When I am teaching 1st grade students to understand musical concepts, they are only exposed to musical sound. My younger students do not see any musical notion until later in the school year. We sing, play,and move to different melodies, tempos, meters, and rhythmic chants. Once my students begin to audiate and demonstrate their aural skills then I begin show my students how to write out music notation. Next, I have my students compose simple rhythms, and simple melodies. Finally, my primary students then preform their compositions. Do all my students have grasped the knowledge of notation? Some do and some don't. However, when they create their composition they understand what musical sounds work together.
Reflecting on my older students musical skills, I know that some of my older students are having a difficult time grasping notation, but they know what sounds work well together. Even though, my older students have a difficult time performing their compositions, I know that what they have composed is good The answer to my question is that there is value in non-notational compositions. Having choices to use traditional notation and non- notation to demonstrate creativity through composition would be beneficial. If given choices, I know that most of my students would embrace non notational composition.
I agree with Bauer(2014) is that "there needs to be an appropriate balance assigned constrains and freedom of choice" (p. 60). Even though there needs to be constraints to be considered to determine what is musically and developmentally appropriate for a group of students, without causing limitations to student creativity. I also agree with the developing of aural skills. Aural skills are important for composition likewise with improvisation. Further more, "Teachers must assess their students' knowledge and be sure they are ready for learning new concepts and skills" (p.61). By assess students knowledge and their skills will helps with unwanted frustration for everyone. When a student is not understanding new concepts because they did not understand the previously taught concepts, those concepts must be retaught in order for a student to move forward in her learning. How does this traditional notational educator assess compositions based on sound only?
One thing that I found interesting is graphically oriented software, and how these programs focus on sound. One app that I am going to explore that was mentioned in Learning Music Today is Pitch Painter for my younger students and using programs like GarageBand and Soundation. I had a subscrition to GarageBand in 2008, I was impressed, but I did not know how to use it in a classroom setting. I was teaching middle school choir at the time, and my main concern was sight singing for the University Interscholastic League Concert and Sight Reading District Composition. This was a required competition for Texas Middle Schools and High Schools. Now that I am teaching general music, GarageBand or Soundation would be programs that my students would enjoy exploring. After experimenting with Soundation, I wished that I used GarageBand with my middle school choir students. This would allow my choir students to have some creativity to put their aural skills into practice.
I believe that with the information that we are learning we could reach out to the 80% of students who love music, but don't like to be apart of the ensemble world. The use of MIDI and DAWs is an excellent resource for students to explore and learn how to create music and produce music. MIDI gives students freedom to add their own ideas and expressions of music mixed with other musical sounds. I am excited to try Soundation with my students. I believe that this will help my students be better students, and would want to continue on learning music when they attend middle school and beyond.
Bauer, W. I. (2014). Creativity. In Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing
responding to music. New York: Oxford Press, Inc.
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