This week’s reading focused on the different ways people respond to music and how teachers strive to achieve certain curricular goals by teaching students to listen and respond to music in particular ways. Some curricular goals include having students be able to describe or evaluate a piece of music, compare one piece of music to another, or respond to music by moving. When students are expected to speak or write about a piece of music they need to have a basic understanding of music terminology such as timbre, dynamics, and form. There are many websites and software programs that can help reinforce and improve students’ understanding of music vocabulary and listening skills. Some of the programs mentioned in the book include Music Ace for younger children, Teoria, and Musictheory.net. I have on occasion used the Musictheory.net website with my students to help reinforce what I am teaching and to give them an opportunity to practice a particular concept.

            I found it interesting that it mentions that students may lose interest and confidence in listening to music if the teachers’ main focus is on formalized listening and students are not given the opportunity to listen intuitively. Students enjoy listening to music more at home when it is intuitive and not structured by a teacher. This reminded me of a situation another teacher discussed with me about her daughter losing interest in reading. When the teacher described how they were reading at home I was able to figure out why her daughter no longer wanted to read with her parents. She told me that after each page the little girl read she would question her to see if she knew the meanings of all the difficult words and discuss other aspects of the story. This formalized reading and defining of words was taking away from the enjoyment of reading. For me, it would also disrupt the flow of the story. I told this to the teacher and I suggested that she let her daughter read through a story without stopping to quiz her. A few weeks later I asked if things had improved and she said that her daughter enjoyed reading again and looked forward to story time.

            Since I teach instrumental groups at school, I have my students listen to the original artists or a professional ensemble playing the songs that they are learning. I have students listen to and evaluate their own performances and make suggestions on ways to improve the ensemble. However, I have not included many listening examples beyond this. I have been striving to include world music in my curriculum, but when we are preparing for performances I feel that we don’t have the time to stop and do a listening activity. This year I scheduled the concerts early enough so that we will have a little over a month left of school after the concerts. During these weeks I am going to include activities that I normally feel that we don’t have time to do including listening activities. I am going to search online to find some listening maps or charts that will help my students focus on listening. Without these aids my students probably won’t know what to listen for and might lose focus on actively listening to a piece of music. Even though formalized listening is more difficult for students I think it is important to teach students how to listen beyond hearing or just intuitive listening. It will improve their understanding of music and their appreciation of all the different aspects that contribute to a piece of music. I agree with the author’s statement that a “primary goal of music listening activities should be to develop lifelong music listeners” (Bauer, 2014).

Reference:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Week 5 Reflection

I found the chapter on instructional design very interesting. Teachers at my school were introduced the concept of backward design during a professional duty day. I only wrote a few lesson plans in this manner because it was not required of teachers and it was more time consuming to redevelop all of my lesson plans in this way. However, it is a very effective way to plan for instruction because it focuses the lesson on the learning standards and objectives and then the type of assessments and activities are planned. This type of lesson planning requires a lot of thought and creativity and it is easy to fall back on the habit of just following the method book page by page or rehearsing the same songs year after year. This chapter has inspired me to rethink and reevaluate my lesson planning.

 I also realized that I could be doing so much more with my students by incorporating technology into my instruction. Constructivism is the idea that students learn by contextualizing, acting, socializing, and reflecting (Bauer, 2014). Students are able to learn in all these ways on a daily basis in the music classroom, even without the use of technology. However, technology is able to facilitate students’ learning in a constructivist manner. Project-based learning is a perfect way to incorporate technology and provide students with “authentic, real-world learning activities.” I have never heard about WebQuests before taking this course but now that I have become familiar with what they are and how they will benefit my students I am very excited about developing my own WebQuests for my classes. Even though the academic teachers get priority over the use of the mobile labs I know I will be able to have occasional use of the laptops throughout the year. In fact I am planning on talking with my Principal about designating one mobile lab for the enrichment classes to share. I was also going to discuss with him the possibility of keeping one computer lab to use as a midi lab and order midi cables for the keyboards but I am doubtful that this will happen. One technology related activity that is mentioned in the book that I have done with my students is to use the interactive whiteboard to play games. I have a lot of thinking and planning to do to create a 21^st century classroom in which students use technology to assist in their creative, collaborative, critical thinking, and communicative skills. This task is a little overwhelming to think about now but I will accomplish my goal by adding one or two technology related activities each year.

Before I add items to my WebQuest project I am going to have to read more about the copyright laws. Bauer’s explanation of fair use, public domain, and creative commons was a little confusing so I will have to investigate further and discover what items fall under each category. It has made me a little reluctant to add web-based material to my project. The author suggests that the best option is to use your own pictures, compositions, and audio recordings in a project. I would like to have my students complete one WebQuest before the end of the school year so that I may observe their reactions and attitude toward this type of project, the interactions that occur during the project, and the quality of their final products. All of this will help me to determine how I may use WebQuests in the future and if I need to revise any parts of the project.

Reference:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Chromatik and SmartMusic Reviews

Chromatik is a free online program that contains sheet music for many instruments in several different styles. The user may browse the music in the categories such as “The Grammy Collection,” “Disney” or “Alt. Rock” or enter a particular artist or title to find the song they would like to play. Once a song is selected the sheet music appears with a YouTube video in the corner. Press play and the user may read the sheet music and play along with the actual artist in the YouTube video. Pages scroll at the appropriate time so that the musician may play continuously.  

I found this program very user friendly because it was easy to search for a song and change instrument types. The person that uses this has to be a competent musician because it does not include an indicator as to where you are in the song or tempo control features. It also does not include a print button so you have to view the music on the website and then are only able to view one instrument part at a time. However, taking a screenshot of each page and then printing those pages can solve this problem. Some of the categories such as “Classical” and bands such as “Metallica” are also lacking in sheet music. However, even though the music selection isn’t very vast I was still able to find songs I was interested in playing after browsing through the categories. I found that some songs would be inappropriate for my middle school students and I’m a little wary of having the YouTube video play in the corner if I have not had a chance to preview the video myself. One way around this is to print the sheet music and not have the video project on the board for students to see. I have already introduced this program to my guitar students and they played the song “Mad World.” The students enjoyed playing the song with the actual artist. I showed students some of the music selections that are available and I encouraged them to use the program at home. I can definitely see myself using this program with my orchestra students as well. They are always requesting to play more popular music. I could have my students select a song to play as a class; print the individual parts, and once they have mastered the music they could play along with the video. Again, this is something they could explore further at home and would hopefully inspire and motivate them to practice. Here is the link to the Chromatik homepage: https://www.chromatik.com

SmartMusic is a wonderful music practice and assessment tool. Students for the price of $40.00/year may download the program and teachers may get an educator subscription that costs $140.00/year. A teacher may also purchase individual practice room subscriptions for $44.00/year. The educator subscription enables teachers to add students to individual classes in a grade book and allows the teacher to send assignments to students and to receive their recordings and assessment grades straight to their grade book. Then the teacher may listen to the student recordings, make comments, and revise the grades if needed. Parents may also log in to listen to their child’s recordings and view their grades. Also, mp3 recordings of the students’ performances may be sent to family and friends. 

SmartMusic unlike Chromatik contains a wealth of music that is used in music classrooms daily including several different method books, solos, exercises, and ensemble pieces. SmartMusic is mostly geared towards the band, orchestra, and chorus programs and unfortunately does not contain much music for guitar and piano, especially method books. SmartMusic is a great practice tool for students at any level and has several tools to aid in practicing. Students may change the tempo of a piece, loop a difficult section of music, and play along with either just their own part or with an accompaniment. Unlike Chromatik, there is an indicator light that moves to each note so that students can easily follow the music. Students may record and listen to their playing for self assessment or may choose to be assessed by SmartMusic. Once the student chooses to be assessed they will receive immediate feedback with a grade and notes on the screen will appear green if they were played correctly and red if they were incorrect. Red notes may be selected and a fingering chart will appear to show students how to play the note correctly. A note may also turn red if the student did not play the note at the precise moment in the song. So, if a student is not playing with the beat and/or with the correct rhythms they will receive a lower grade. This is when it is useful for a teacher to listen to a students’ recording because if the student is only to be assessed on correct notes the teacher may need to listen and re-evaluate that students’ grade.

I used SmartMusic last year as an assessment tool as well as to motivate students to practice. It was very easy to use and there are many video tutorials on how to use the program. I watched some of the videos to learn how to set up my classes in the grade book and how to add students to each class. I sent a parent letter home with students explaining the program, the website address for parents to explore SmartMusic, and a request that parents purchase a subscription for their child. Only one or two students purchased SmartMusic for home use so the remaining students had to take turns during class to use the program in order to complete the assignments. This was not very effective because the students would miss important rehearsal instruction and some students spent too much time in the practice room. I began setting time limits for the practice rooms and I tried different ways to provide an opportunity for every student to complete their assignment outside of class such as offering the use of the practice rooms before and after school, but not many students took advantage of that. However, just using SmartMusic to receive an assessment grade excluded one of the main purposes of the program, which is to make practicing more effective, efficient, and fun. Midway through the school year I stopped assigning students songs for assessments and instead I started using the program as a recording device to record the entire ensemble playing a piece of music. I would play back the recording and students would make self-assessments and suggest ways to improve their performance. Because the viola section was very competitive and wanted to have challenges for seating I used SmartMusic to assess who played the best and won the seat. I also used SmartMusic as an assessment tool during my 4^th and 5^th grade orchestra classes. I would tell the students which song they were going to be tested on, they would practice, and then they would come up to the front of the class and each student would play the song and receive a grade. I didn’t use the actual grade they received but instead the purpose was to see if they could improve their grade the second time around. The elementary students looked forward to playing with SmartMusic and they found the activity to be fun and challenging. 

SmartMusic may be a great program for student assessment and practice but only if students are actually going to purchase the subscription and use it at home. I was very disappointed that my students were unable to use SmartMusic to its’ fullest extent. I also thought students would be more excited about using the program at home because I know I would have loved this program when I was their age. The students thought $40.00 was very expensive which is why I sent a letter home to inform the parents about SmartMusic and all the benefits and features it provides for the students. Check out the SmartMusic website for more information: http://www.smartmusic.com

Week 4 Reflection

Chapter 4 from the William I. Bauer book Music Learning Today focuses on performing music. Learning to play an instrument requires psychomotor skills, a combination of motor and perceptual skills. I observe my students progressing through the different stages of learning psychomotor skills everyday. Beginning string players start at the cognitive stage and need to concentrate on every aspect of their playing. This is why when I am first teaching bowing technique I have them use open strings so that they can just concentrate on the bow. At a certain point students enter the associative stage in which less thinking is required but movement is still not automatic. When students are at this point their bowing technique is improving but when they stop thinking about what they are doing their bow travels up the fingerboard or becomes crooked. They still need to be reminded to pay attention to their bowing because they haven’t quite reached the next stage, which is called the autonomic stage. Students’ achieve this stage when they are able to bow in the proper place, with the correct speed, and with a straight bow without thinking about it and the motion has become automatic. Of course, like Bauer (2014) mentions the skill at this point may still need further refining but in general the student will be able to effortlessly maintain proper bowing technique.

I found it interesting that there is research that supports the fact that distributive practice is more effective than practicing for many hours at one time. From personal experience I can understand why it may be better but can I also see the benefit of practicing all at one time. I know certain students would find it difficult to concentrate for long periods of time and some students need frequent breaks. However, it is likely that some students may not take out their instrument more than once a day. When I was younger I enjoyed practicing for longer periods of time all at once. Bauer (2014) says that distributive practice gives time for the skill to “solidify newly developed neural networks.” I think I achieved this by having several pieces of music to practice every week and switching pieces during my practice session would give my neurons time to develop. I have also found distributive practice to be effective because I have experienced being unable to play something one day but after sleeping on it I am able to play it the following day.

I have found it challenging to teach students how to practice effectively and efficiently. I have given them advice such as not to always play a song from the beginning to the end but to identify difficult sections of music that should be repeated over and over until there is improvement. I also show them how to practice slowly with a metronome and how to gradually increase the tempo. Some students have issues with audiation and they do not know when they have played an incorrect note. This is why I encourage students to purchase SmartMusic to use as a practice tool. This program gives students immediate feedback as to whether they played an incorrect note or rhythm. This immediate feedback is important so that the student may correct the mistake right away and they do not continue practicing something incorrectly resulting in it becoming ingrained. Another challenge I have is getting students to want to practice. I have used extrinsic motivation such as grades in order to motivate students. A lot of students do not have self-efficacy but it gave me hope when I read that self-efficacy is something that can be developed especially by scaffolding the lessons.  Once students know that they are able to succeed at something they will be more motivated to continue learning progressively more difficult skills. I will be discussing SmartMusic as a motivating tool as well in a future post.

Reference:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

This week’s reading continued with the idea of musical creativity in the form of composition. The book mentions the two approaches to composition: one in which music notation is used and the other in which non-music notation is used with the aid of music production or digital audio software. In the past I have used the music notation approach to teach my students how to write their own songs partly because all of my students learn how to read music and I use composition as a way to reinforce this skill. I am just beginning to think about ways in which I would be able to use music notation programs such as Noteflight in my classroom.

I have never considered using non-music notation programs for composition in which students may layer and arrange digital audio loops on different tracks to create music. Digital audio workstations (DAWS) such as Soundation enable students with or without formal musical training to be able to create music. I used to believe that these programs provide a fun music activity for students but I did not consider it real or authentic composition. However, after using Soundation myself I can definitely see the potential benefits and learning objectives that could be achieved with this program. Last year when I was teaching a small group of autistic students I would sign in to the Quaver’s Marvelous World of Music website on the three computers in the practice rooms and have the students work on the activities called “Grooves” and “Song Brush.”  “Grooves” is an audio sequencer in which audio may be layered to create different songs and “Song Brush” involves a student drawing a picture that is then converted to a musical melody. The students really enjoyed both of these activities but I always felt slightly guilty having students work on them because I am used to actively teaching and engaging with each student. The students were able to navigate the website on their own, worked well together, and learned to take turns. I now realize how much they were actually learning, in addition to thinking musically, while using these programs.

            After reading Chapter 3 in Music Learning Today by William I. Bauer I have started thinking about ways to expand my music program by using non-music notation programs. The lack of regular access to computers has limited what I am able to offer my students. However, I think it would be wonderful to have a class in which students needed no prior musical background in order to compose music by using programs such as Soundation. The “other 80%” of students could really benefit from this opportunity and like Bauer (2014) says “Skilled teachers can use this as an entry point to further develop students’ musical understanding.”

Reference:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.