing trumpet. That's my main instrument. And so the next weekend, they drove the two hours to Ann Arbor and brought me my trumpets, and I started practicing and I transferred into the music school in January. And then the rest is kind of history. 

So I was a trumpet performance major at Michigan. And I did five years because I had that first year of transferring, trying to find my way. And then I actually went on to do a Master's in Performance at Southern Methodist University in Dallas because I wanted to study with a member of the Dallas Symphony, Tom Booth. And then Ryan Anthony came when I was there and he's still there now which is, was and is, an awesome experience for anybody who's there. But while I was at SMU doing my Master’s I was randomly assigned to the music education department for my TA for my assistantship. And I got to know Dr. Julie Scott, who is an amazing elementary music pedagogue and choral, elementary choral, middle choral, just choral general pedagogue and just kind of started talking about music education, and realized that my perception of music education was not what I thought it was, if that makes sense. 

So I thought that if I was going to major in music ed that I needed to be a band director, which is not what I wanted to do, even though I had a great example of an amazing educator in my life, I just didn't want to do that, I wanted to be playing music, I want to be actively participating. And again, not that a conductor or a band director or choir director isn't doing that, I just wanted to be more kind of in the action, I guess. And then talking to her too, I realized, well, elementary music now and in a lot of places is very different than what I experienced when I was in elementary school, and it just so happens that my part time job on the side to make money was doing some early childhood music classes sort of privately through preschools and mother child interactive type classes. And so I finished my Master's in trumpet and I immediately got certified and did a Master's in music ed and started teaching elementary music and I've never really looked back since. 

Beth Philemon: Yeah, you mentioned and I feel like I've heard you say this before is that you realized that your elementary music experience-- that there are other ways. I'm just kind of curious, what were some differences that you saw, between your experiences and what other things you could do?

Anne Mileski: Yeah, so if I think back to what elementary music was and granted, small town, I think the music teacher went to all four elementary schools, you know what I mean, it's that type of situation where you're dealing with what you have. And I think she was pretty close to retirement, even when I was in school, which doesn't mean anything, but does mean something in terms of the types of pedagogical knowledge and movements we've seen in music education, particularly in early childhood and elementary. And if you look, I won't try to tell you the dates because I'll get it wrong, but if you look back and see when a lot of those shifts started happening, it was probably around the time that you and I were in school. So, I remember going to music class once or twice a week, I couldn't even tell you, and sitting on just the benches that came down from the wall for the lunch room, the tables weren’t down, just the benches, and we would have our Silver Birds at Making Music or whatever textbook series, not an ad, but I remember just sitting and looking at the books and we would get to sing and I loved that because I just loved singing and making music always, I was always putting on shows and singing at home and all that kind of stuff. But I just remember sitting and singing. And as long as you had your book open and you weren't causing a ruckus, that's just how music class went. 

And I remember putting on a play, like a canned performance, and I remember doing recorders and I think that's kind of a lot of what folks’ interpretation is of elementary music, at least in our generation. Is that type of-- I hate to say it this way, but honestly, that's this type of passive engagement and kind of a-- not to get too opinionated right off the bat, this misconstrued idea of literacy, when kids don't really know what they're reading, even if they're looking at text and a melodic contour and rhythm and notation, right? So they're just looking at the words and not really having any context for what's happening because they haven't necessarily had these inactive and body and musical experiences where they're doing sound before sight, and then go into iconic notation, and then learning how to read music and then apply that to creating something, which is a lot more of what we see now in most places that have had exposure to that type of training. 

Beth Philemon: Right. So being exposed to that in Texas was just kind of a lightbulb moment of, there's something more and I feel like, too, there's the depth to it that I guess we felt like we didn't get to experience when we were younger.

Anne Mileski: Yeah, I mean, I remember my very first job was teaching outside of just early childhood preschool classes, which to a certain extent is definitely not passive because you have to keep those kids engaged, but to an extent is very experiential. Like you're not getting into fluency and literacy things as it comes to being like a reading and writing and creating musician. It's more just exploratory, I guess. And I remember when I first had my first teaching job, it was like a preK/K/1 assignment at a private school in Dallas. And then the other music teacher taught the other half of first grade through fourth grade. And I would observe some of her classes because music ed was still new to me. And she's the first person who sort of introduced me to Kodály inspired teaching. And I remember watching her class and the kids just were moving all the time and they were singing all the time. And they were doing things that were active music making all the time. 

So I finally started to see things and hear about things that were going on in the methods classes that Julie was teaching at SMU with friends who were in my trumpet studio. Who, while I was doing my Master’s, because they were ed majors and like, oh we’re doing this, it’s so fun. And then we're going to go to the elementary school and I'm going to teach this game and I'm like, that is not how I remember elementary music. And it just seems so fun and joyful, which is kind of my jam. And I was like, this just feels like I want to be doing this. I remember just thinking, looking at her notes from class and being like, I wish I was in this class. I wish I was doing this type of work.

Beth Philemon: So then you're teaching in Dallas and you've taught several different places and moved and stuff going towards that but you really touched on Kodály was that first kind of “aha yes” moment I feel like for you in realizing these different approaches to music education. And admittedly, when I went to school, I thought, I’m going to be a choral conductor. I'm going to teach choirs and now, part of it was I went through undergrad and I never had methods taught by-- it just could have been better, I'll say, in my opinion, and someone that wasn't trained chorally. So there was that but I was horrible. I did not listen to a thing. I could not tell you a thing about Kodály and Dalcroze and all of these sorts of things. And I did a really poor job of being a good student and learning these methodologies. But the older that I get, the more I see the integration and the importance of, and that's where again, your work has been so informative to me.

So you're very Kodály, so for someone that's listening to this and well-- so if you don't mind breaking down a couple some of these even as simply as you can for someone that is listening to this and they are either a choir singer, right, not necessarily a choir conductor or a choir conductor and they're thinking okay, that is a funky Hungarian name, what does that mean?

Anne Mileski: Great. And nobody saw this because they're just listening to his talk, but I kind of made a face when you said I’m very Kodály because if you had to put me in a box, I would say yes, I am mostly a Kodály-inspired teacher mostly because that's where most of my teaching experiences in Dallas I taught in a Kodály district that puts on the Kodály training program that I've since taught at in the summers, you know, that type of thing. So yes, of course. And the reason why is because of how I structure the sequence in which I teach concepts. And the fact that I am very intentional that kids should be singing first, always, and that they should be singing all the time, all the time. 

And so Kodály-inspired teaching is obviously, or maybe not so obviously, based on Zoltán Kodály’s research with Bella Bartok when they went to collect folk songs in Hungary and wanted to bring the music of the people to the people and create this musically literate nation. And through that research and all of that ethnographic research, I guess basically, is going through an ethnomusicology is creating the sequence that just happens organically out in their world. And so that's where you kind of get that sequence of concepts. So it's a sequence of concepts that is brought forth because of the repertoire of a people, if that makes sense. So the folk repertoire.

Beth Philemon: So I'm going to go out on a limb here and just make a correlation. So that would be like today someone coming and being like, alright, I'm going to look at the music of Beyonce. And I'm going to look at the music of One Direction. I mean, one could argue that's kind of a folk music of the people today?

Anne Mileski: Yeah, so this gets really hairy. And you can read a million articles about it. I've had a couple podcast episodes about it. So you have to think about Hungary and the size of it, and how it's a very homogeneous, even today, homogeneous country. And so it's very much a single culture, right? Whereas here in the United States we’re huge. We're bringing together so many different people from so many different backgrounds from so many different languages and even regionally. Even regionally, you know, you mentioned how I've kind of lived in different places so the folk songs that I heard in Michigan are very different than the folk songs I heard in Texas, which are very different from the folk songs or the culture, the culture I should be saying, the culture in these places is very different, obviously, like lots of Hispanic music was very popular when I lived in Texas and lots of Spanish folk songs were appropriate for the populations of my classes there. 

Here in eastern Washington, I have tons of Russian students, I mean, I played Sasha and they all just about lost it one day because they knew that song from home and from parties and weddings and all that kind of stuff. So, yes, pop music is a big part of the current maybe more broadly defined United States popular culture. But if you're going back to kind of this idea of songs that you would hear kids sing on the playground, or things that people sing to their babies, or the traditional songs that we sing in the US, and that's more of what I think of when I think of the folk traditions that would exist just organically, because when they went out and they collected songs, it wasn't in the orchestra halls or in the cities, it was out where the people weren't trained, it was just what had been passed on through this oral tradition. So I don't know, not that I'm trying to negate what you said, but it's an interesting dichotomy because folk music of today is very much pop music but it's way more multifaceted than that for a lot of reasons.

Beth Philemon: And that makes sense. And I also think, if anything, that's a charge to us that could be a whole other episode about the importance of, what is our folk music? How are we bringing it in? What is the music that people are singing to their children and things like that. But that is actually a really great context of thinking about Kodály, that I haven't really thought about before that, you know, we're talking about a monoculture country and the influence that had on Kodály and Bartok.

Anne Mileski: Yeah, and there's a couple of things and I hope I can remember them both to mention so the first is-- and thinking about the use of pop music in the classroom if you want to go that direction, and when I interviewed Brian Gall, we talked about this a lot because the idea of Kodály-inspired teaching is this musical mother tongue and if your kids are coming in knowing pop music then that is sort of their mother tongue, especially if their parents aren't singing to them at home. So that's a point of entry. But that doesn't mean that's the only place we stay. You know, that's our point of entry that's starting with familiar, that's starting with what's known so we can maybe draw some connections or bridge connections to the unknown that maybe we can use that's more rich for pedagogical purposes. And so there's that and then of course the other thing flew out of my brain I knew it was going to. 

Beth Philemon: I think this is, again, why I'm so grateful for collaborating with you is because if you look in choir director online forums and what everyone is talking about, how are we integrating pop? How are we integrating Broadway? When truly the research is out there but we have separated ourselves from elementary general music pedagogy, at times, that type of pedagogy to, I'm a choir director, and we forget that that work has already been done. But we're just not drawing connections like we could.

Anne Mileski: Yeah, for sure. So it's always finding that known to unknown piece in whatever permutation that might be, so I really did remember, so forgive my baby brain. So this whole idea of this monoculture and maybe that's really a word, did I make it up? I don't know. I've heard it before. But it seems appropriate. So if you think about that with Hungary, their whole idea there was collecting all this music. And then that's what drove the sequence because it was a very clear, let's analyze all of these simple songs, figure out which pattern occurs the most in isolation which was Sol Mi and then they added La. So there's been a lot of-- well not a lot, there's been some talk about the fact that when this approach came to the United States, we were kind of forcing that monoculture on a multifaceted culture with lots of different people with lots of different backgrounds and lots of different folk traditions. And so to that, I say that the repertoire that you use in your classroom has to be, number one, representative of your students in however you choose to interpret that. And number two, that should drive your sequence. And so you'll find a lot of Kodály-inspired teachers who do Mi Re Do before they do Sol Mi. 

Now there's very specific pedagogical reasons that I do that are honestly aside from the repertoire that I start with Sol Mi in kindergarten, but I see the argument for starting with Mi Re Do, if you're going to say the repertoire drives the sequence because if you think about American “folk music”, a lot of it exists with functional harmony, right? So that's where those types of disagreements come in. I think it's really okay to do whatever you feel is best for your classroom and kids and the types of materials that you are using. I think that to say I'm a Kodály-inspired teacher or I'm going to make sure I have this really deliberate sequence doesn't depend on whether or not you do Sol Mi first or Mi Re Do or whatever order. It's just that you have a reason behind what you're doing for kids. And it needs to include the quality repertoire that you're using, which that's a whole other can of worms to try to define that term, the quality of the repertoire you're using and the pedagogical purposes or pedagogical sequence that you're doing in your classroom.

Beth Philemon: Awesome. So Kodály, being very sequence oriented, and using folk traditions with how we approach music learning. I loved your podcast with David Frego on Dalcroze and Eurythmics. And just a couple brief sentences to summarize that, how would you define it?

Anne Mileski: Yeah, so it's embodied music making in the most physical kinesthetic sense of the word. So this idea that anything that you hear, you would also feel as the mover or the dancer, and see as an observer of Dalcroze experience.

Beth Philemon: Which we utilize in choir rehearsals within movement and stuff, but again, we're not always being like, oh this is Dalcroze, and in order for us to go deeper, I think it's important for us to be able to identify that. Okay, Orff!

Anne Mileski: Yeah, so let me draw a quick connection. So if you think about Kodály-inspired teaching, very much of the sound before the experience before notation is this oral, visual, kinesthetic preparation idea, which Dalcroze fits in beautifully with that. And then the same goes for Orff-Schulwerk, so if you have Orff-Schulwerk, everyone thinks of barred instruments, which barred instruments are not the meat of Orff-Schulwerk, it's just what we see and kind of turns into that stereotype. I mean, it's an important part, but you can be an Orff teacher if you don't have a single barred instrument in your room. It's this idea that exploration and improvisation and student creation is at the forefront of everything that you're doing. And it just so happens that all of these different active music-making media such as speech, singing, instruments, movement, body percussion, are all different ways to facilitate student creation and improvisation. And that when one student feels most musical singing then another might feel most musical moving and somebody else might feel more musical playing instruments and giving everybody an opportunity to find their musicality and creativity within those different media. 

Beth Philemon: Right, and then Music Learning Theory?

Anne Mileski: Yeah, this is still the hardest one for me because it's still the newest. So this is all about processing music. And I'm sure most folks have heard the term audiation, which is different than inner hearing. And if you want to hear more about that I do, not to plug myself, but I have a podcast episode with Cindy Taggart, which is all about Music Learning Theory, and she's a direct descendant of Ed Gordon. She studied with him and she's brilliant. And a great pedagogue and just a great person. But anyway, so we talked a lot about that, and I am still-- I don't feel super comfortable trying to be-- I don't feel like I have the expertise yet to really nail it down but this idea of processing it more largely than just hearing the music in your head, if that makes sense. And it's finding different ways to give kids opportunities to audiate. So it's very, very experiential base. It's giving lots of exploration again, and then coming at music from a more holistic sense, like you won't see a ton of Sol Mi happening in the Music Learning Theory classroom, it's much more about kind of big picture concepts like micro versus macro beat, functional harmony, harmony, that type of thing. That's my interpretation from a couple of podcasts, interviews with MLT teachers and one level. So I don't have the experience, I need to go back and do more because I don't quite have the experience there. 

Beth Philemon: But that already is so much and I know we've referenced the podcast multiple times and #notanad for the podcast but really the work that you're doing is excellent. And it's been encouraging and inspiring to me to disseminate in conversations with people about these different types of learning techniques and how are we sequencing? Whoo girl, your assessment was excellent, most recently, but how are we assessing students? And so on and so forth. So I'm really curious, how did Anacrusic kind of come to be and talk about the work that you're doing through this.

Anne Mileski: So when I-- so this goes back to my story, so after I finished my Master's we lived in Dallas, my husband and I, for seven years? I want to say that's right. And then it was time to move on and do something different. So I applied to doctoral programs and went to Indiana University for a year. I was there for a year. And then after my first year of coursework, my husband got this amazing promotion opportunity that gave us the opportunity also to live in the Pacific Northwest, which is where my brothers both live even though we're all from Michigan. And we've always wanted to move to-- like we always said if we ever had the chance to move to Oregon or Washington state we would take it in a heartbeat. So the stars just kind of aligned. And although it was sad to leave my colleagues and teachers and I loved the work that I was doing, life just kind of happened. So we moved out here. And it was in October. So there weren't very many teaching jobs open. And I had my job with the campus that I then went full time with. But I only taught, I want to say not even two full days a week. So it was like a point-- I don't even know what it was, less than half time. So I was going nuts. It was before I had kids, and I am not the type of person to sit still at all, I have to have 8 million projects going all the time. And so I was like, oh, hmm, I've always liked blogging. I had a wedding blog once upon a time, blah, blah, blah.

Beth Philemon: Ooh that would be fun to find. 

Anne Mileski: No, it's gone. It doesn't exist. It'd be very outdated now because I got married before Pinterest. Thank God. And so it was way before any social media internet stuff happened because it was 10 years ago, but anyway, so the point of all that is I was just trying to find a way to stay connected and to be creative. And so I stumbled across some other music teacher blogs and people who are creating resources and I decided that I just wanted to start doing it. And so I did. And then, over time, I was like, oh, I really like to talk. I think a podcast would be super fun. I love writing too. But for me, I talked about this, you're probably the same way when I do a podcast, I have five bullet points, and then I just go and it's like, somebody else might be in the room talking to me, or it might be my dog and that's totally cool. But when I just start kind of talking out loud, the ideas start flowing. 

And when I started sharing it, it started resonating with people, and I thought, you know, the whole reason I wanted to go and get a doctorate was not-- sorry, not sorry-- but was not to do research. I'm pretty good at it, not to blow my own horn but it’s not my jam though. I don't love data, it's just not my thing and so give me some qualitative research and some observing and scripting, I'm all over that but it was much more about helping teachers. I wanted to go get a doctorate so that I could do some clinics and workshops and teach summer courses like Kodály summer courses. And I've been able to do those things since and so I really kind of feel like I found my place with this. It was something that I just kind of started to keep myself busy. I know that sounds horrible, but it's really turned into this huge passion of mine, to be working with teachers and to help them find kind of the spark that I feel when I do stuff with Anacrusic. 

I get really excited to do work on the podcast or to do a webinar or to put together a mini course for a new teacher, or whatever it might be, or to answer emails from people who get my newsletter, all of these little things just light me up. And you know, I'm still working with kids very part time because I'm mostly doing Anacrusic stuff and with my daughter, but I think that's an important piece too. For me to still kind of be in the trenches, to some extent, working with children and doing the work as it be, and sharing those experiences with people and just being honest about all the things and when I have questions, ask those questions, because just conversation is what is important and keeps people thriving. I think that the problem is when we're not talking and we're not sharing anything, that's when people start to feel stuck in burnout. So I'm hoping to combat that as much as I can through some of this work, but hopefully that answered your question. 

Beth Philemon: Absolutely. And I think a lot of times we wait until the end to say where I can find you. But I think that people need to know this now. Right? So I also think digital learning is, like most things in life, music education is slow to the curve and this whole mindset of how can we further our education through podcasts or through newsletters or through webinars and things people are just beginning to jump on the bandwagon. And I definitely think generally elementary music teachers are doing much better at this than middle and high school teachers are. But what's a webinar that you do? What's that like? What can someone expect from that?

Anne Mileski: Yeah, so last month I did the five simple steps and it was all about how to combat overwhelm. I think it was five simple steps to streamline your teaching and beat planning overwhelm, the exact title escapes me, which is awful. And it was basically just talking about the mindset shifts and the ideas as you are kind of preparing for your work as an elementary music teacher and the types of things that will kind of get your brain in gear to make things more simple. And a lot of it had to do with this learning sequence framework that I talk about a lot because it's kind of something that I came up with, but it's not something I came up with, like the way that I've put it together and is just sort of my consolidation of my different trainings and education. 

So it's this idea that any concept that you want to teach in the music classroom needs to follow this series of seven steps. And just real quickly, it's gathering resources, which is you the teacher kind of gathering up all the stuff you want to use to teach them, exploration, which is all of that embodied music making prior to notation, a discovery moment, which is when you tie all that experience to notation, and then extension, which is when you do informed exploration, so they can still do all those things that they did prior to knowing and understanding what it looks like in formal notation, but now they can tie the two together. And then this idea of show and tell where they share the music, and then assessment and reflection.

So it's kind of an expanded version of what you would consider the prepare, present, practice that Kodály teachers talk about. And the reason that I change the wording is not because I think we need more words in music ed to describe the same thing. But just because I wanted something that was a little bit more inclusive of the ideas I had for each phase, if that makes sense. So it doesn't have to be uniquely for Joe Schmo inspired teaching, it's just the way that you teach music in an effective way that promotes embodied active music making. But anyway, so I did a webinar that kind of led to that. And actually another webinar that I'm putting together, it's not scheduled yet, but this idea about assessment. I know we've mentioned that podcast earlier thinking about meaningful ways to assess that don't kind of stop everything to assess. And so that podcast episode, I talked about assessment within that learning sequence framework. But I didn't really give any concrete examples. And I got great feedback from the episode but people were like, but I need to see a thing. And so my thought process for either another podcast episode or maybe a webinar would be to kind of take a couple concepts, maybe one rhythmic, one melodic and work through what that whole assessment process would look like.

Beth Philemon: That would be awesome. 

Anne Mileski: Yeah, it's trying to find things that are both kind of big picture, theoretical stuff. But then also getting down to like, okay, but here's the process that you could use. Here's the sequence that you could use to actually do the thing.

Beth Philemon: Right, right. So how has your work-- I just love hearing you talk about it. I mean, I'm really not blowing smoke up your skirt. I just genuinely love the thoughtfulness and the mindfulness of sequencing with which you approach music learning for students. And I know that we've talked about how you began your work as an instrumentalist and as a trumpet player, and even from the band world, but you also loved singing. And that was always a big part of your musical journey. Now, you know, the real choir director in me wants to go, why weren't you in a choir? How did we lose you? How did we not convert you sooner? But you know, you're also in that weird area of-- there is elementary band, but there's not very many elementary band programs. And so really I think all music making is singing, even band students should be singing, but that's another soapbox. But you know what I'm saying? How is that integrating into your choral journey?

Anne Mileski: Well, it's interesting that you say that. So, my dad and I, who I mentioned earlier, we did two sessions this year on basically what we talked about when you were on the Anacrusic podcast and talking about giving some practical ideas for how band directors in secondary or middle school or in high school can use some of these “elementary tactics” in a classroom. Right? So when you ask, how didn’t you get me sooner, so, if anybody asked me what my best, or maybe not best, but my most influential musical experience was, it was when I was in children's choir in middle school. And the reason why is because it was the first time I was in a professional ensemble. And Mary Alice Stollak was the director at the time and I just remember the attention to detail in those rehearsals. I mean, it was intense. There were some intense rehearsals, but just having to really be on my game and the development of my ear happened in that experience. Because as instrumentalists and as a pianist all through elementary school, I could fake my way through lessons till the cows came home. I mean, I'm sure my piano teacher knew, right, we always know. But still, I could get through my lessons without having to do a whole lot. 

And it was when I got into my Master’s-- I’ve told this story before where there were times I would go in and play an Etude and my trumpet teacher would just look at me and he'd be like, what are you doing? I’d be like, I’m playing trumpet, he's like, not really, you’re pressing down fingers and hoping the right notes come out because you have no idea what this is supposed to sound like. And I had a handful of lessons my first semester at SMU where I sat at the piano and basically made it so I could sing these Etudes before he would even let me pick up my trumpet. And I think that we miss a lot of those opportunities. And then of course, at that point in my trumpet career after playing really seriously for seven years in college and my Master’s, at that point, my body had enough knowing in it that if I wanted that note to come out, I knew what to do mechanically kind of without thinking about it, right? And so if you could sing it, you really could play it. And that's something that I've always tried to pass on to my kids and thinking about, okay, if we're going to go to the barred instruments, that's wonderful, but you need to know what it's going to sound like. Yeah, every once in a while there is an exploring activity. But if you're going to improvise on the barred instruments, you should probably be able to sing while you're improvising as well. You know that type of thinking. 

And so when it comes to choir, I only have experience with my elementary choirs, but it's the same type of thing. It's getting away from the notation a lot of the time. And either playing games or developing exploration exercises that allow kids to really own some tricky parts or a main melody or the meat of whatever it is that you're trying to get at before you get back into an octavo. Before you ask them to go into two parts, before you add the piano accompaniment, just so that they have it in their bones and whatever mode that might mean to you. And it's interesting because a lot of people who are “Kodály-inspired” or “Orff-Schulwerk-inspired” teachers. More maybe with Orff teachers you might hear, well, how do you teach choir? Well, Julie Scott, the reason I'm an elementary music teacher, wrote an article about how when she teaches choir, she teaches like an Orff teacher, she gets away from the octavo. They add body percussion, they do all of these things, because it's an embodied experience. And you're probably coming to an octavo for a lot of the same reasons that an elementary music teacher would come to a folk song, like why are we doing this? What's this teachable moments? What's the meat of this that really captures the essence of why we're doing it? And then get at that first and the rest of it falls into place.

Beth Philemon: I love that. I love that connecting of the meat of it and why are we doing that? So many times we don't focus on that enough, I don't think. What are some ways that secondary choral conductors or secondary music teachers in general can help and support the traditional-- I think I've said it before, I'm just going to say it again. When we say elementary music, sometimes that has connotations to certain things. And maybe that's even something we can talk about in just a second. But how can we as secondary music educators support our elementary music programs better for elementary music teachers? Because I've never been one. So I don't know.

Anne Mileski: I think that the biggest tool, and it's so cliche, is just communication. And when I was teaching in a district that very much followed a K-12 sequence. And there is a time each year that all of the elementary music teachers would sit down with the middle school band, choir and orchestra teachers. A lot of that had to do with the fact that all of our sixth graders were required to be in one of those ensembles for their fine arts credit. But the reason we got together was because it's like, hey, here's where our kids are. Here's the musical language that they know, here's where we are in concepts, here are all these songs that we've been using. Here's an example of a lesson that we've taught them, so that you understand the language that we've been using. So that you don't have to start over. 

It's less maybe about how can you guys support us not that it's y'all versus us. It's not necessarily how can secondary folks support elementary folks, it's more like how can you make sure that you're bridging the gap so that we don't feel like it just ends? Because I've been in both situations, I've been in situations where somebody picked up on that language, they've picked up on whatever counting system we've been using or whatever and then slowly transition to traditional counting rather, which I do some traditional counting in fifth grade, but still, and there's been a lot of success there because you're speaking the same language and then I've also been in situations where the middle school teachers don't care or don't care to ask what's been happening. And that can be frustrating for everybody, because then it's like, well, what's the point? You know, not that the point is for elementary teachers to prepare students for secondary ensembles, that is absolutely not what I'm saying. But I'm saying if we're going to look at creating comprehensive musicians, independent musicians, lifelong musicians, it can be kind of frustrating for kids too to feel like they have this understanding and this ownership over what music is and then they get to band, choir, orchestra and then it just stops in something totally different.

Beth Philemon: Absolutely. Can you get more elementary music teachers using Takadimi though?

Anne Mileski: I don't use Takadimi. 

Beth Philemon: I know you don’t!

Anne Mileski: Yeah, we won’t have that conversation today!

Beth Philemon: Yeah. Let's move on, cause that is one of my tried and true things. The thing that breaks my heart that I experience is that we don't have a lot of middle school-- we can't do anything about this right now, but we don't have many middle school choral programs in my area, which is mind blowing because I'm in one of the five largest school districts in America. And so that blows my mind because we do-- we lose that three years of sequencing that could be taking place for students, and I am seeing a massive, massive effect from it at the high school level. But what is also really cool is when I ask my students in the program currently, what is the most influential thing in getting them to sing in high school and they say their elementary music experience. 

Anne Mileski: Oh, that’s awesome. That gives me goosebumps. That's awesome.

Beth Philemon: Yeah, it's so true. And I think for too long there's been-- and maybe this is my own mindset that I'm bringing into others but I do think it's true is it isn't us and them or it's a general music and a choir or a choir versus band or an orchestra versus band versus choir and we compartmentalize too often when we need to seek to be so much more collaborative. I've had a couple elementary music teachers reach out to me and they go, can I do Choir Baton? But I only teach choir on Tuesday mornings, and I’m like, you're singing in your class hopefully every day, that is choir, that is choir but fighting that misconception would you say that elementary teachers feel that generally? An us and them?

Anne Mileski: Yeah, I think that it's just an ignorance thing. And I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, anyway, I just mean like pure ignorance. I mean, when was the last time that you got to go observe an elementary classroom? I mean, I haven't been in a high school choir classroom since, I don't even know when, since I had to observe a student teacher a few years. You know what I mean? And then before that, who knows how long and so I think that there's that-- there's our own experiences of what those things were. So when I talk about even my own elementary music experience, I don't want to trash talk, but the reason I wasn’t in high school choir is because I knew that my high school choir program was not the type of program I wanted to be a part of. You know what I mean? Like that type of stuff. 

And so my perception of high school choir is not maybe the best if I hadn't been exposed to other amazing programs and people doing other amazing work and different styles of teaching, all of those different things, right? So it kind of goes back to what I said about Julie writing the article saying when I'm an Orff teacher, I teach choir like an Orff teacher, because that's how I teach music. And so it's a universal thing. I mean, it doesn't-- whether you're a band director, whether you're a choir director, whether you're an orchestra director, whether you're teaching general music, however you swing it, hopefully we're doing some similar things in the classroom, and I think we just don't have the chance to collaborate as much as we should, or observe one another as much as we should. And so that's, unfortunately, just kind of-- we go off of our own perceptions and don't realize how much things have changed in the 20-25 years since we were in grade school, you know what I mean?

Beth Philemon: Right. Well, and again, this is where social media, the internet, phones are really changing the game and people like you are helping bridge that gap and helping communication between all different spectrums be stronger and helping us learn together. So thank you and I hope that more people get the opportunity to go and jump into really what you're doing, and the conversations that you're having and questions that you're asking, because they are great for every music teacher.

Anne Mileski: And that’s the thing --this might not seem like it applies to what we're talking about, but I promise it does-- I remember when I decided that I was going to stop taking professional trumpet auditions, which was not a difficult decision because the four I took were horrific experiences. So those are stories for a different time. And I was not meant to be a soloist in any capacity, including playing excerpts behind the screen. But anyway, I remember going and sitting down with my trumpet teacher after I finished my Master's and I decided I wanted to try elementary music. And he's actually married to an elementary music teacher. But I remember going to his office and just being like, so I think I want to do this. And I was terrified to tell him, and he just looked at me and he was like, I think that you would be amazing at that. I know you've been teaching early childhood, I know you've been really enjoying that. And I was like, yeah, I was kind of worried that you would be upset that I'm not gonna be as focused on this, what we've been working on for so hard and so long, and he's like, Anne, it all applies. 

And that just really, really struck me. I mean, this is somebody who his whole professional career has been playing in one of the best orchestras in the world. And that's his response to me when I tell him that I'm going to be a music educator, because you know what, you don't-- this is awful to say it, I don't want to make sweeping generalizations, but you don't always get that type of reaction from folks who are performance focus. So you know, coming from that was a really big-- that was actually probably the biggest life change ever is shifting from a performance mindset, like I'm a performance major, I'm going to be a trumpet performer, to being a music educator. Second only to having my first baby, but seriously, the amount of mindset shifting to number one, know that it was okay. And number two, I was going to be reaching more people in maybe a more impactful way. I mean, they're different, right? But realizing that that work is perhaps more important than the work that happens in the concert hall and being okay with that was a huge shift for me. But I thought it was incredibly telling that here was this person saying to me, this person that I looked up to, again, his career and this professional ensemble, and he's saying it all applies. And I think that we need to think about that in our different areas of music ed, because sometimes, there's a little bit of that performance versus music ed or different band versus choir versus elementary, kind of just rubbing a little bit. I don't think I'm saying anything that would surprise anybody, you can kind of feel it.

Beth Philemon: And they need to be!

Anne Mileski: It's depending on who the personalities are right? It's not everybody, but I think we just need to remember that.

Beth Philemon: I think it's important-- and maybe it's just because I will say things probably at times I shouldn't-- but I think it's important for us to mention these sweeping generalizations at times or to mention the uncomfortable things, because we don't want to be disrespectful of other people or also make wrongful sweeping generalizations about people, but these things exist and the more we talk about them, the greater chances we have of breaking more of these things down and these--instead of rubbing they’re hand holding moments or things like that. 

Anne Mileski: Yeah, and I think that it's kind of, okay well, stereotypes exist for a reason in terms of there being some of that rubbing, but at the same time, you can find people who are really at the top of their game, in sort of each category who don't think that way at all. And those are generally the people who have found the most “success” or just the most open minded and contributing the most to our field. So I think that's something to think of.

Beth Philemon: Absolutely. It’s that scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset. There's room for all of us, no matter what we're doing.

Anne Mileski: And there's value.

Beth Philemon: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, you can never-- I have a friend of mine who is a professional horn player and is now venturing into some other things and we were talking the other day that you can't be too diversified as a musician or you can't learn too many different things and the moment we begin to narrow in on one thing if we're not careful, we can limit ourselves. Now I'm all about writing down my goal I'm going to achieve first. I know, we could probably do a whole other episode, though, on how our personal growth and personal development has really changed our lives as musicians as well, don't you think?

Anne Mileski: Yeah, shout out Rachel Hollis.

Beth Philemon: Yeah, I just finished reading Culture Code. And I think you posted a while ago that you read it and said it was amazing. And so that's another reason why I love Anne is we're always sharing different things outside of music that we're learning and growing. And we are team Hollis all the way.

Anne Mileski: Yeah. For sure. And if you don't know what that is you need to go Google it and jump on that bandwagon. 

Beth Philemon: Start today. Start today.

Anne Mileski: Not an ad.

Beth Philemon: But Rachel, if you're listening…

Anne Mileski: We're open to it. We both have podcasts.

Beth Philemon: Oh my goodness. Anne, thank you so much for your story, your insight and your work that you're doing for music ed and for speaking with us today. We've talked about it before, but tell us again, where can we find you? What's the best way to get in touch with you and what's coming up new with you?

Anne Mileski: Yeah, sure. Everything is with Anacrusic, it’s anacrusis but with a C and you can find my website at anacrusic.com, you can get all my links to all the things there. I'm Anacrusic on Instagram and Facebook and all that good stuff. So as far as things coming up, if you follow me on Facebook or sign up for the newsletter on my website. There should be a webinar coming out sometime in May, which would be free training and it's probably gonna be about assessment like I was talking about early so keep an eye out for that, that's kind of what's in the works right now.

Beth Philemon: Awesome. Awesome. And you know, there's gonna be another baby, another little miss.

Anne Mileski: See, okay, so Beth is making a face, but by the time you edit and listen, I will have already told people on Instagram so it’s out in the world but Beth got a sneak peek but yes, we just found out today that we're having a second little miss, a second baby girl Mileski. So coming in September.

Beth Philemon: I love it. I love it. Well, I'm so excited. And yeah, I was looking through her stories this morning, and I saw that they were going to find out the baby's gender. And I was so excited because this is also how much I stalk Anne in a lovely way, a while ago, we finally became friends where we have each other's phone number. So we can text because sometimes I'm bad about checking my Instagram messages and I get too overwhelmed with all the messages and I just text. So it had been a while since I'd seen Anne. She also does these great outfits of the day and I love seeing Little Miss and you know, she doesn't only post about choral music, it's also about how she's escaped to Target and grateful to get out of the house and all these other things and I was like, girl, I have not seen you on Instagram. Are you okay? 

Anne Mileski: Yeah, I was pulling a princess Kate. I was so sick, but I'm good now. We're good now.

Beth Philemon: Well, thank you again, Anne, and I can't wait to pass it along to everyone else. Go listen right now. Download Anacrusic and give her a review and like, because it's gonna be awesome. And then once you've done that you can jump on over to Choir Baton and say, man, they sent me to this awesome site and I learned so much through her. Thanks again Anne! 

Anne Mileski: Of course.

Beth Philemon: There's just so much I love about Anne Mileski and the work that she's doing on Anacrusic. So often I feel like there's a divide between the different levels of choir-- elementary, middle, high, community, church, choir conductor, choir composer, choir singer, and my friendship with Anne just is an example that I'm trying to set-- aside from the fact that she's really awesome and I would be friends with her regardless-- but I think our relationship shows you that at the end of the day, we are really all doing the same thing. It just manifests itself sometimes in different ways, and oftentimes, more of the same ways than we even want to realize. Again, I really would love to encourage you to just go check out Anne’s podcast, the Anacrusic podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. And listen especially to some of her episodes that she talks about Dalcroze, Kodály, Orff, and Music Learning Theory. Those episodes really solidified in my brain as a conductor and as a singer and as an educator, why and how I approach music learning in different ways that I do. So once you've done that, you can also check out two fun episodes that Anne and I did together on the Anacrusic podcast. Again, be sure to like her on all the social media platforms to see what she's up to, occasionally we do webinars together and again, I just really enjoy talking about collaboration amongst different platforms of music making. And if you have not done so yet, we would always love a review for the Choir Baton podcast on iTunes. And for you to share the conversations that we are having together on the Choir Baton podcast, with your friends, with your community, with your singers, so that people can learn from these conversations that we're having about life and choir. Until next time, keep singing!