Annotated Bibliography
Repositioning The Elements
Rose, L. S., & Countryman, J. (2013). Repositioning ‘the elements’: How students talk about music. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 12(3): 45–64.
In this reading, I found the study looking at Ontario secondary schools reporting that only 5.7% of students in grade 12 actually enrol into a music class very interesting. This is interesting because, as the article said, that most teens say that listening to music is a favourite activity to do while riding the bus, going for a walk, or at home in your room, or even as a way to release emotions and change your mood. Music sparks conversations between friends and is so influential in everyday life. This makes me wonder, if music is so important to teens, as I have heard many say that they cannot leave home without their headphones, then why is the percentage of students enrolling in music classes so low? As much as this part of the article was interesting to me, it was also that part of the article that frustrated me. I understand that a lot of people who enjoy music, do not know how to notate it and how to read music or understand the theory behind it, but I do not think that should be the factor that scares them out of taking the class. I believe there should be different levels of music classes and having theory lessons taught within the classes to teach people who have not had previous formal music training the basics of music to help them to explore the musical passions they may not be aware of. Something I found surprising in this reading was the fact that through sharing the experience of listening to a piece of music was so important when building relationships with sound and with their peers. I have never thought about how listening and talking about what you hear with your class mates could be so helpful, but it can really help to build relationships but also someone could show you something that you did not hear in the music and vice versa. This activity will also help students to be more comfortable in sharing their own opinions with in the class environment. If I could say something to the author I would ask for a newer article, with a new statistic of what percentage of students in grade 12 are enrolling in music classes at their high school. With the hopes that the percentage has gone up since 2013 with new strategies and forms of teaching to help kids who do not have any previous musical training.
Fumbling Towards Vulnerability
Dawe, L. (2016). Fumbling Towards Vulnerability: Moving Out of the Familiar for Music Education’s Sake, Canadian Music Educator, (57) 2, pp.22-24.
I went to two different elementary schools. One was a regular school, and the other was a Choir and Orchestra school, so it was interesting to see the contrast in a music classes in a regular elementary school compared to a school where music was a priority. The regular elementary school music class, was with a teacher who did not study music in university, she would just sing songs at the front of the room and most people did not pay attention, leaving most of those students to then stop music after grade 8, when it was no longer a requirement. At the music school I went to, I learnt a lot in the music classes, but there was no freedom to be creative inside the classroom, it was all the “teacher knows best” form of teaching. But still most of my graduating grade 8 class continued at least to grade 9 music, if not further. Throughout high school, I had two different music classes every year. One was string class, which was very similar to the authors music education experience growing up, where there was no room for creativity in the class, we were just given a piece of music and told what to do and the way we should play it. The other one was vocal class, which was more closely related to the more vulnerable style of music education that the article was talking about, with projects that allowed us to create a mini concert for our peers or even music videos, but also mixed in with the traditional style of music education. Although giving students more freedom and more chances to feel that vulnerability could make students a little nervous or scared to express themselves, I think everyone needs to have that experience in order to learn. I enjoyed how the author’s approach to teaching music gives the idea that “the classroom becomes a community of individuals working collaboratively towards shared goals”. This is a form of teaching that I would like to use if I chose to become a teacher in the elementary school setting. I believe this form of teaching could help us to see a larger percentage of students continuing into a high school music class. Giving them the opportunity and freedom to express themselves creatively and learn from doing and from each other is an ideal way to get students interested in music and to show them how fun and amazing it really is.
Unmasking the Hidden Curriculum in Canadian Music Education
Wasiak, C. (2016). Unmasking the Hidden Enemy: Perfectionism in Undergraduate College Music Students. College Music Symposium, 56. doi:10.18177/sym.2016.56.ca.11245
It is interesting to me in this article, the example of gender roles in music that the author gives. I know that a long time ago, woman were not involved very much in music, or in Shakespeare’s time, women roles in plays were roles given to men, but once women became involved in music and had more rights, I did not know that their gender was the reason that they conducted a choir or sang in an opera instead of conducting an orchestra or playing in a jazz band. I found it sad and shocking to hear that there is a hidden curriculum that really just cherry picks students who they think are more talented and motivated or favouring students that they perceive as more talented than other students, and truthfully, I have seen this going through the music programs that I was apart of. Reading this article I was so upset to see how exclusive this hidden curriculum in music education really is. It is so sad that children are being excluded from performing in ensembles because they may not be as good or had the same musical background as another student making them feel ‘unmusical’, discouraging them from continuing in music. I did not like that the “high quality” music that music educators are talking about is what they see has only classical, band, and choral, and calling those types of music styles, the only “real music”, and that if you don appreciate it or are not good at playing or singing that music than you are not a very musical person. I believe that there should be a variety of music sang or played in a music class giving each student a chance to see which types of music they enjoy to play and also playing popular music maybe giving the students an opportunity to choose some of the music they want to play instead of being told what to do and what to play all of the time. It was interesting to read that there was current profile of a Canadian Music educator, being white, middle-class, able, urban, Christian, and female, and because of this, she does not have the understating of culture, or social justice to be able to teach the non-western music that the students would enjoy. If I could ask the author a question, I would ask if she has read Lesley Dawe’s article, that we previously read, because in this article, the author talks about the “teacher knows best” way of teaching, and how that way of educating is autocratic rather than democratic, where the Canadian society has democratic based principals. Dawe’s way of teaching could help to create a democratic way of teaching.
The Invisible Student
Hourigan, R. M. (2009). The Invisible Student: Understanding Social Identity Construction within Performing Ensembles. Music Educators Journal, 95(4), 34-38.
What I found interesting in this article, was where the author talked about “invisible” students. This could mean a new student, someone with special needs, or someone who is awkward or shy. I found this particularly interesting because I never really thought about how someone new to an ensemble where everyone already knows each other would feel for a person. I went to a music elementary school, which feeds into the high school that I went to’s music program. There were a few people who auditioned to get into the program but for the most part it was all of the students from my elementary school in my music classes. People would refer to the new music students as “randoms”. I had never thought about how they may have felt in a program with students who had gone to school together for the past four years. As the article says, a lot of the students make relationships that lasts their whole life, as did I in my high school music program, but many students who may be considered “invisible”, may not get to have that opportunity because of they may be challenged socially being new to a music program. I found it interesting in the article where it says that it is the teachers jobs to help provide social skills, which I never really thought about until now. Looking back on my education in elementary school, even the beginning of high school, teachers would have the students play “ice breaker” games in order to learn the other students names and some different things about them. I was happy to read in this article that when a teacher notices an “invisible” student, they first reaction is not to immediately comfort the student or go to other students and ask them to include the student who is being left out, but to talk to other teachers or professionals for ways on how to help a child who is maybe finding the new social music environment difficult or intimidating. A really great ice breaker for a music class that I would suggest to the author is one that we are learning in our music education class this semester. Playing or singing the syllables of your name is a great way to learn each others names and compose together, group work is a good way to form friendships. I think a very important thing to think about in a situation where a student is not socially adjusting to the group dynamic in an ensemble, and constantly feeling a lack of connection, the student might eventually develop negative feelings toward the ensemble and eventually end up leaving music classes in high school.
The iPad is a Real Musical Instrument
Williams, D. A. (2014). Another Perspective The iPad Is a REAL Musical Instrument. Music Educators Journal, 101(1), 93-98.
The first thing that caught my attention in this article, was the author talking about an iPad ensemble she has called the iPadists. I had never thought a group of people with iPads could play classical music, and rock songs, and I definitely was unaware that there was original music that is specifically written for the musical capabilities of the iPad. I also found it interesting where it says that people, especially from traditional performance areas, do not have the best things to say about this type of music making, which is understandable if you are very traditional and possibly classically trained, but as times are changing we must change with them and adapt to the new technology we have access to. I would definitely have to agree with the article about how making music on an iPad is not to be considered as honourable as making music in orchestras and choirs for example, and it is “not worthy of study by serious musicians”, but it could be something fun to do as a hobby. In the argument as to whether an iPad is a real musical instrument I would have to say that I believe that it is. As the article states from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a musical instrument is “a device used to produce music”. I would not say that we can call every piece of technology that plays music, for example a car radio, a musical instruments, I think there needs to be a way on the iPad to be able to produce your own music, not just go onto a playlist to play a Justin Bieber song, but to have the option to go into a piano app and play the piano there, for example, just two weeks ago, our music education class visited St. George school to teach some music activities, and some people were using iPads and iPhones as a piano as their musical instruments. I liked how the article compared an oboe to an iPad. You can make an oboe sound good or bad, just like you can make an iPad sound good or bad. You need to practice the oboe just like you must practice to play an iPad if you wish to play it well. I wish in the music education system that we included an iPad in the learning process, and maybe that is a next step in the school systems as times are changing, more technology will be added into schools and curriculum.
Isolation in Studio Music Teaching
Burwell, K., Carey, G., & Bennett, D. (2017). Isolation in studio music teaching: The secret garden. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 1474022217736581.
This article was very interesting as I have never thought of Isolation in music teaching or as a music studio with your teacher as a secret garden, metaphorically speaking. Looking back at every piano teacher I have had and thinking where the teaching took place, it often was an isolated setting, that was sound proofed or somewhere quiet and out of the way. I agree with the article when it talks about how the isolation provides a dedicated undisturbed space so that the “deep roots” that lie within and the history, techniques, and music of different eras learnt within the studio can best be passed along to the “apprentice”, or student. The article also mentions the act of imitation in the private studio. It says that says that music students find it embracing to “copy” or imitate their teacher, when it comes to expressiveness within a piece and the interpretation of the pierce, I find when my studio teacher shows me how she would play a part of one of my pieces, I do not try to copy her, but I take her way or playing it, and decide how I can incorporate a certain feature she used but make it how I want it to sound, considering her input. I found the comparison between the “secret garden” story, where an orphan visits a garden where she feels isolated, but it becomes a therapeutic place where her and her friends would eventually grow in different aspects of their lives. This story was related to what happens inside a private instrumental studio, where “the characters develop both autonomy and sense of identity through dedicated work, and the transformative potential of such a setting”. I found the section in this article about psychosocial implications of isolation where many private music studio teachers were interviewed and would say no to the suggestion that they go to a seminar about different teaching practices. I never thought about my studio teacher having to learn more because in my eyes, my piano teacher is so amazing and knows more than I ever will about music, but I can see why they might not want to share their teaching methods, because, as the article says, they might fear how their approaches will be received. I really related to the part of the article where it described what it would be like if the music lessons were not isolated and private, just between the student and the teacher. The article relates this to how it would feel if there was a group lesson such as a vocal lesson, they compared the feeling of this to how it would feel to go to a group doctors appointment, and I have had a couple musical experiences like this, and I can attest that I would much rather have that isolated music lesson.
Adapting Music Education to Contemporary Society and Participatory Culture
Tobias, E. S. (2013). Toward Convergence Adapting Music Education to Contemporary Society and Participatory Culture. Music Educators Journal, 99(4), 29-36.
I found this article to be not that interesting, and difficult to read and really grasp the message of what the author was trying convey. I believe that programs are helping students engage with music in contemporary society by making the genres of music the ones that students want to hear, such as popular music that they may recognize from the radio, and also using todays technology to do so. Technologies such as iPads used as alternative instruments, or applications that are used to create music. I think that this form of teaching music could actually be detrimental to someone who grows up with this type of music learning, I think this because learning music with technology and not actually the theory behind the music will be no help if at some point you think that you want to pursue music as a career in the future and will have no actual knowledge of how music is really made. The article talked about making recordings and renditions or remixes of all ready existing songs, and posting them to a public site such as soundcloud, which I think is an awesome idea to express yourself, as I do this too, but I truly believe that this is something that we can teach, along side music on an instrument, and the theory and history behind it. It was some what interesting to me to hear that Orchestras like the Berlin and Brooklyn Philharmonics, and artists like Yo-Yo Ma, Jason Moran, and the New York Polyphony have contests that allow people to respectfully remix or give their own interpretation of a piece, I thought that these people and groups would be too traditional almost to allow this, but I guess as times are changing they might be trying to open up to a broader audience where some people might want to hear Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 as trap music. I think that this could be an interesting way of teaching composition and improvisation, a student could pick a piece of music in a particular genre where they add their own elements either on top of a recording or using a program to add things digitally.