Leslie Dawe
On Monday January 3rd I was fortunate enough to take part (with a music education class) in a Skype call with Leslie Dawe author of the article, Fumbling Towards Vulnerability: Moving Out of the Familiar for Music Education’s Sake. This was particularly interesting because I had a lot of interest her article. At first we discussed the students process. In her class there is two different steams; popular music and concert band (she teaches grades 6-8). She talked about different strategies for managing that age group. An interesting point she made was everything may look chaotic but if you look into individual conversations within the students small groups you’ll notice they are usually on topic. She also like to honour each students progress. I really enjoyed how she would get the students to compose and express their musicality, not just ta-ti-ti-ta. It was a unique experience getting to ask her questions right after reading the article. One of the questions I asked was, how would you lay out your first day of teaching a new class? I was curious because I was able to relate my personal beliefs to the ones stated in the article. Having a good mix of the elements as well as being progressive is a balance you don’t see very often. The reason I asked that question is because I liked her pedagogy but I had no idea where to start. You always here about the end result but never the first day. To my surprise it was very much like most first days. She said that when teaching music you have to do the simple instrument care talks no matter what, as well as learning everyone’s names. The only thing that really surprised me was she said being in a diverse community there were some students with religious accommodation. She did not go into detail but it is something I never though of. In this day in age we have so much diversity you have to accommodate, even in a music class. One thing I would have liked to discuss further is she does not integrate classical music into their studies. Most elementary students don’t like classical music (I sure didn’t) but being exposed to it young and learning some of the simple aspects to it can really help further their musical career, as most post secondary music schools are for classical music.
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Dr. Randall Allsup
On February 11, 2017 Dr. Randall Allsup gave a guest lecture to our class. He gave a very interesting lecture about interpreting different parts of a piece. In particular he used a Malaysian folk song. W had the opportunity to see the underlining theme and we got to write the rhythm, dance, and a variety of aspects to interpret it as our own. He taught the same as if we were elementary school students but would in a way, break the fourth wall and mention why he did something in that particular way. For example, he said as an educator you should never model what you want. If you don’t show them how, the world is their limit. This especially applies with compositional activities, such as the one I recently took part of. Once a certain idea is stuck in your head it can be difficult thinking of fresh, new ideas. Dr. Allsup said, “Too much time is spent on the product, not the process. The messy process.” That is all too true. Too many times have teachers always mention the final exam, and this will be on the final. Always focusing on the end. Or band directors constantly mentioning the final concert but most of time, the most musical/inspirational moments take place in rehearsal. Those are the moments we need to capture and reflect on since that will be the biggest impact and best learning opportunities. To expand further on working on the process, the messy process. Dr. Allsup also said as an educator you have to be extremely organized. i.e. in group work you need to avoid binary thinking but also have each group have a specific task. This is where it is necessary to incorporate is point of not giving answers/showing them how to do it. To sum it up you need to be organized while also allowing creativity to prosper. Realizing that the world is your students limit.
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Dr. Mark Hopkins
On Wednesday January, 18th Dr. Hopkins from Acadia University gave a guest lecture on the early stages of music education, particularly in a grade 7-12 instrumental class setting. He raised some very good points and defiantly some material I will take with me for a long time. He spent a lot of time talking about method books. This was very interesting to me because in my time as a private teacher I often used method books with my students. He was quick to point out the benefits of using a method book. For example it helps an ensemble play together, it unifies everyone’s experience, and it has lots of melodies for personal practice. We then moved on to the negatives such as someone else is deciding your classes content. Showing that the teacher has to work much harder if they do not use the book. We then proceeded to talk about how music is thought of in the brain. According to a study by Dr. Limb it was shown that we perceive music the same way as language. This was discovered by taking a jazz musician and putting them in an M.R.I. machine and having them improvise to the sounds it makes. So if music is seen as a language why is it not taught like one? Dr. Hopkins was an advocate for sound before sight. I strongly support this because I learned to play this way and it had many advantages throughout my musical career. Continuing off of what Dr. Hopkins said if a student learns to play an instrument out of a method book on day one all they have to practice that night is whole notes and maybe half a scale. After my first lesson on the violin I knew how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and by the second I was playing an Irish jig. Learning with this sort of method was a big spark for my curiosity in music. This gave me that initial excitement to keep practicing and not get tired after 20 minutes. After having my violin for 30 minutes I was already trying to figure out some classic rock tunes by ear. Bringing all this together it goes to show that if you give a young musician the tools to explore new ideas and play something that is fun and captivating it will inspire them to see where this new language will take them. To conclude my favourite point Dr. Hopkins made was that he has students composing from very early in their classes. He was blown away with the sort of material watch student came up with.
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Dr. Kevin Watson |
On Monday March, 20th Dr. Kevin Watson gave a guest lecture on improvisation. Right off the bat he mentioned this lesson would be taught the same as if we were 9th grade students. The class was asked to bring their instruments as we would be taking part in the lesson. As someone who learned by ear but is now studying in a classical program it was refreshing to have a lesson taught without sheet music. His opinion on learning music by ear is, “ If they don’t experience it orally, it won’t mean anything”. First off he played three tunes showing different styles of improve. He then had an mp3 track playing back up while he played sax. He played three notes and had us repeat. For the next bit we had a call and repeat style of different melodies, only using those three notes. We then went around the room soloing with those three notes (1-4-5). I thought this was a fun activity that really emphasized the roots of soloing, while not making things too complicated. He said that improvisation and melody should be taught side by side, one always influencing the other. Teaching improv in this style was something I took a lot out of. I was always told to play the notes within a scale in what ever order I want but Dr. Watson made so much more sense in how he related it to the melody of a piece, having the two coincide. As a percussionist I asked him how this would apply to drum fills/solos. He said it’s the same principle, accenting the melody and embellishing it, while always staying locked into the rhythmic train (as he stated). Overall I felt this was a very successful way to teach improvisation, an art that is neglected in elementary/secondary school education. In further exploration of this topic it would be interesting to see how Dr. Watson did his initial research on teaching improvisation. I’m curious to see how you could apply that style to other aspects of music such as starting a jam session, or how to be a strong rhythm section, something that is just as important as soloing. This lesson could also help with performance nerves. At any point he will call on you and ask to play a mini solo. Something that can be daunting at first, even to a room full of music majors.
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Dr. Ruth Wright
Dr. Ruth Wright gave an extremely fun lecture. She discussed independent learning within small ensembles. In this lecture she split us up into small groups and in 40 minutes we went onto non-primary instruments and learned a song of our choice, without sheet music. Being in a classical program this was a lot of fun and really felt like I was jamming with a bunch of friends, but still learned some valuable lessons. I would really take a lot from observing the other side of this activity. According to Dr. Wright this activity can really stress some students out and they find it very difficult. In our situation the room was all music majors so it was a lot of laughing and productive group work. I’m curious on how to handle a situation with students who are having a really tough time and getting frustrated. Reflecting on a previous lecture from Dr. Randall Allsup he said you should never model the result, when doing this the world is their limit. On the contrary Dr. Wright did quote the anthropologist Steven Mithen who believes music is hardwired in us. By that logic every student has the potential to excel through the activity. I really liked when she said, “If they don’t/won’t learn the way we teach, we must teach the way they learn”. What I interpret from that was if I were to do this activity in my classroom I wouldn’t do it on my first day. This is something that might be very challenging for younger students thus I want to have a strong relationship and have already adapted to their learning style that way I can be sure not to scare student away from learning music by ear (a very intimidating task).
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Kelly Bylica
Recently Kelly Bylica, a PhD student gave a guest lecture. She talked about her time teaching in Chicago as well as different ways of interpreting music through literature. She split us into groups and each group received a children's book. We looked through and discussed how each page would relate musically. My groups book was particularly interesting. It had a key on the first page giving solfege a colour, and throughout the book there was actually a melody written just though colours. Later in the class we went to talk about a specific scenario she encountered. She had some students tell her on the first day that they hated music and were terrible at it. A few days later she overheard the same group of kids making some incredible beats using pencils and pop cans. She was blown away but also confused, why did these students say they didn’t like music but went on to produce something so complex. When she asked them why they said they didn’t like her music or ‘real’ music (they were implying classical). We had a very interesting discussion on why they believed that wasn’t real music and what we can do to change that preconceived notion in our classrooms. At first the kids would misbehave but apparently this experience changed that. This cause a strong relationship from both parties.
Bryan Powell - Little Kids Rock
On Saturday, November 17th I attended a guest lecture with Brian Powell from Little kids Rock based out of the United States. He uses popular music as a bridge to reach his students. I found it so captivating how no matter the challenge his approach is 100% adaptable to each and every student. By making your classroom fully adaptable you can have a variety of difficulties in the same ensemble. Concert band has a beginner band, an intermediate band, and an advanced band but with this approach everyone can play together. His number one goal is to make music, that’s it. Some of his ways of making the music adaptable to everyone in the class included; if a student can’t make a switch between chords they only play on beat 1. This gives them lots of time to make the switch. Another way was taking away notes if a child was having trouble. For example a G chord is regularly played with the notes G, B, D, G, B, G. Bryan would take away the lowest 3 notes leaving them with G, B, G which only require 1 finger to play rather than three. This is a great way to have everyone playing music right away and to top it off he’d make these students feel super cool by doing a windmill with their right arm in between changes. If a student could and wanted to play the full chords he strongly encouraged this. According to Bryan when teaching chords you need to work fast and move on, this way you can get to the real music (real world application). From personal experience young students tend to have trouble with fret names/locations as well as the different strings. Bryan’s way of bypassing this was referring to the frets as boxes (i.e. 1st box or 7th box). This takes away the confusion of students wanting to play right on the metal fret rather than playing in between them. Or when referring to the strings he’d call them the skinniest string/the fattest one or closest to your nose/toes. I particularly like the nose and toes one because it non verbally encourages the students to hold the guitar upright. Young players will often try to look at their left hand while playing. This causes the guitar to face up instead of directly in front of them.
I found it surprising how at first it seemed like he completely abandon the traditional terminology but in reality he used words that were easier to understand. Once the students had a baseline understanding he’d gradually introduce the ‘proper’ terminology. This is similar to his approach on theory. He said, “theory is only necessary when it takes our musicianship to the next level”. I thought this was such a great way to think about it! In my own experience I’ve used theory for further understanding of the music. Such as, doing a (not so formal) roman numeral analysis of the Bach Partita I was working on. This analysis helped me form all the notes together and made it not feel random, this helped me learn the music in a better way. When a child is first learning to play the guitar realistically the only theory that would be helpful is chord names (not the notes within them) and string names because it is a good and consistent way to reference what they are doing/need to do.
He finished off this lecture by stating, this should not replace band or choir. Those are so important and definitely have a place in the school system. The benefit of including popular music is it diversifies your music program meaning more students will be interested. At the end of the day we are music teachers, so why does this mean we often cut out so many styles and forms of music that would improve our program?
I found it surprising how at first it seemed like he completely abandon the traditional terminology but in reality he used words that were easier to understand. Once the students had a baseline understanding he’d gradually introduce the ‘proper’ terminology. This is similar to his approach on theory. He said, “theory is only necessary when it takes our musicianship to the next level”. I thought this was such a great way to think about it! In my own experience I’ve used theory for further understanding of the music. Such as, doing a (not so formal) roman numeral analysis of the Bach Partita I was working on. This analysis helped me form all the notes together and made it not feel random, this helped me learn the music in a better way. When a child is first learning to play the guitar realistically the only theory that would be helpful is chord names (not the notes within them) and string names because it is a good and consistent way to reference what they are doing/need to do.
He finished off this lecture by stating, this should not replace band or choir. Those are so important and definitely have a place in the school system. The benefit of including popular music is it diversifies your music program meaning more students will be interested. At the end of the day we are music teachers, so why does this mean we often cut out so many styles and forms of music that would improve our program?