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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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. 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. Hourigan, R. M. (2009). The Invisible Student: Understanding social identity construction within performing ensembles. Music Educators Journal, 95(4), 34-38.
This article relies heavily on the idea that our place in society (in this case specifically, how students fit into an ensemble) defines who we are. How we feel within a certain group affects our individual feeling of self worth and self identity. The article addresses the idea of "invisible" children. The children who do not quite "fit in" with the rest of their peers, such as new students, students with disabilities, shy students, etc. Personally, this article spoke to me a lot because there was a point in my life where I was the invisible child. When I was younger, I often felt ostracized from my peers because I went to a school of mainly white students, and was painfully shy. There was a long period of my life where I felt like I didn't truly belong somewhere. It wasn't until I really became engrossed with the music program at my high school that I started to feel part of something. I always credit music for being incredibly important to shaping the person I am. It gave me the courage to be loud and bold, to have confidence, and to make friends. This article unsettled me because it's possible that this isn't the case for lots of other "invisible" children. I can't imagine what it would be like to be doing something I love (like music) and still feeling so far away and disconnected from everyone else, especially in an ensemble, where it's possible to become so close, we feel like family. Most of all, I think that I assumed music was what brought people together. But according to this article, there are so many other factors. Just because a child is involved in their school music program doesn't mean that they get an instant ticket to friends and a booming social life. Looking back on it now, it's so naive of me to think that way. What I thought was really insightful were the ways that teachers can try to help push those invisible children to find a place in their ensemble. I remember dealing with very similar issues to those they discussed, such as who to hang out with on trips, who to sit beside on the bus, and the list goes on. I think it's an excellent idea to use peers, specifically older kids, to help bring in the invisible children. Teachers are not able to have the same relationship with children that other children have with each other because of the dynamic of a teacher/student relationship. However, an older student, a peer, is someone a child can look up to and admire, but also someone who can be their friend. I think it's important for older students to be involved in making younger students feel included. Not only because younger students definitely need to feel security in an ensemble, but also because older students will eventually have to leave an ensemble, and I think it helps engage both younger and older students when the older students feel as though they have a responsibility to help guide the new kids into the ensemble, as they one day will leave the ensemble in the charge of these new students. All in all, I believe that this article has been eye opening in showing me just how much a teacher can affect their students. Not only do they teach students what's laid out in the curriculum but also social skills. It was nice that the article acknowledged how important teachers are to a student's overall development. It really opened my eyes to how much I need to be aware of myself. As the article said, students learn from example, especially from the teacher. However, I also really appreciated how they acknowledged that it was a team effort. This article really helped me see how much of an affect I can have on shaping kids' lives, and how much there is to think about. Dawe, L. (2016). Fumbling towards vulnerability: Moving out of the familiar for music education’s sake. The Canadian Music Educator, 57(2), 22-24.
First and foremost, I really appreciated the author, Dawe, for how she wrote this paper. She had such a strong narrative voice that really allowed me to relate to what she was saying. As she told her own personal story, I found myself feeling more and more uncomfortable with the fact that I could relate to so many things that she said. She speaks of her time with music education, and how "[she] was able to get by and be successful as long as [she] did exactly what [she] was told to do." (Dawe, 2016, pp. 22). And I feel that I relate to that sentiment so personally. When I first started voice lessons, I was singing through a piece that I had learned when my teacher stopped me. According to her, I had no sense of phrasing or musicality. Of course, this took me aback. Before that point, just singing the right notes and rhythms had been the only thing asked of me. But now, there was so much subjectivity and artistry involved in conveying music, it made me uncomfortable. My teacher would tell me to try and figure out the phrasing and "feel" the music, although I longed for her to just tell me how to do it, so I could do the "right" thing. But what exactly is the "right" thing? Who decides what the "right" thing is? This article challenged that idea for me. Dawe goes on to explain that her comfort zone has always been in the teacher telling the students what to do. When she started teaching, she realized that she was always the person directing everyone else on how they were going to learn, which didn't feel right. However, doing it any other way would put her in a vulnerable, uncomfortable place, as this was the only way she had ever been taught music. Yet, despite these vulnerabilities, she began to tweak the framework of her teaching, which allowed for her students to foster their creativity and have some autonomy over their own learning, all for the benefit of the students, and even her as a teacher. What I love the most about this article is that the overall conclusion Dawe reaches isn't that there is a "right" way to teach music. She has a good overall grasp on balancing both the traditional and modern music education techniques. Not only that, but she allows herself to become vulnerable to her insecurities in a way that allows her to grow as an educator, which is something I truly admire. I'm glad she concluded that change doesn't happen through the students, it happens through the teacher and how they support their students. This willingness to take on responsibility really spoke to me, and I can only hope that I can be a teacher that receives the same amount of respect as I have for her. 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. http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/RoseCountryman12_3.pdf
There were many things about this article that perplexed me. It was a very difficult read, in the sense that I had many things to say about it, and often they did a poor job in convincing me to agree with their argument. However, I will begin my unpacking of this article with the positives. I do appreciate the fact that they challenged the societal norms of what should be taught in music education. I agree that as a creative subject matter, music shouldn't be brutally compartmentalized as it is meant to be an art form. It was interesting to think of trying to teach music without the go-to list of musical terms, such as tempo, dynamics, etc. However, I think the biggest problem I had with this article was it's inability to convert me over to their side. I felt as though the article was a lot of opinion without actually backing up anything relevant. They used many citations, but they never fully went into depth to unpack the information they were stuffing into the article in order to deeply root themselves in their argument. I felt like a lot of information was being thrown at me, but none of it was being talked about. It felt as though all they kept saying was "my opinion is that the elements of music are bad, and... I'm right because this is wrong." The facts they tried to debunk didn't work in their favour, as I agreed more with the scholars they were challenging than with them. This ultimately led to a dry article that frankly felt like an opinion piece rather than a fact based research paper. Most of all, I think what bothered me the most was the article's denial to address the overlying issues in society that cause discrepancies in music education. The article suggests that the elements of music are the cause for lower enrolment in senior level music and the Eurocentrism of the curriculum. However, I disagree. I think there is a much larger issue that trickles down to effect music education. Lower enrolment is not solely because of the elements of music and the "bizarre misfit between classical skills and conventions taught... in music education institutions and the 'real worlds of music'." (Rose & Countryman, 2013, pp. 50). There is a much larger societal issue in that music education is not treated as a subject as important as science, or math, etc. Is it really fair to place blame on a music curriculum based on the foundations of what music is, for a problem created by our society? Nothing of that really has to do with music, and for me, I am uncomfortable with the elements of music being used as a scapegoat to this problem. The same is true of their handling of Eurocentric music. How can you blame the elements of music for creating an elite, discriminatory learning of music, when the elements of music (such as tempo, dynamics, etc.) can be used in the context of non-Western art music? The article suggests that it is impossible to do so, but it is definitely possible. Or is it that because it's not Western art music, we can't describe the music with words that fall under the large encompassing umbrella of the music elements? Not only that, but how can we blame Eurocentric music teaching on the elements of music when all education is painfully Eurocentric? Why is "history" class about European cultures and there are separate specific classes for "Middle Eastern History" or "Chinese History"? Surely, we can't blame the elements of music for that, can we? The authors seem to ignore the obvious societal problems that bleed into education in order to try and prove their point, which is dysfunctional from the start. I would urge them to consider the societal implications about what they're saying before they start pointing fingers at who to blame. They've painted a small picture I don't appreciate, when there are so many more complex ideas that go beyond music in their argument. It is quite ironic, since they want music to be so much more than a standardized list. |
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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