Who We Are
The SongWorks Educators Association (SWEA) is a community of educators who engage learners through SongWorks, a principles-based approach to teaching music.
SongWorks principles and practices offer teachers both grounding and flexibility in making purposeful, caring choices in their interactions with people and music. Songs are the foundation for study and learning experiences that nurture playfulness, responsiveness, and musicality.
Through developing and sharing ideas centered around the SongWorks teaching approach, SWEA members support each other in growing as educators and learners.
Events
Certification Courses
July 13-17, 2026
Salt Lake City, UT
Annual Conference
April 2026
Online
News
Remembering Fleurette from Z to A
Kate Smith shares a story remembering our dear friend and mentor, Dr. Sister Fleurette Sweeney. For many decades Fleurette lived, studied, and taught in the lower mainland of British Columbia. My husband, Bill, and I visited with her frequently in Vancouver and often...
From the President – February 2026
Dear SongWorks Educators, It has been an unusually snowy and cold winter here in Cleveland, Ohio. We have already racked up seven snow days this year and have about a foot and a half of snow on the ground! My students are having a blast playing on the mountains of...
Arranging and Composing with “Tricky” Ideographs
“What song could this be? See what comes to your mind while I draw. What can you sing back?” I love to present kids with a “secret song” by drawing an ideograph. Perhaps I had drawn the ideograph when first presenting the song in order to clarify their...
Movement and Meter: The Stars and Stripes Forever
Kayla Buchanan, one of this year’s Emerging Pioneers in Music Education, offers her reflections on how SongWorks has enriched her teaching practices. For one of my assignments as an Emerging Pioneer for the 2025 SongWorks Conference, I chose to create an activity that...
The Joy of Learning How To Enjoy Teaching Again
Amy Watson recently completed her Level 3 SongWorks Certification Teaching Practicum to become a SongWorks Certified Educator. The final level of certification is unique because students have the opportunity to dig into the details of their teaching with two mentor...
Resources
Looking for Songworks I & II or other printed resources?
Head over to our Books page for these and more!
Get Involved
• SWEA Newsletter & Teaching Ideas
• SWEA Membership
Available in Members Access Area
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From the Archive
‘…that by which…’
In 1946 during my first year of undergraduate studies, I took my very first course in philosophy. How I loved that course! Yet for all my enthusiasm at the time only two precise memories remain. Those of you who know me will laugh at this first one simply because I haven’t changed a whit to this day!
The Children Are Coming: An Interview with Leah Sunquist
At the beginning of the school year, I’m excited to see my students! I’ve missed them, and I’m excited to rekindle the relationships. I like to touch base with what’s going on, see the growth and find out what’s happened in their lives. I am also excited about all the new things I have to present to them, and the journeys I want to take them on throughout the year.
A Tribute to Teachers
We are teachers. We know the importance of our work. We have made a career commitment to helping young people learn. Yet, we know that we’ll never finish our quest to be the best teacher we can be.
Looby Loo Scores and Scrambles
Playful Teaching – Vibrant Learning! What an inspirational tagline! Yet we easily fall into ‘habitual teaching’ where we take the same route to achieve a specific learning goal. This group of lessons is suggested as a pathway to vibrant learning. The ultimate goal is to be skillful in reading and musical in performing several different scores for “Looby Loo.”
A Musical Evolution of Notation: Introduction
Often, conventional music notation is studied on an elemental level by pulling visual symbols, representing rhythm and pitch, out of their musical context for study. What happens when we consider that complex traditional music notation has become so rigid that its study at an elemental level lacks value, function, or power?