Practical Teaching Wisdom with Laura Bartolomeo (Part 1) | 175

Today on the podcast, I’m joined by Laura Bartolomeo, a veteran elementary music teacher with nearly 40 years of classroom experience. Laura is the creator of Oodles of Music, a trusted resource for elementary music educators looking for practical, time-saving lessons.

Laura focuses on Orff-inspired teaching that keeps students moving, creating, and making music together. She helps teachers plan faster, teach with confidence, and build lessons that work in real classrooms.

Through Oodles of Music, Laura shares ready-to-use activities, instrument-based lessons, and flexible teaching strategies. Her work supports sustainability, creativity, and joy in the music room.

Links Mentioned in the Episode:

💻 Oodles of Music Website 

💻 Crescendo Music Education Website

📘 Artful – Playful – Mindful by Jane Frazee

📘 The Kodaly Method by Lois Choksy

Where to find me: 

Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb

Introduction  

Gday, I’m Debbie O’Shea and this is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 175.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

Debbie O’Shea  

Thank you so much for tuning into the Crescendo Music Education Podcast. In this episode, we have Part One of my chat with Laura Bartolomeo. She is a veteran music educator in the United States. She created Oodles of Music. I loved talking to her because we are of a similar demographic. I so resonated with things that she said, and I am fairly certain that all of you, my listeners will enjoy part one of my talk with Laura.

Debbie O’Shea  

I would like to welcome to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast Laura. Now, let’s make sure I get this correct, because it’s such a cool name, Bartolomeo.

Laura Bartolomeo  

A plus. 

Debbie O’Shea  

What a great name. It sounds musical to me. Bartolomeo. Love it.

Laura Bartolomeo  

A famous Italian when you go to Italy, I mean the famous, I don’t know his first name, but anyway, he invented something.

Laura Bartolomeo’s Bio

Debbie O’Shea  

Oh, all right, I wasn’t even sure where it came from. So that’s good to know. Now I’m going to just start with this brief bio about the very experienced Laura. Okay. Laura is a highly experienced music educator with nearly four decades in the classroom. Laura is the creator of Oodles of Music, a much loved resource hub packed with practical time saving ideas for elementary music teachers, with a strong Orff inspired approach. Laura is passionate about joyful, hands on music making and supporting teachers to feel confident, creative and sustainable in their work. So I am so delighted to have you on the podcast, because I’ve just read out my own philosophy of teaching there, except mine is more a Kodály inspired approach, but the rest of it joyful, hands on, supporting music teachers. I am very excited to have you on and before we get going. That was just a really brief intro. So what would you add to that snapshot of your work or your mission, or what you see as your role as a music educator?

Laura Bartolomeo  

Well, I think that pretty much sums it up, because, well it’s pre and post retirement, so that was how I like to run my class. And now that I’m retired, but I’m still doing musical things my goal is to try to take some of the burden off the people who are still in the classroom. I just know how it feels, and I know how hard it is, and that’s my goal now, is to enjoy creating barred instrument arrangements, and I put those on TPT and all of that kind of stuff. But also to run my blog and my newsletter, where I’m constantly talking to people, they send in questions, they privately email me questions, and I want to ease their burden as much as I possibly can, because I know how hard it is.

Debbie O’Shea  

It’s not an easy job, is it? No, no, that’s wonderful. I wish more people at the end of their career, like me, that drive to give back. It’s so important we can’t lose all of your great knowledge and experience. So that’s wonderful that you’re doing that. Of course, it will go without saying that in the show notes for this episode, which you can find on crescendo.com.au, find this episode, we will put links to all of the things we mention. So we’ll put in links to your Oodles of Music and those sorts of things, but we’ll get to that a bit later on. But never fear if you are listening and you’re thinking, oh, I need to write down her name and what she does. No, it’s okay. You can find it later. Just keep going on that treadmill.

Laura Bartolomeo  

Yeah, and I have to say to I mean, I am giving back, but I gain more than I give. Teaching was a good choice for me, and I love the process of all of it, so I gained more than anything really, the give back I get a lot.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, and I think that’s something that if educators aren’t presenters as well, they don’t realise how much you get back as you support others. I mean, not just emotionally, but you learn a lot. I mean I love presenting because I love connecting with others and learning from them. So it’s sort of, although we’re giving back as mentors, we’re receiving a lot.

Laura Bartolomeo  

Oh, absolutely.

A Lifetime in Music Education

Debbie O’Shea  

So I think it keeps us passionate and engaged, and that’s what it’s all about. If you look back, you just mentioned that education was a good fit for you. You think you wound up in the right place, but what drew you to that in the first place?

Laura Bartolomeo  

Well, I can’t say that I wanted to be a teacher since I was eight years old. It wasn’t like that, and it was just a fortunate thing that what I ended up choosing ended up fitting with me, or maybe I would have made anything fit, I don’t know. We can make our own happiness sometimes, but I came from a very musical family, and then my brother was a music teacher, and he’s eight years older, so he was a big role model. My mother ended up teaching kindergarten and my father was very musical. So music teaching just kind of was an easy path and then once I got on it, I love math and puzzles and things like that, and teaching music became like a puzzle, and how I can fit these pieces together to make an effective program for kids.

Debbie O’Shea  

Wow, I love that analogy, because it is like that, isn’t it? A little bit of this fits there and this fits there. And how will that be interesting?

Laura Bartolomeo  

Oh, well. That’s the hard part of it too, because you have all of these things, and how do you call it? That’s one of the things for new teachers, they’re bombarded with all this information, and they don’t know what to do next. It’s so hard.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, it really is. So that passion that you found and you’ve been teaching for so long. What do you think were the keys to keeping that passion and drive alive over the last four decades?

Laura Bartolomeo  

Well, I think one of the things is that just music touches me personally, and I think a lot of people go into music because they have such a personal connection to it to begin with. And then when you’re in the classroom, those moments that nobody else sees. When you see a seven year old child light up, or you just feel this warmth from something they’re doing. Or you see a child who’s having trouble in the classroom with reading, but in your room they’re a rock star. Or, you know, all of these wonderful, wonderful things as you see them interact with the subject. I think that was part of it, and then the puzzle part was the other. I just kept wanting to find ways to get better all the time. I was constantly trying to better myself. I feel like young teachers are so hard on themselves, and I hate saying it to them, because it seems like an insurmountable mountain, but I say I was making mistakes and learning up till the bitter end when I retired. You’re constantly learning. So I don’t want to make them think it takes 40 years to learn how to be comfortable, but it takes a while. It truly is the essence of it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Debbie O’Shea  

I could not agree more, and it’s about learning to enjoy the journey. Because like you, at this stage I’m planning to do another year before I retire from full time teaching, and I’ve just got so much to learn, and I’ve been basically an educator for 44 years. So you’ve got to get out of the mindset that I will get there, in five years I’ll know what to do. Yeah, no, you won’t.

Laura Bartolomeo  

So I look at now all the things happening with researching songs and finding songs that have been mislabeled and there’s so much to learn always. So that was something that was really taking off when I retired. I mean, I’ve continued to pursue it so I can share that information as I find it. But there’s always something new to learn, even if you learn the basics, then there’s always a next step and something else to learn. I think if you’re a teacher and you love what you’re doing, you’re a lifelong learner anyway, and you appreciate that process. So that describes me well.

Debbie O’Shea  

I think that is key, lifelong learner, and I can hear that in everything you say, that that’s what you are. And yes, there are so many new things thrown at us. Another reason that you could never find the answer is that every time you teach, you’ve got a different group of kids in front of you with different needs and different backgrounds and different quirks. So even if you think I’ve got it pretty much squared away, like I’m feeling better, then you find yourself with another group of kids and all of those things you did, well, no, some of the things you did don’t work, and you’re going, okay, these kids don’t like that Oh goodness. So the other variable that you can never control is those personalities in front of you.

Laura Bartolomeo  

Yeah, and that’s another reason, maybe, that I continued the way I did was my husband was a football coach, so we moved quite a bit so I kept changing jobs and by the end, I have taught in quite a few different situations, and what you say is true. Even if you stay in the same school with the same demographics, a new group comes in, and they’re still different, because everybody has their own personalities. But when you change socio economic levels, when you change a lot of other demographic type things. I’ve done urban, I’ve done suburban, I’ve done rural, I’ve done a lot of different things, and each one then I kind of had to start over, because I had to kind of learn more. I mean, there’s similarities in all kids, but then there’s differences, cultural differences and life differences. So I had to constantly adjust to that as well.

Debbie O’Shea  

That’s a reality that was brought home to me in 2025 and I have to be careful not to say too much. But oh boy, if you find yourself in a more challenging school, what you think you knew suddenly maybe you don’t know or not quite so well. So I agree.

Laura Bartolomeo  

Yes, those are, those are humbling experiences.

Debbie O’Shea  

Especially when you’re very experienced and think actually if I speak personally for a moment, when you think it’s a strength, but classroom management and engagement is a strength of mine. That’s one of the things I’m good at for music education. Then suddenly you go, maybe I’m not. But then, of course, you have to reframe and say, okay, good, start where the kids are at, and let’s learn what works.

Laura Bartolomeo  

Yeah, your bag of tricks, you have to pull out your bag of tricks and plus find some new tricks. It’s a constant balancing act and shuffling and learning, and it’s challenging.

Life Beyond the Classroom

Debbie O’Shea  

It is so wonderful that you are choosing to give back and support others. Now I like to speak about gratitude in every episode, because I think, apart from being a lifelong learner, having an appreciation and feeling of gratitude for the good things in your life is really important. So I’m just wondering, what are you most grateful for right now? It could be musical education or it could be personal life.

Laura Bartolomeo  

I guess I’m most thankful for my health right now because I’m healthy enough to be able to sit down and do all this digital stuff that I’m doing and I’m capable. And not all my friends are that are my age, and people are going through different things, some on their own, some as caregivers. So I’m really grateful for my health. That would be my number one. And, of course, my supportive family, who you know she’s going to retire, and look now she’s starting a new thing. But they know it makes me happy, so I appreciate their support. The other thing I’m grateful for is a chance to learn something new, because besides working in the music education side of it, I’m getting to work on the business side of it, so I’m getting to learn about website design and graphic design and like search engine optimisation, SEO and all that stuff. And I love it, and I’m having a great time learning something brand new as well. So I’m really grateful for that and I guess that’s it.

Debbie O’Shea  

Oh, that’s more than enough. And I do think again, it’s coming back to this lifelong learner that you talked about, but I think it’s what keeps you engaged in life, isn’t it, to keep learning and keep working on something new. 

Laura Bartolomeo  

It is for me.

Debbie O’Shea  

Part of being a true what I’ve come to think of recently as a creative. I think as a creative, you having that new challenge, in a good way challenge is really important to creative people I think.

Laura Bartolomeo  

That is the essence of why I love it because I’m able to create and creating is what just makes me happy. So as I figure things out, I create all sorts of things for teachers, and things on my blog to help, and all that kind of stuff, and learning all the business side of it. The creating is, I mean, I don’t even know what I would do if I wasn’t able to create, and that really guided my teaching. I always wanted to be a teacher who offered creative opportunities to kids. So that kind of guided that too. I would do crazy things sometimes, just the craziest things ever. I had a whole grade level build dulcimers, and we talked about math ratios, and we built, we did all sorts of things.

Debbie O’Shea  

I was going to say, you’ve got to give us an example after saying that, building dulcimers, oh my goodness.

Laura Bartolomeo  

They’re kits that you put together, but we were able to do it. We got adult volunteers to come in and help with the tools. You’re gluing and painting, and then you learn to play it, but they’re learning the math ratios of an octave, the two to one ratios and all sorts of things. Like I said, I love math, so stepping out of the box is fun for me. I like that.

Debbie O’Shea  

Well, okay, well, you certainly were in the right job then, because I’m sure you were a loved music teacher. You were the fun, exciting one I’m sure.

Laura Bartolomeo  

 I tried. 

Orff-Inspired Teaching, Classroom Philosophy, and Practical Resources

Debbie O’Shea  

Now we have to get to talk about the Orff inspired teaching. Listeners of this podcast know I’m definitely a Kodály inspired teacher. I’ve done some Orff workshops, but not my level training but I believe, I’m not one of those you’re in the Orff camp and you’re in the Kodály camp. I think it’s quite good to own your philosophical base like that’s just being honest, isn’t it?

Laura Bartolomeo  

Yes.

Debbie O’Shea  

But I’m certainly not in the you’re the Orff and we’re the Kodály and never the twain shall meet. I think we have so much to learn from each other. Had I a little more time and career left, I would love to do my Orff levels but just have competing things happening now. I think there’s a lot to be learnt there. So knowing I’m fairly ignorant or relatively ignorant in this area, let’s have a chat about Orff inspired teaching, and why it resonates so well for you and your learners.

Laura Bartolomeo  

It’s again an active way of making music, and so to sit in and do an old fashioned kind of thing where you’re going to do nothing but drill rhythms or sit and have the kids just sit and talk, or sit and watch, or just sit, too much sitting, too much talking. I mean there has to be discussion I’m not saying there doesn’t but it’s just an active way. It’s a way to use their bodies but use their instruments, use speech, and it’s just an active way. It sets you up beautifully for a creative process, not just with barred instruments and improvisation, but you can do anything. I mean, they can create forms, they can create all sorts of things. So it really went again, to that creative side of opening up a world of, well, I didn’t get my Orff levels until I was a little bit older. I think I was, maybe in my 40s so I had some years under my belt, but it really ended up being great, because I knew what I knew and I knew what I didn’t know, and I had a great perspective at that point. So it just kind of firmed up some things I already was doing, and then it opened up to some areas that I could improve upon greatly, and I put them into practice immediately. So I’m mainly the creative side of it. I always wished that I’d gotten my Kodály levels, because I felt like that would have helped me pinpoint a little bit better some of my curriculum. So like you said, there are both worlds, but it’s hard to exist mutually. You have to kind of go one way more than the other, I think. If you call yourself an eclectic teacher, some people look down on that, but I really kind of think I was sort of an eclectic teacher.

Debbie O’Shea  

I think we’re all eclectic. I remember early in my Kodály training, someone saying, Oh, they can’t be a Kodály teacher they’re playing a guitar. I went I don’t believe in my Kodály study it said you can’t accompany children singing with a guitar. Their philosophy does say it’s good to sing acappella so that they can hear their own voices well. It does not say you never, ever sing any other way. I think taking a purist look at each philosophy, and it’s almost like fundamental Christians I guess, it’s almost like gone too extreme. I’ve taken this and so I’m not comfortable with those extreme versions, am I making sense?

Laura Bartolomeo  

No, it’s one of my pet peeves. It’s elitism, and it comes off like that. For young teachers, it makes them feel like they’re going to do something wrong. I mean, it doesn’t open up a world of where you’re going to make your own way. It’s like, oh, I shouldn’t do that. That’s wrong for me to do that. That really bothers me when people kind of act like their way is the best way. Some people get that with their rhythm systems. How they count rhythms, all sorts of things, and it’s like we’re solving world peace. Well, I mean, let’s not make it that big of a deal.

Debbie O’Shea  

That’s right. And I think we borrow ideas from absolutely everyone, all the time. The way I think of it personally, with my underpinning Kodály philosophy is that it gives me, in fact, I even have a little illustration with a skeleton, and it gives me the backbone of what I’m going to teach when. It gives me the basic structure of how I prepare a concept, present it, practice it, but how I fill out the body is completely up to me.

Laura Bartolomeo  

Do you feel like you’re left of centre for a Kodály teacher?

Debbie O’Shea  

That’s an interesting question. Some might think so. If they came to my classroom, they would go, you’re doing an awful lot of moving with scarves. Well, of course, because we’re showing form maybe, or we’re just being creative. Yes, maybe I am. I am slightly left. Actually, that describes my life. I’m just slightly left of centre.

Laura Bartolomeo  

You know, it’s an interesting observation for young teachers who might be listening to this. A lot of times they’ll ask the question, I’m new at the school and the principal said, What do I need? Though they’re going to give me a little bit of a budget. What should I get for my classroom? And I always answer the same thing. It depends on what kind of philosophy you have, because if people say you should get this, this, this and this, well, that’s what works for them and that works for their philosophy. Now, there are some things, like a good sound system, everybody should have that, but I mean some of the other things, but they don’t really know their philosophy necessarily at that point. So for those teachers, it’s okay. Again, the marathon and the sprint, you’ve got to take your time and figure out who you are as a teacher. It just takes time. And it’s okay, let it take time.

Debbie O’Shea  

I am with you there. Now, how do you balance movement, instruments, technology, all of those things within your classroom? Do you have, I would say it varies greatly. But do you work in sort of units, you might do a little bit where you’re focusing on ukulele more, or I’d imagine being Orff inspired your barred instruments would be fairly regularly used, can you just chat about how you balance all those different things in your puzzle?

Laura Bartolomeo  

Yes, I would say there are more units with the older kids. So we would run a ukulele unit, maybe a recorder unit, a barred instrument unit, although I used barred instruments a lot for different situations, but one where we would do, I always love doing Hot Marimba, Zimbabwe style playing. The kids love it, and it’s such a great ensemble feel, and so good for the kids. I always ran that in the second semester in January, because I feel like that’s a real period where you have to re engage the kids and get in there and just having fun with the instruments and playing those pieces. So I would run little units like that. But not so much with the younger kids, because the younger kids we’re singing, we’re doing singing games, we’re doing some handheld percussion, we’re doing a lot of movement. We’re doing all that constantly. So not units for the younger kids. But the other thing is, I would pull in some of those things, depending on what I was doing. So if a song, the natural fit for it was movement, then we’d add movement. That’s again, it is like things in life, if things are a natural fit, do it. If they’re not, don’t force it. You want to do more, use scarves more. Well, it’s not going to work for some things, but it’s going to work really well for others. So you would take what is in your curriculum, what’s coming up. That’s how I approach my song resources on TPT I sit and look at it, and actually, I’m backtracking. I’m putting all these puzzle pieces out here. Somebody just asked me, I would love to have a template where you could take a song and then write out everything you’re going to do with that song. So I started to work on it, and it stymied me, because it depends on the song and the variables, it’s tough. I’m going to still work on it though, because I’d like to get something for them. But you just have to look at what’s a natural fit for some things. Form is great for some, but not for others. So basically, I looked at my repertoire, the true answer is and then I put in what fits for that.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, absolutely. I think that’s what many educators do. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Yes, I’m trying to do a similar thing, actually, for some of this year’s new downloads. I’m looking at some early childhoods. So I’m talking Crescendo now, not classroom, but for the classroom and I’m looking at trying to do a template for each of the songs or rhymes. So I start with the song and the rhyme and an illustration, and then the next one, if it’s a song, it will have the music, perhaps an illustration, which it doesn’t need if it’s a rhyme, but there is one with text, because it could be good for pre reading literacy. Then I think the next sheet is basically one that class teachers could do, where they do an illustration. Then I’m going, Okay, what do I do next? That then I can use for the next one. And the answer is, I can’t. At the moment, what I’m doing is I’ve got the beginning couple of sheets and then the rest. It just depends completely on what the song or the rhyme is. It might be because this is also a resource to go in the classroom, not just the music room, like early literacy stuff. So it might be find the rhyming words or write in your name in the rhyme so then you need a sheet where they write in their own name, so 1, 2, 3, 4, Debbie at the kitchen door, and there’ll be a space and the children write in their own name. What a great idea. You can’t do that for Moses Supposes His Toes-es are Roses. That does not work. So I can’t use that. So I am in exactly the same place, and I think still a templates vaguely possible, but, gee, it’s got to have a lot of variation within that template.

Laura Bartolomeo  

Yeah, like in Google, if you have one of those drop downs with all their options, it’s going to be this long because you put name in there, Can you do something with a name? But, well, I had the, what’s the site? The Kodály song site.

Debbie O’Shea  

It’s Holy Names

Laura Bartolomeo  

Holy Names. That’s it. Love that site. If anybody doesn’t know it, I mean, it’s just a wealth of information. But on the side, this is your options, and they have done what I’m hesitating to do, they put everything in there, and it is a huge repository of information, but you kind of have to know what you’re doing to use it too. So at that point, then it’s not serving what the people are really wanting, which is an easy template.

Debbie O’Shea  

I know I’ve got to and yes, I know and love Holy Names. Never actually went there, and it’s moved now apparently. But I do have a Holy Name summer certificate because they bought their summer school to Brisbane, here in Australia where I am, and I went through and did their summers. So I have a Holy Name summer certificate, even though I didn’t go. But yes, I think we’ll make sure we put the link to that in the show notes. It is a great resource, isn’t it?

Laura Bartolomeo  

It’s fabulous.

Debbie O’Shea  

Especially if you want something with a particular tone set for something or a type of song. You can search. The search functions quite wonderful. You can look in all sorts of categories. So, yeah, we’ll make sure we put that in the show notes if you do not know about that one.

Laura Bartolomeo  

People are looking for a lot of times, my spring program is about sunshine and light, or they’ll have subjects, and so it’s a great place to look for something. A lot of the songs aren’t necessarily something you would use in a concert. You might have to arrange it because they can be shorter, but it can be a wealth of information.

Debbie O’Shea  

I’m a bit of a fan of a shorter song. You wouldn’t want to do it all the time, but I love taking a shorter song and then creating with it. Add an introduction, add an ostinato. Can we do it in canon? Could we add a solo, I think it’s lots of fun taking a shorter song and turning it into something amazing.

Sign-Off

I appreciate you and all of my colleagues and hope this episode has been enjoyable and useful. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes on crescendo.com.au. I’d love a share, rate or review to help other music educators find this podcast. Remember, all I can be is the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.

Just for Laughs 

As we know, laughter relieves stress. Don’t lose sight of the funny side of life. I once ate a dictionary. It gave me the-saurus throat I’ve ever had.