Week 2 Reflection

This week’s reading was interesting because it discussed the creative process and improvisation. Both are achieved by being active and taking initiative and both require practice to improve these skills. Bauer (2014) mentions that Stephen King writes everyday whether he feels motivated to do so or not. Sometimes I practice when I am not particularly in the mood but once I begin playing I usually forget about everything else and I am able to focus and enjoy playing. There is not any magic that happens when people are creating or innovating. Only by doing something will inspiration strike and new ideas will be formed.

As music teachers it is important to give students the time to think and be creative. Each year I give students a composition project to complete. For my beginning instrumental classes they only have to write and perform an 8 measure original song. I give them a rubric so that they can be sure to include musical aspects such as the time signature, key signature, and dynamics. Some students love this assignment and jump right in and start experimenting and writing down ideas. Other students complain that it is too hard or that they don’t know what to write. These students are accustomed to teachers telling them exactly what to do and may not know how to begin. I give these students advice on how to start their compositions and what to do so that their song makes musical sense. Every student has the ability to compose once they are able to get started. Sometimes it’s just that first step that they have to achieve in order to be successful. A fear of failure may also hinder the progress of some students.

I believe this fear of failure and also the possibility of peer (and teacher) criticism also inhibits students’ improvisations as well. I try to create a supportive environment in my classroom so that students will feel comfortable doing new things and because of this they are usually able to overcome this fear. I think because I teach middle school orchestra I do not require my students to improvise that often. I tend to think that this is a skill that high school jazz band students work to improve. I also haven’t experimented much with improvisation myself which is another reason I don’t include it regularly in my lessons. Like it says in the book a reason that teachers may not include improvisation in their lessons is because of their own lack of experience. I regret not having more training in this area and for that reason I have tried to include it in my curriculum. However, without consistent practice and scaffolding of the improvisation lessons students will not likely progress very far. My goal with having students improvise at the middle school level has been to get them more comfortable playing in front of others and have fun doing so. I was also surprised at what the book includes as types of improvisation. I have never considered playing familiar melodies by ear, echo playing rhythms and tonal patterns, or transcribing a solo as forms of improvisation. Some students excel at doing these activities.

Finally, I found it interesting that the reading also mentions “the other 80%” of people that do not have formal musical training but have an interest in music and may have untapped musical talent. The use of technology in multimedia classes may give these students a way to express their musical creativity and give them the tools to be involved in music in ways other than performing. The video this week also showed students at Bay Shore School in NY creating music in a music technology lab that would later be performed by students at a spring concert. This validation of their work shows students that their ideas and compositions are worthwhile and important endeavors. I have also had my own students perform their compositions at school recitals.  I wish I had access to the mobile lab computers at my school more often so that students could use programs such as MuseScore during class to help them write music. I like the idea of what you see is what you get or WYSIWYG that is mentioned in the lecture. My students are able to do this to some extent with paper and pencil because they do have the keyboard, guitar, or string instrument to play while they are writing. I like the fact though, that the use of technology would provide the opportunity for non-instrumentalists to compose music as well. Creating music teaches students to think differently and I believe every student should be given this opportunity.

Reference:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.