Music

MUSIC1：PERFORMING & PLAYING

Before our first Music tutorial started, we reviewed the music concepts learnt from Creative Arts 1, which are:

l Duration;

l Pitch;

l Tone Colour;

l Dynamics;

l Structure

We started with three world-known musical pieces to refresh our memories of the musical concepts and draw students’ prior knowledge to the class. The three music pieces were “Carnival of the Animals – The Swan”, “In the hall of the Mountain King” and “The Ice Dance”. Nancy also gave us a list of questions about music concepts to think while playing the music clip. After listening, students discussed and analysed how the music concepts had been used properly to perform and organise sound. This strategy is advised for teachers to use while teaching music in the class. It could engage students and help them to analyse and comprehend this music piece better through making a sequence of questions. For example,

“In the hall of the Mountain King”

l Duration: How was the speed of the piece? Was it getting faster or slower?

l Structure: What is the main piece of the song piece of the song? How many times could you hear in this piece?

l Tone Colour: How was the cello played? (e.g. Tapping.) Is that different from using strings?

l Dynamics: Was the music getting louder?

l Pitch: How did the song make difference to you?

The questions based on the music concepts are useful to guide students build their comprehension of music. For Stage 2 students particularly, they need to learn to respond to music and “identify the use of musical concepts and musical symbols in a range of repertoire” (NSW Board of Studies, p. 25). Furthermore, the questions about music concepts are set for “developing the variety of children’s intelligence” (Gibson, R. & Ewing, R., 2011, p. 112). Robyn Gibson mentioned in Transforming the curriculum through the Arts that “music is another way of knowing and expressing ideas, moods and feeling. By using music, children can draw on additional avenues of learning.” The thinking process is vital for students to comprehend the music concepts beyond performing and playing.

References:

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

NSW Board of Studies. (2006). Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. Sydney: BOS.

Music 2: Performing – Singing and Moving

The music tutorial this week focused more on performing and sound-organising. One activity called ‘Beachcombing’ caught my full attention and made everyone in the class engaged. After listening and singing the song, students chose one instrument each and created own verses about the beach environment. Then students explored musical concepts of tone colour, duration and dynamics to creative their own sound story. The activity was design based on the Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus that:

MUS1.2: Explores, creates, selects and organises sound in simple structure.

I would like to use this actvity in my future teaching since the song “Beachcombing” built a positive and engaging learning environment for all the students to imagine and create. In Gulbenkian Report (1982) identified one contribution that music brought to education was

“Developing capacity for creative thought and action. Music stimulates creativity because making music involves experimenting with sounds and rhythm. Used creatively, music develops ‘elaborative, original, fluent, and flexible thinking’ (Cornett, 1999, p.322)” (Gibson, R. & Ewing, R., 2011).

Students used one instrument each group and made a statement to sing and perform. While students were creating song and lyrics, they had to use their prior knowledge of the particular environment and higher order thinking to establish connection between the song and their instruments. During performance, students understood and developed their knowledge about the instruments, singing and performing skills as well as the joy of playing music.

References:

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

NSW Board of Studies. (2006). Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. Sydney: BOS.

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.