Welcome to the APME Memphis 2025 conference. Here, you’ll be able to register for the conference and update your Sched profile. The conference schedule will be available in late spring 2025. At that time, you can view the schedule and select the presentations you’d like to attend. If you have any questions, please visit our conference website or contact us at conference@popularmusiceducation.org We look forward to coming together as a community June 4–7, 2025.
Empower your students to take the reins of their musical journey with student-led bands! In this engaging presentation, Stephen T. Cox shares real-world strategies for guiding students to organize, rehearse, and perform as independent ensembles. Drawing from his experience facilitating student-centered programs, Cox will outline practical steps for creating a secondary program around this concept, fostering leadership, collaboration, and creativity in young musicians. The session will explore actionable strategies for setting up rehearsal spaces, helping students organize their bands, and creating meaningful performance and feedback opportunities. Additionally, attendees will learn methods to address common challenges such as managing student conflicts and promoting the program within the school and community. This presentation provides a roadmap for cultivating ownership, accountability, and teamwork, equipping educators to inspire the next generation of musicians to lead with confidence.
Discover how Modern Band programs can engage "the other 80%" of students and elevate music education. Learn tools, strategies, and pedagogy for live performance, contemporary music theory, studio production, and career-readiness. This session empowers you to implement Modern Band classes that enhance enrollment.
Incorporating students with disabilities is critical for the authenticity of the learning environments for both disabled and non-disabled students. There are two keys an educator needs for unlocking true inclusion in the classroom: First, a deep understanding that inclusion is not a place; simply being in the room does not make a musician nor satisfy the requirements of inclusion. A safe environment to cultivate belonging, creative expression, and authentic contribution must be prioritized and created by the educator. Second, The educator must have or learn the skills and possess the physical materials to create such an environment. Many music educators, especially in the popular music space, inherently hold the first of these keys. They’re spending their careers working to create musical spaces that welcome and reflect every child. Unfortunately, preservice training rarely prepares its future educators to actually teach students with moderate to severe disabilities. This session will dive deep into the “how” with real life examples of modified instrumental curriculum and a peer mentoring structure that shares the work of teaching with the other musicians in the room, creating a transformative musical and social experience for everyone involved. The pedagogy will focus primarily on guitar and percussion, with discussion about the application of the form for any instrument, vocal, or general music setting.
Ever since the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s, many schools have become increasingly diverse. However, the majority of educators in the United States are white and attended primarily white institutions. Therefore, many of these educators approach instruction with a Eurocentric (classical music) approach. This would include a passive receptive approach to teaching like sitting and listening to a Beethoven Symphony. However, other cultures, such as African American, are more accustomed to a call and response (the Blues) approach in which they are engaged. Students of color are used to music such as the Blues, Soul, Funk, and Hip Hop that utilize polyrhythm, improvisation, and active participation. The lack of understanding of these musical concepts in genres like the Blues creates classrooms that are not culturally inclusive. In this engaging and participatory workshop, we will examine these musical elements and how they can be actively used in the classroom in any content area to create culturally relevant lessons and a welcoming environment for all students.
Vincent Sneed has been a music educator in public schools in Georgia for the past 21 years. He has taught both high and middle school which included teaching band, chorus, music history, music theory, music appreciation, and piano. Sneed also has provided music for churches across... Read More →
Saturday June 7, 2025 10:15am - 11:15am CDT SPAC - Hodges Choral Room3800 Central Ave, Memphis, TN 38117
Middle school and young high school students love forming their own bands, and if students and teachers aren’t careful, all the energy and enthusiasm can be sucked out of the project before it even gets off the ground. In this session educators Scott Prescott and Eric Songer, along with their students, will discuss and demonstrate how to make these bands shine. Topics will include philosophy, scheduling, collaboration, problem solving, song selection, and booking gigs. These points will include a variety of ideas and specific examples of what has worked for us including how we schedule and specific song titles. This will also include a short discussion on how popular music ensembles can co-exist and actually thrive in a traditional music program. We will demonstrate rehearsal techniques, teamwork, student leadership, and stage presence. These demonstrations will include examples of both teacher-led models and student-led models. Attendees will get an authentic demonstration of what works and where the common pitfalls are in popular music ensembles at this age. The young rock stars will also give a short performance. Time will be allowed for attendees to ask the students questions and for us to learn from each other.
Music Educator, Eastern Carver County School District
27 years is a long time to teach middle school music, but I love it. I was hired to direct concert bands, but the program is much more than that. Students write songs, produce, form their own bands, learn non-band instruments, rap, beatbox and more. Our students perform in rock bands... Read More →
Pulitzer Prize winner and multi-platinum Hip Hop artist, Kendrick Lamar, is an exemplary pedagogical model for practicing music educators. As a master composer, Lamar is known for rich and deeply layered metaphors and compositional experimentation. Additionally, Lamar demonstrates a sustained commitment to his culture, through both celebration and critique. The purpose of this session is to explore the ways in which Kendrick Lamar: (a) employs the 21st Century skills of creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and connection in his musicking and; (b) models exemplary pedagogy and praxis for general music educators.
Recent critics of the culture of competition in music education argue that it promotes a capitalistic, neo-liberal approach, prioritizing products over educational processes (Powell, 2024). One example of competition is all-state ensembles, where students audition for elite groups at state music conferences. Although participation in these ensembles can boost self-efficacy (Hendricks, 2016), foster ambition (Barnes et al., 2002), and provide social benefits (Burland et al., 2021; Hewitt, 2013), they also raise concerns about favoritism toward larger schools and barriers related to distance and instrument (Lien & Humphrey, 2001). There has been limited research on students' perspectives, with most researchers investigating adult perceptions of all-state groups (e.g., teachers, administrators, parents). Further, most studies focus on traditional bands, choirs, and orchestras rather than modern band. The Kentucky All-State Elementary Modern Band (KASEMB) offers a novel approach, diverging from traditional competitive structures (Music Will, 2024). Unlike conventional all-state ensembles, which follow a conservatory or competition-based model (Allsup, 2006; Powell, 2024), KASEMB auditions are equity-based, removing barriers like traveling for auditions and obscure repertoire; students submit video auditions with music of their choice. The selection of students is also equity-based, with round one adjudicated and then round two ensuring the final selection includes students from a diverse range of schools and backgrounds. Additionally, KASEMB rehearsals are organized and run democratically (Cremata, 2017; Dewey, 1916), with students selecting repertoire, establishing norms, and shaping the rehearsal process. This study explores how KASEMB functions as an all-state ensemble from the students' perspective. Data collection is ongoing and will be ready for presentation in Summer 2025.
Teaching the Pop classes at Toledo School For The Arts for the past 8 years has taught me a lot. In this presentation I'll run through what my year as a Pop Combo instructor looks like. We'll dive into the curriculum, end goals for students in the commercial music program, planning the our calendar, auditions, picking rep, and more. This is a brief look into how our program/classes run and hopefully helpful to anyone who may be teaching popular music already or looking to start their own program.
In today's polarized political climate, students are often exposed to a wide variety of political thought but are not often taught to engage with political expression responsibly, thoughtfully, and creatively. Further, how might we encourage students to bridge divides, engage in responsible creative output, become passionate about issues of activism and social justice, and engage in democratic practices through the study of popular music? This session teaches attendees how to use popular music education, modern band, and secondary general music courses as a means of teaching students to be engaged and active citizens in their local political scene. I focus on the history of pop music as a tool for resistance, the role of songwriting in expressing political sentiments, performance as art, activism, and protest, and how we can encourage students to be responsible and engaged citizens through the study and performance of popular music. Attendees will be led through a brief history of the role of popular music in America’s long political history, participate in a political songwriting activity that they will share with each other, and engage with a sample project that showcases the potential for using popular music education for activism and citizenship.
Music teacher educator and researcher with a passion for interdisciplinary approaches to music education, policy, and research! To see this in action, come to my session entitled "Pop Off Sis!: Teaching civic engagement and political action through popular music."
Saturday June 7, 2025 2:00pm - 3:00pm CDT Classroom 105 - Legacy Building3775 Central Avenue 129 Music Building Memphis, TN, 38111
Students come to school already musical with their own identities shaped by what they listen to and years of musical experiences. Tapping into students' musical familiarity and taste is not only a great teaching strategy for validating their sense of self and broadening their musical knowledge, but also a formidable technique that supports their holistic well-being. This workshop will focus on the research behind how popular music and well-being are connected, alongside hands-on activities participants can immediately apply in their teaching. Worksheets and tools will be offered to accompany the workshop activities centered around making musical decisions with students, learning about each other through playlists, and being able to identify signs of or barriers to well-being in music education contexts.
Social Justice in Popular Music Education requires more than learning to play songs from diverse genres of music, and developing this movement into a staple of the institution of Music Education. Social Justice requires honoring the ancestors and culture bearers from which Popular Music, the music of the people, came. Social justice is understanding and choosing to respect the difference between cultural appreciation and appropriation, and to invest in culture bearers. To be an agent of Social Justice is, at the minimum, a dual effort: 1) facilitating the learning of the artist’s stories and the history of popular music tied to socio-political history; and 2) empowering our students’ voices to use music to interpret and express their lived experiences. Many issues inherent to a postcolonial society working towards Social Justice—a society wrought with mass shootings, suicides, drug abuse, racism, divisive politics, and enslavement thinly vailed as a criminal justice system— complexify our students’ access to actively engaging in a musical life. Everyone deserves access to a music education embedded with social justice, and there needs to be a concerted effort to increase access in underserved and historically marginalized communities from which this music came.
There are longstanding assumptions of artificial intelligence being a technology resource that promotes societal objectivity and neutrality. Formalized education is the instrument utilized by the socioeconomically dominant to socialize curriculum and pedagogy to their benefit. Generative AI in education could be creating predictive outcomes that are exacerbating racial disparities when using historical data to create new algorithms. Wealthier schools tend to benefit substantially from more advanced AI tools. Digital access varies by socioeconomic status, because underserved populations tend to have less than reliable internet connectivity, and are more than likely having to complete larger tasks on a cell phone instead of a desktop or laptop computer. Even if learners gain access to a laptop, research indicates that Black and Brown student learners are still underserved in advanced curriculum resources and qualified teacher instruction, which leads to greater opportunity gaps in the workforce where AI is an important tool for work competency. The purpose of this study is to identify racially discriminatory behaviors and practices associated with generative AI in music education. This study also considers next steps in eliminating racial biases, and providing more equitable opportunities for underrepresented populations to be situated in the leadership and creation of AI resources in music education.
School music educators are often seen as occupying one of two distinct “camps”. This dichotomy has been characterized as “preservation vs. progress” or “tradition vs. change”. On one side are those concerned with the maintenance of traditional ensembles and the curricular foundations of Western music history and notation. On the other side are those driven toward curricular reform that nurtures students’ agency and imagination. Popular music educators usually identify with the latter side and employ distinct curricula and pedagogy to pursue its goals. However, this empirical study of 22 high school music students in Toronto found that using popular music pedagogies (PMPs) can enhance, rather than take away from, students’ ability to achieve traditional curricular goals such as performing Western European Art Music (WEAM) in large ensembles. More specifically, students’ experience with PMPs helped them to proactively identify and correct their own mistakes, better understand the stylistic characteristics of the music, and develop a greater sense of responsibility to master their parts. One implication of this finding is that popular music educators can more easily justify using PMPs in the classroom, as doing so can contribute to the achievement of traditional learning goals. Another implication is that traditional music educators can feel more confident to explore PMPs, as doing so won’t necessarily detract from their pursuit of teaching excellence in WEAM.
This study examines the experience of building a network of songwriting classroom educators from around the United States. In many parts of the country, songwriting is not a common curricular offering in K-12 education. In some cases, there may be only one songwriting teacher in an area. Because music teacher preparation programs and professional development in popular music education can be difficult to find, the author set out to build a network of songwriting educators. The purpose of this network evolved to support each other’s classroom and personal songwriting work, share ideas and challenges, and discuss contemporary issues in songwriting, music education, and the music industry. The insights from this community are used to redesign the author’s songwriting curriculum. Some areas of redesign include student choice, scaffolding, and personal vulnerability. This session will discuss the question: How might a community of songwriting teachers, who are also classroom teachers, develop ways to support each other and ways of teaching that might support the development of songwriting pedagogy among American music educators? Topics to be discussed include the process of recruiting members of the group, meeting formats, themes that emerged from the conversations, and how this can move forward to further influence the field of songwriting education.
