Week 7 Music 3

Music 3: Listening and Organizing Sound

In the final music workshop this semester we covered mainly three aspects that creating simple compositions, selecting music for listening activities with a specific musical focus and integrating music with other KLAs and technology.

Nancy introduced some extremely useful teacher’s resources including a book called ‘Jelly Beans And Other Suites ’, some Apple application and educational websites. “Jelly Beans And Other Suites” was a very helpful teacher’s resources that I would like to use in my future teaching. There were several reasons:

1.      The book had a CD for teacher to play in the class so that students could be engaged;

2.      The size of the pages was very large and the book got clear and big label for every details;

3.      The songs recorded in the book were not too hard, but since it needed students’ cooperation and higher ordered thinking of the concepts, it would be better used in Stage 3 classes;

4.      The songs were very enjoyable and would not be very hard to analyze the elements of Music in the songs. For example, we covered duration, tone colour , dynamics and structure in the class;

5.      Each section of the song that required different type of instruments was labeled in different colour so that students could be instructed by teacher easily.

Researchers (Kellet, 2000; Hennessy, 2000) argue that music is an area that can result in a confidence issue dependent on past experiences and/or musical training. With a teacher’s resource like “Jelly Beans And Other Suites”, “neither the teacher nor students would be required to read music or have any prior ability to play a musical instrument”(Ewing & Gibson, R., 2011, p. 117). The rhythm was easy for the teacher and students to follow. The teacher could point at each bar during the CD was playing, and students could use various percussion and melodic instruments, such as wood or metallic xylophones and triangles. Involving new technology like CD players in the process of teaching Music would be more engaging and provide students deeper comprehension of the elements of Music. During listening to the songs that professionally recorded in CDs could guide students to follow the rhythm, organise sounds and encourage students to play the instruments. Hence in the future, I would like to use technology properly in the classroom environments as a tool to engage students more in learning Creative Arts, particularly Music.

References:

Gibson, R. & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the Arts. Palgrave Macmillan: Melbourne.