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Fant, Greg. "Motivational Ideas for the Musical Ensemble." Music Educators Journal 81.5 (1995): 17. Web.

Fant's article is about student motivation in music ensembles. Initially, he presents common reasonings for students participating in music in school, whether it be for the music or for social reasons. Questioning reasonings for doing certain things should be a part of everybody's thought process. Fant discusses a few different types of motivation that can be utilized in a classroom, including incentive motivation, fear motivation, and intrinsic motivation, or growth motivation.

Motivation is an extremely important to me as a teacher and a student of music. In different activities I find myself motivated for different reasons. Whenever I take part in something with a growth mindset, I am more driven to do well for my own benefit than if I am extrinsically motivated. This is not to say that extrinsic motivation is not effective. It can be very beneficial, but growth motivation is a stronger form of motivation for an individual and will last more long term than other forms of motivation.

1. How can I know when students need a certain type of motivation to accomplish a task?
2. Even though extrinsic motivators can be effective, does that mean they should be used?
3. How can an educator encourage a constant desire for growth motivation in students?


Kenny, William. "Rehearsal Traps." The Instrumentalist (1996): 13-18. Web.

Kenny lists and describes certain traps that directors fall into in their teaching. These traps include the dynamics, superconductor, tuning, talking, drilling, repertoire, and other traps. It seems as if the more teaching experience you have, the less likely you are to fall into these traps, assuming that you haven't become set in a routine. Getting caught in these traps can mean that your students are not getting the most out of their music experience. Too often music becomes about the conductor, but the conductor is truly the least important person in the room.

I like this article a lot because I think every educator, and every human being for that matter, has their own "traps" that they consistently find themselves falling into. For an educator, falling into these traps means the downfall of our students. The traps presented in this article are just a few examples of falling into a routine that is not conducive to student growth and can actually cause a lot of unhappiness in the educator.

1. How do these traps come to be a problem? From past experience? Past directors?
2. What are some ideas for getting out of these traps?
3. It always seems like music educators fall into these traps more than other educators. Is this true? If so, why is that?