Instrumental Series: Communication that Counts | 123

Welcome back to the second episode in our Instrumental Series with the amazing Carmen Forgan!

In part one, Carmen inspired us with her insights on teamwork and collaboration. Today, we’re talking about one of her favorite tools: the Communication Book.

The Communication Book is more than a notebook.

It’s a simple way to connect school and home. Carmen will explain how it helps teachers track what students are practicing. It also lets parents ask questions and stay involved.

This system is easy to use and makes a big impact. Whether you need better communication with families or fresh ways to keep students accountable, this episode has tips you can try right away.

We’ll also discuss Rainbow Rockets, one of Carmen’s favorite repertoire pieces. She’ll share how it engages students and reinforces key skills. You’ll hear creative ways to use it and learn how it inspires a love of music.

Join us as we explore how tools like a Communication Book and thoughtful repertoire create stronger connections and foster growth. Let’s dive in!

Biography of Carmen Forgan:
Carmen began her music education journey in the Education Queensland Instrumental Music Program. After completing high school, Carmen gained a Bachelor of Music (majoring in Clarinet) and Bachelor of Education and took a position as an Instrumental Music Teacher in Mareeba, Far North Queensland in 2001. After 3 years in this position, she returned to the Ipswich area to teach High School Classroom Music. Combining her love of music and travel, Carmen then spent 1-year teaching music in Manchester, UK. On returning to Australia, she taught Instrumental Music in the Ipswich area as well as private woodwind tuition. 

Carmen is very passionate about music education. Currently Carmen works at The Gap State School and The Gap State High School as an instrumental Music instructor.

Links Mentioned in this Episode:
📘  Communication Book
🌈  Rainbow Rockets

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

Here is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 123.

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 elder’s past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

If you’d prefer to listen to this episode, click here!

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too!
The transcript of episode 123 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

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Debbie O’Shea 

The other thing that we do that I’m really quite proud of is our little practice book, or our communication book.

Carmen Forgan 

Communication book, yes.

The Communication Book

Debbie O’Shea 

We don’t call it a practice book, it’s a communication book. We’ve developed that together, so it’s supposed to track what the children are doing at home. There are sections where parents can ask a question, or you can ask a question of the parents, or you can just write, I love the way you played this today. Or you cannot write anything, like it’s quite an open little thing, but it’s up to each teacher how much they use it, or how little. Because I don’t think that’s particularly fair, certainly not in our system, to say you must do this, this, this. But the book’s grown over time. In fact I could put that as a download in the show notes. I should probably do that shouldn’t I?

Carmen Forgan 

Yeah, that would be nice.

Debbie O’Shea 

Let me write myself a note while you talk about what you like about it, I’m just going to write myself a note up here to include a communication book.

Carmen Forgan 

I love using the communication book for several reasons. I think we’ve worked on it over time to make it look easier to read. It’s more functional, less wordy. I love our emoji faces. So the children, they indicate if they’ve practiced on particular days. But the most important part to me is we have a smiley face, I guess it’s in their face, and a sad face and the children just literally circle or colour it in, about how they’ve felt about music that week. So did their practice go well? Or have they played a lot? They don’t need to indicate it in words. They can literally circle or colour it in and we can then have that instant feedback communication, because some children don’t like to write much down, but if it’s literally circling or colouring in they’ll do it.

Debbie O’Shea 

The middle face, or my intention of the middle face, was like a meh.

Carmen Forgan 

It’s a real meh.

Debbie O’Shea 

Don’t know, don’t care.

Carmen Forgan 

And lots of kids are meh.

Debbie O’Shea 

Wasn’t great, but wasn’t terrible. It was just meh.

Carmen Forgan 

Yeah, I love that one. It does get used a lot by the kids. Oh yeah it was meh. I also really love the fact that we have that opportunity for parents and us to communicate. I have a few parents that do use that regularly and say, Oh, I loved this song or they’ve struggled playing number 82 this week. Or if they have a question, or I can’t find their flute rod and I can fill it in straight away. It’s another way of communicating with them instead of having to be on emails. I guess I also love our back page.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, and I remember at least one, if not several, students they were so proud of it. And because of the back page, I’ve got a nice little border and my compositions is written at the top and they’d coloured in all the edge and made it look so pretty, they were so proud of it.

Carmen Forgan 

Debbie came up with the idea of putting in a composition. Yeah, it’s just music staff, isn’t it? It’s just literally a page of music staff and children can compose if they feel like it. We’ve had some beautiful compositions shared with us from students. We were talking the other day, we had a student who was a  beginner who only knew five notes, the first five notes, but loved the fact that they could compose with their five notes and make a song and take knowledge that they’ve learnt from the classroom, bring it into my room and add it to their instrument and create this composition and there it is written on the back page. It was just beautiful.

Debbie O’Shea 

I do too. That’s my favourite.

Carmen Forgan 

Absolutely.

Debbie O’Shea 

That’s pretty magic to be able to do that. Now, most of the kids ignored the bit that said my compositions, it wasn’t necessarily work, however you actually were free if you wished to use it in class. You could say Using ta’s and titi’s only and these three notes quickly write out a melody. Let’s all play each other’s. So you could use it for teaching, but it really was just there, mainly as extension and application if they wished. The other thing I love about our team is our aligned pedagogy. It’s a very flash way of saying; I love it when some of the way we teach is the same.

Now because your aim is to create musicians and my aim is to create musicians and believing they are already musicians and also believing that aural development is so important. It’s not just about putting your fingers in a certain place and blowing and getting this sound. It’s so much more than that and I find that our discussions about pedagogy have been really valuable.

More Than Just Notes

Carmen Forgan 

Absolutely. I think for me, I’ve always believed in that. I’ve always believed in teaching the musician, like creating a musician, teaching the whole child. Education is more than just the notes or how to hold the instrument, but being able to link in with you and teaching the children with the same language and we even use some of the same repertoire and just making that double connection, I think has just helped so much. They’ve increased their learning and we can learn so much more quickly because I’m using a language that’s familiar to them. I’m not starting from scratch.

We don’t do everything, obviously, exactly the same way, but we try and do it as much of it in common as possible. Because we start more diatonically, however in the beginning I do a lot of the same repertoire, because we can start with do and re or we can start with so and mi if we choose to. Or, yeah, I was gonna say I feel it’s so important for the kids to be singing in our lessons and audiating and that links in with what you’re doing as well in your classes.

Debbie O’Shea 

I actually think, though there are obviously going to be some things that don’t fit perfectly, like you said, diatonic. So if we’re talking solfa, you have fa, I haven’t taught fa yet but it’s important we have those conversations so I know what’s going on, but it’s not so much making sure it aligns exactly. I actually think it’s more to do with how you teach, the pedagogy, you’ve touched on it. You talked about singing and aural and it’s about the sequence of teaching.

It actually matters not a jot that you do. Probably, if you’d asked me this 40 years ago, when I was really new into Kodály pedagogy and sequence, I might not have been quite so flexible. But now I think it makes no difference at all that they’ve got fa before I’ve taught fa in the classroom, who cares? It’s the way you have taught it and the way that you’re linking aural and you’re singing and you add some solfa, do some letter names. It’s more the how you teach it. However, as we speak, an example of the change I’ve made in my practice, I’ve moved the teaching of semibreve earlier.

Carmen Forgan 

Because we use it very early.

Debbie O’Shea 

You use it very early. I didn’t bother. I mean, we don’t have much in my singing repertoire that has semibreve. I do struggle a bit to find that, because there’s not many kids songs where you have all these long notes, like, no we have short notes. So I’ve moved it earlier because it’s actually not a difficult concept to teach and I use the same sequence to teach it. In my preparation steps, I can move it earlier and that will help you, because they’ll have an idea.

Carmen Forgan 

That’s right.

Debbie O’Shea 

So they’re the sort of things that have happened through our discussions. I’m probably not going to move fa back to Year Three, because I don’t think they’re ready. We’ve just got re and we’re working pentatonic and that sequence suits mi, the repertoire suits them. I’m not going to stick fa back in there, but it doesn’t hurt that you’ve got it there.

Carmen Forgan 

No. Then we talk about the fact that you haven’t seen fa yet and fa’s new. And then it’s exciting that they can then come into your lessons and say, Oh, we know what comes in between mi and so, yeah.

Parroting and Repertoire

Debbie O’Shea 

And it’s great, then I’ll go, good, what is it? Let’s sing it and we can even all sing it together. But that doesn’t mean we’ve learnt it, like most kids can parrot the whole Sound of Music, that does not mean they can read, write and understand every element within the diatonic scale. So my two year old that wandered around the house singing Bach’s Little Fugue in G minor, in rhythm names. He did not understand ta, ta, tum, titi, titi, titi, ta.

He sang it perfectly, because that’s what I was doing when I was doing my master’s degree and I was teaching Year Eight within that and I didn’t realise but as I was planning, I was obviously singing it. Because next thing this two year old parroted Bach’s Little Fugue in rhythm names. Now he did not understand tum ti, which was my main teaching point. So it does not hurt if we sing fa, it’s there, but we can’t necessarily read, write and understand it.

Debbie O’Shea 

So I digress. Repertoire. You’ve touched on repertoire. We share some repertoire where possible. I’ve sent you stuff that I do and I’ve had a look at your books. There’s a couple of things that are similar or the same in your tutor book and in my programs, Rainbow rockets is developing. I did do something way too complex. I’ve cut it right back. So this is what I do in Year Three and of course it’s rainbow. They work through colours of the rainbow. So I guess think recorder karate but it’s colours of the rainbow, because it’s me in my room with my colours and it made sense. Rainbow rockets.

They rocket through and they earn colours and they play on recorder, because I start recorder in Year Three and they also play on tuned percussion. So they work through a range of repertoire in Year Three that then leads into the beginning band program in Year Four. So our strings start in Year Three, so strings have already started, but that’s still cool. They’re starting a wind instrument and doing tuned percussion and they’ve got strings as well, fabulous. So I’ve really liked having that lead in, specifically for brass, woodwind, percussion.

And I tell you what, there are some highflyers. There are some kids that just take off. So it’s sort of a self paced thing, drives me a bit nuts when I give them time to do that, because my ears don’t cope. I can’t do it for too long, but I have the music room open a couple of lunch breaks a week and they come in and can work at their own pace and come and play for me and earn their colour of the rainbow. So that’s just something that we’ve added to the classroom program to hopefully directly help the instrumental program.

Carmen Forgan 

I think it has definitely, in many ways. I’ve got a couple of clarinet players this year that automatically knew what I was talking about when I was talking about having to cover the holes with the flat fingers and I didn’t need to communicate anymore, because they’d learn in their rainbow rockets how to press and cover with the nice cushy part of their fingers. So little things like that just make it so much easier, that connection has made it easier for me to then move on.

So that’s really, really fantastic. I think also just having the students come to me after rainbow rockets, having more breath control and understanding about just playing through. Like playing through an instrument and then they’ve also had that experience of playing short melodies and having to read the notation more and all those little steps. They’ve already had that exposure and experience so then stepping into the instrumental music room is a more comfortable zone for them.

Debbie O’Shea 

That is good to hear. I’m hopefully, too, I focus a lot on tone. I mean, anyone who teaches recorder does have to focus on tone, if you don’t focus on tone and beautiful, slow, gentle breathing you’ve missed the point. If you’re doing recorder and you’re not focusing on breath control and quality of sound. So hopefully that too transfers.

Carmen Forgan 

Yeah, absolutely, not just blowing, but listening to what you’re actually producing. What’s that sound coming out the other end, yeah.

Debbie O’Shea 

Love it. So I think that that has helped our little team and the other one I want to mention before we get on to your (sings) nuggets of fabulous, my favourite bit. Actually, I should do a jingle. We should do a nuggets of fabulous jingle.

Carmen Forgan 

You could write a jingle.  Okay.

Debbie O’Shea 

I could get great singers, like you. Oh, we did not even talk about tessitura, okay, let’s come back to it. Okay, come on sidebar. Tessitura.

Carmen Forgan 

Okay.

Sign-Off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be as 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 have a question. Would February march? No, but April may. You can use that one with your kids.