Brinkman, D. J. (2010). Teaching creatively and teaching for creativity. Arts Education Policy Review, 111(2), 48-50. doi:10.1080/10632910903455785
This article was very intriguing to me. It's interesting that we need to truly think and break down how to "be creative", because there's no way that one could ever actually describe what exactly "creativity" is. Though, the article does a relatively good job at trying to put a definition on such an abstract term. With relation to music, it uses the idea of the "Big C" and the "Little C". Big C refers to the legendary icons within the music industry such as Beethoven, Back, etc. The article speaks to the fear of having to compare to these musical geniuses, and often is more discouraging instead of encouraging. Instead, the article suggests finding ways to incorporate little c creativity which includes all the small, seemingly "mundane" ways we can spice things up, whether that be using new analogies when explaining concepts, etc. I think this concept is interesting to think about because it makes me wonder, is it impossible for new "Big C" people to emerge? If we are told to find little ways to foster creativity, does that mean to say there will be no more new creative minds like Bach or Beethoven? Certainly not. The article can be interpreted this way, but I think that instead it is wise to look at the article with the idea that multiple "little c" ideas strung together can create a "Big C" type person. Likewise, this article has very interesting things to say on how to promote creativity in a classroom setting. In terms of music education curricula, the article said how important it is for students to reconnect with the joy of creative activity in music. This deeply troubled me. The article was speaking of undergraduate students in particular, and what scared me the most was when did we stop seeing music as a creative medium? I believe that's something I've struggled with a lot as a first year undergrad. Suddenly, when all music is being marked and graded, all the "fun" and "creativity" seems to have been sucked out. As the article eloquently puts, " ensemble directors focus on teaching students to be the same. " Coming out of my first year of undergrad, we've all been taught the same things: the same music theory, the same music history, the same musicianship skills. Voice majors like myself are all taught to sing with a distinctly "classical" style. We're basically all working on the same degree, and are being taught to be just like each other. What I really like about our music education class is that we are encouraging to be different from each other. Every time we do activities in class, I always have an impulsive sense of discomfort that there is so much creative license. "What if I do something wrong?" I ask myself. Though, the article addressed my fear, saying, "The beauty of the arts is that more than one answer can be correct." That, I think is the most important take away of the entire article. Creativity in music education is incredibly important because that's what makes music such an artform. It troubles me that somehow, we're taking music and all studying it with the hopes that we'll all learn the same technique and knowledge. But everyone comes into music with so many different life experiences with music, it just doesn't make sense to try and make us all the same. If I become a music educator, the trouble then will be: how do I teach so many different people coming from so many different places? And what exactly do I teach them to help them foster their own creativity? As of now, I don't know if I know the answers to those questions. I might never really know; but it is definitely really a puzzling, important issue to think about.
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Thibeault, M. D. (2012). The power of limits and the pleasure of games: An easy and fun piano duo improvisation. General Music Today, 1048371311435523.
I really enjoyed this article for its overarching theme: that music is fun. What I’ve learned most this year is that especially as music students who interact with music daily, are constantly studying it, and spend our entire student careers focused on music, we forget that the reason we started studying music is because it is fun. I think that through the year we’ve gotten so caught up in our stress surrounding our music education, we’ve forgotten how much joy music has brought into our lives. The reason why I really like this article is because Thibeault clearly explains the difference between this piano improvisation as a game and as a drill: “A game is something we do for pleasure, for our own enjoyment…A drill is something we do for some other time and place or even a goal we may never achieve.” I think that sometimes we take music much too seriously, and we need to remember that sometimes we can do things just for fun. But not only that, but even when we’re having fun, we’re still learning; we’ve just found a better way to engage with what we’re learning. The article discusses a game in which two people play piano. One will play a scale while the other improvises on top. I remember from playing piano as a child that scales are probably the most boring part about playing piano. It’s very technical and boring sounding, but as the article mentions, it’s only because we perceive it that way. Beethoven used scales all the time, but everyone loves Beethoven and thinks his music is rather exciting and evokes a certain amount of emotion. I think that by changing our perspective (in the case of the article, treating scales and improvisation like a game) can really change the outcome. Similarly, I was very intrigued by how the article gave suggestions as to what the teacher should do when conducting this game with their students. I think it really emphasized on listening rather than teaching, which is a very interesting phenomenon. As we’ve spoken about in class, as human beings we tend to think about what we’re going to say in response rather than listening to what the other person is saying. I think the same thing applies here. Instead of trying to think about what we want to teach a student during an improvisation game, it would be much more beneficial to the student if we listen to what they’re playing and see how we can speak to what they’ve brought to the table instead of just talking a mouthful into their ear. Finally, the article ended with some very interesting variations of the game which I think were helpful. If I were to ever use this in my music classroom, I know for sure the exercise could be overdone and become boring for students. However, if there are always new things to add to a game we’ve already played, it can continue to be exciting. Not only that, but such a simple game opens so many avenues of music to explore, and that’s very exciting. One of the most interesting but also petrifying classes we've had this semester had to be our class with Dr. Watson. We learned about improvisation, especially in a jazz context, and it was a crazy time. As background, I am not a jazz musician at all. In fact, improvisation has always scared me! I'm a big 'stick-to-the-rules' type person, and I like to follow music not lead it.
Needless to say, Dr. Watson coming in to teach us about improvisation was definitely a time when I felt the least comfortable, and the most vulnerable. But thinking about it now, music and art in general really should make us feel vulnerable. Music is such a personal thing we choose to share with other people, if we didn't feel vulnerable sharing our music, wouldn't that mean that it doesn't really mean anything to us on a personal level? Regardless, I'm really glad that Dr. Watson slowly eased us into improv. I think of all my improvisation background, it was a lot of getting thrown into the middle of things and "pick a note, any note!" type of situation. I like how we first eased into it by analyzing different jazz music. I think by listening we were slowly integrating ourself into what we were going to be playing. Just having a sense of "jazz tunes" in my ear when we moved on to improvisation really helped guide my own improv, especially since before I had just been going in cold. I like how we slowly moved into improv by starting with only 1 or 2 notes and slowly adding in more. We also did a lot of call and response that was very helpful. As I mentioned above, it was nice to have some sort of base to start with when asked to improv. Later on in the class, we went around in a circle each having a chance to do some improv over a track. Had we started with that I would have been absolutely petrified! However, the slow ease of listening first, starting with few notes, and then adding more really eased some of my nerves and actually allowed me to have fun. I think often musicians forget that music is supposed to be fun. We worry a lot about tendency tones, cadences, tempo, rhythm, etc. but I think that things like improv remind us that in the end, all music is music. We don't always have to worry about all these things that classical musicians learn and sometimes we just have to let loose and have fun, something that until recently, I didn't notice had happened. I felt like music had become a chore and it was no longer fun. This workshop really perked me up, and was a definite pick me up! Having Kelly in our class was such a joy! I definitely had a lot of fun in this guest lecture. I think that we talked about a very important issue: what to do with students that do not want to be in music class at all.
I think as music students we often don't understand why anyone would not want to come to music class. We think of it as something fun and enjoyable because it's part of our personality. However, what about those kids that think of music as just another class? Those students whose love for math or science or history is on par with music? What if it's "boring"? Kelly showed some real life examples of kids who didn't want to be in her music class. At the beginning of the year, she would have students write little letters to her. This is similar to something my own high school teacher did, where she asked "what do you want to accomplish by the end of the year?" I think this was a great tool for her to use, and I definitely want to incorporate that kind of activity in my classroom. She remarked that when looking back at what they had written, students often said what they wrote was hilarious or that they "weren't like that anymore". I think that seeing something palpable that shows how much a student has changed can be really encouraging for students. It gives them an idea as to how far they've come and how much progress they've made and still can make. Anyhow, it seems to be a common theme in the classroom lately that teachers are faced with students who don't want to learn, or don't engage with "classical" music. After all, many students in Kelly's class voiced not being interested in music class at all, yet in their ever day lives they were creating complex, beautiful rhythms with just pens and soda cans. The students assumed that music class wouldn't focus on "their" music, just the teacher's idea of what music is. However, that couldn't be more from the truth! The students said that the music they learn in school lacks a story, so Kelly made up an activity that taught that music learned in school can in fact do just that. We mimicked that activity she used in her classroom in ours, which was giving us a book that was written based on music. My group had the book "Giant Steps" by Chris Raschka. We didn't get to go through the whole activity since we were pressed for time, but having never heard that song, it was interesting to go through the book and try to imagine what it would sound like based solely on the illustrations of the novel. I think it would have been a lot of fun to create a composition based on what we could see, and compare it to how the actual piece sounded. Overall, I think it was really eye opening to see that not every student will come into class bursting with excitement to take music in school like so many of us were. I actually commend Kelly for taking those negative comments she received from students and using them to further better her classroom. I think that if a teacher is willing to put in the effort to engage the student, someway somehow the student will reciprocate. I truly hope that teachers who try to engage their students will be able to reach those who are at first unwilling to try, and hopefully they will learn skills that they can use for the rest of their lives. Dr. Ruth Wright came into the class to tell us about an organization she is part of called "Musical Futures". This program first began in the UK but has since expanded into Canada. It focuses primarily on an "informal learning experience", which caters to students aural skills, before their score reading skills. The program seeks to make use of informal learning processes typically found outside of school to teach music within the school in order to build off of a student's musical interests.
The program is defined through 6 main branches: Entitlement: Engaging ALL students in the program. Relevance: Connecting between in and out of school experiences. Empowerment: Students having control over the direction of their education. Practical/Hands-on: Learning to explore music and becoming musicians in a practical way. Personalization: Meeting the individual needs of students -> allowing them to set their own goals. Aural: Music is learned through predominantly aural learning. Sustainability: Creates music learning experiences students can use moving forward in life. I think this program really tied into what I was talking about with my last annotated bibliography, in terms of the idea of an "elitist" hierarchy between classical art music and "popular" music. I like how the program doesn't put an emphasis on needing to force "classical" music on students. Instead, it seeks to build on the musical interests students have already been exposed to before coming into the classroom. I think this is important because often I feel as though students are treated like "blank slates", even when they have prior music knowledge that isn't considered "the curriculum" and they're expected to just forget about that and focus on learning music a certain way. Most importantly, what I really enjoyed from this ideology is the fact that students are in charge of their own learning. I think students often take music because it's a "mark booster" or "bird course", and then they don't end up trying or enjoying the class. However, I think if students get to set their own goals and map out their own goals of what they would like to get out of music class, it creates such a great dynamic in classrooms where students are motivated and willing to learn, as they are interested in what they are learning. Not only that, but the program still teaches important musical skills, but by incorporating them into a student's own agenda, which can prove very useful for students who have trouble engaging. We put this kind of learning into practise by splitting into groups to learn a song we all thought was fun to play and learning it by ear on instruments that we don't normally play. I have to admit, it was really quite daunting, and I realized how much I rely on sheet music to learn music! However, it was a lot of fun, and really rewarding, as everyone in the group was all basically on the same level (aka, having never played their instruments before). The most interesting thing I believe would be how different everyone's songs turned out, despite having all having the same instructions. I think that really goes to show that people come with so many different backgrounds with different musical experiences and that manifests in so many different ways. I think in all, that's what the Musical Futures program is all about, and it's incredible to see. What if you have an orchestra, or a band - or choir, any context. What might you do to ask the students to cover or remix, or create a parody, etc - any of those ways Tobias highlights in his article?
One activity that I would do with a music class in order to engage them with contemporary music would be getting them to do a "songwriting/cover" type unit. I would have the students pick a song that they like and try to write their own melody and lyrics to that backing track. I think it would let people experiment with their own original ideas while also giving them a comfortable base to work on. It would be really interesting to see how students might repurpose a song's melody to their own imagination. Williams, D. A. (2014). Another Perspective The iPad Is a REAL Musical Instrument. Music Educators Journal, 101(1), 93-98.
This article for me was problematic at most. I like to think that I have a certain amount of open mindedness, but this article didn’t really resonate with me. I think this is an interesting phenomenon though. The article was written because as it states, people are ignoring electronic music and don’t consider it “real music”. This is typically a sentiment shared by those with classical training, etc. As for me, I would fall into this category. I wouldn’t consider the iPad to be a musical instrument. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the article and I do agree with a lot of the things it has to say, though I don’t think you can necessarily constitute the iPad as an instrument. The article goes on to compare an iPad to an oboe, which is considered a “real” instrument. While it’s true that the two do share similarities, as outlined in the article, my biggest problem is: what does the iPad as an instrument sound like? The oboe, among other supposedly “real” musical instruments have their own distinct sounds. The reason I don’t believe the iPad is a real instrument is because it simple creates an electronic replication of sounds that “real” musical instruments make. The iPad itself can’t make any new instruments, certainly without it’s hardware it can’t produce any of its own sound, so how then do we classify it as an instrument? But I digress, beyond that, there were some very key ideas in the article that I felt were very profound and worth addressing. The article mentions that music education has a tendency to “elevate the importance and worthiness of certain instrument…it tends to marginalize other instruments.” Aside from the whole iPad being an instrument debacle, I thought this was worth noting. In my experience with music, its true that some instruments end up forgotten in comparison to other instruments. I remember going into high school as a French horn player and being only one of two people coming into high school music on the French horn. Meanwhile, there was a massive influx of saxophone players. I think it’s safe to say that some instruments are considered more “spotlight” instruments than others, and as a music educator I’d really want to try and break that barrier down. All instruments are important in their own special ways, and I think this article helped me notice that. Overall, I find that the article had great ideas and challenged a lot of what it means to be a music educator (such as emphasizing the importance of aural learning, student musician autonomy, etc.) but the point got lost and confused when trying to argue that the iPad is a musical instrument. I definitely see the merit in what the article was getting at, and I’m definitely not opposed to the idea that nonconventional instruments can be equally as important as the “real” band instruments we all know and love, but I’m not necessarily sure that the iPad fits under that category. At least not for me. Tobias, E. S. (2013). Toward Convergence Adapting Music Education to Contemporary Society and Participatory Culture. Music Educators Journal, 99(4), 29-36.
For the most part, I really enjoyed reading this article. I think it really shed light on important issues that music educators face in today's technologically advancing world. I would definitely say that the way people learn has changed over the past 10 years. With the introduction of new technology, children today learn in a very different way than I did when I was their age. This article really spoke to the idea that the way people interact with music is very different than how it was before. Gone were the days when you had to learn about music from a teacher, such as going through the RCM grades. Now, it's easy to just look up a guitar tutorial on YouTube and basically teach yourself. One of the biggest problems I've found with this new phenomena is how people describe a "musician"? Are we only allowed to be called a musician if we were classically trained? Do I need to have my RCM grade 8 in order to consider myself a "singer"? But then again, what does it even mean to be a musician or a singer, if there are set guidelines in place like that? Before I came to Western, I was simply someone that did music for fun. I didn't have any significant formal training in music. Was I somehow not a musician then? I think that because people can now learn on the internet how to play an instrument a sort of "elitist" hierarchy has been put into play between the formally trained and the self-taught. Though, I think this article did a great job in tearing down that barrier. The article seeks to incorporate every day interactions with music into the music curriculum. It wants to abolish that hierarchy by teaching that every day interactions with music (covers, mashups, etc.) are equally as important as learning how to play classical trumpet in band class. What I appreciated the most was the emphasis on convergence, not replacement. The goal is not to replace what is already in play in the curriculum but to continue adding to it, in order to create the best learning experience possible for students. I find that a lot of the time we think that we need to abandon the old ways and replace them with new ideas, but I think that new ideas can support old ideas. It wasn't necessarily wrong to teach in the old ways, we just have to continue to update them with new ideas to keep them relative to the society we live in now. It's a similar idea to a musician in general. We are never "at the top of our game", aka, there's always room for improvement. I think it's the same idea with music curriculum. One last thing I really appreciated was that the article didn't suggest "we need to incorporate new material into the curriculum" without any guidance as to how to do that. I think they phrased a lot of questions that would be helpful for teachers trying to change how they teach music. For example, they gave 3 situations in which these new ideas of teaching could be used, and they gave teachers an idea of how they should approach it. When they were using the example of having kids rearrange their favourite pop songs in situation 1 they said "music educators would play a key role in helping students reflect on their musical and creative engagement by asking their students questions". They go on to list many questions teachers can use to base their teaching off of, instead of leaving them in the dark, telling them to let kids learn songs and engage the way they want to, not the way the teacher wants them to, but then not knowing what to do as an educator. Long story short, they gave practical examples and guidelines that make me believe they really considered how these theories they are presenting could actually be used in practise. It gave the article a certain amount of relevancy, in that I could actually use this information in a classroom, which kept me interested and engaged in it. Waking up on Saturday morning was not my ideal way to spend the beginning of the weekend. However, the longer I was in the workshop the more fun I began to have, and the more energized I felt.
We started when Dr. Allsup played a piece of music for us and asked us "what do you hear?" The most interesting part about this was we used a lot of musical terms such as "dynamics", "harmony", and "timbre". Someone described the different instruments involved as having different "textures". In response, Dr. Allsup asked, "What do we mean by texture? How would you describe it to someone who doesn't know music?" This stumped the entire room. I think the most interesting thing about musicians is how there are a lot of things we just "know" but can't explain to someone else. I feel like musicians live in this sort of bubble when with other musicians and we forget that not everyone knows what we're talking about. I think this is especially problematic when people go to teach students for the first time, especially when some students will walk into their class without any prior knowledge on music at all. I'm glad that Dr. Allsup challenged us to think about what our "musical" vocabulary would mean to anyone else, and asked us to really think about how we would approach that type of abstract idea. Another thing I really appreciated from Dr. Allsup's workshop was when he talked about a teacher "modelling" something to their students. After we created ostinatos and put them together, he brought to our attention how he never directly modelled what we were supposed to do. He said, if a teach doesn't model, students don't think there is a "right" way to do something, and suddenly there are no limits! I think this idea is really interesting because it fosters that creativity that I believe is really important for music education. However, I felt like because he didn't model the activity, I found myself confused as to what he was asking for. Perhaps this idea would be better demonstrated if there were more clear instructions? Finally, after the ostinato activity was done, Dr. Allsup asked, "How do you extend a basic activity?" For me, it promoted an idea of further learning, and asked that "so what?" factor that allows for an activity to become more than just something we do, but something to learn from. To me, that is a very important idea. Altogether, I had a lot of fun at the workshop. I was a bit disappointed I had to leave early for my recital! The last thing that really spoke to me was when Dr. Allsup said, "Find something and try it and try it and try it." It was a nice reminder never to give up doing something you love, which was motivation I really needed for the next coming weeks. Serres, D. (n.d.). Think Everything’s “Normal?” Then It’s Time To Reconsider And Promote A New Narrative Of Disability. Retrieved January 30, 2017, from http://organizingchange.org/think-everythings-normal-then-its-time-to-reconsider-and-promote-a-new-narrative-of-disability/
Overall for me, I found this article very difficult to get through. The issue is just so complex, it was hard for me to get a grip on what my opinion on the topic was since there are just so many grey areas. The article talks about the term "ableism" which is a term used to describe what is possible for a person to achieve in life despite a disability, insinuating that people with disabilities somehow live a "lesser" life than those who are not disabled. I think though that the main idea of the article was to discuss how disabilities should be treated in a "culture of normalcy". For the most part, I understand what they mean. Anyone who isn't considered "normal" is therefore "different". But what exactly is "normal"? What society considers a norm is heavily dependant on the society. What was considered normal in the 1917 would be starkly different from whatever is normal now in 2017. No matter what "normal" is, one thing is for sure: people are afraid of difference. No one wants to be seen as strange or different, and the article really encapsulates this well, saying, "If our society didn’t have such a fear of difference, then it wouldn’t matter whether someone used a wheelchair, communicated differently, etc. or not." And because of this, we always want to make people with disabilities strive to be "normal". They feel as though they need to "overcome their disability" which is not the kind of thing I ever want people to think. I hadn't ever really thought about what it must feel like to want to be "normal". Ever since I was a kid, all I saw on TV was people trying to stand out and be different. But I wonder what it must feel like to constantly have attention on you because you are different, but not in that "desirable" way, like they show on TV. Not only that, but the way society functions makes it harder for people with disabilities to just be a part of society without having their disability completely define who they are. The article listed a lot of solutions to how we can start to break down this barrier between people with disabilities and those without. For the most part, I agreed with them, but there were some things that I thought were a bit unrealistic. I definitely agreed with the power of language in this issue. Using words with negative connotations like "suffering" and "afflicting" makes it seem like having a disability is somehow a bad thing. Even the word "disability" to me is a problematic word. The word literally means "not having the ability to do", and the article makes a big deal out of not making people feel like they can't live a full life with their disability, but even the word itself insinuates that. Personally, this article really opened my eyes to thinking about the words I use when speaking about these issues. On the other hand, I thought there were a few "solutions" to the problem that were a bit naive. The article talks about stopping the corporatization of medicine and funding schools in order to help support those with disabilities, but I think that those are such big topics, that it's not that easy to just have these things done. While it would be really nice to have all these things, I think that there are so many issues surrounding just those two things alone, they can't so easily suggest that we just do these things. In all, the article did provide a lot of food for thought and with such a large topic, there's just so many things to unpack in it that I couldn't possibly talk about all of it in this bibliography. |
Carole PalattaoI'm an 18 year old studying classical voice at Western University. I'm also a hardcore mental health advocate, and I do creative writing on the side for fun!
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