Technology Assisted Music Learning Development, Module 5

The objectives for Module 5 were:

•      Discuss research and best practices related to the development of music listening skills and general musical understanding.

•      Describe the affordances and constraints of a variety of technologies that may facilitate human response to music.

•      Make connections among curricular outcomes, pedagogies, and technologies relevant to human response to music.

•      Identify types of music software and discuss how to evaluate software titles.

•      Explain ways in which internet resources can be used for music learning.

The activities to support these objectives were: (1) reading Chapters 2 and 5 of the text; (2) interacting with my PLN and tweet about music; (3) complete a music software evaluation project; (4) complete a social bookmarking project; (5) this week’s discussion; and (6) the weekly blog entry.

Until the course on Creativity, listening to music had never formally been presented to me as a skill. Although it was clear through my own experience and my teaching that purposeful listening could be developed as a skill, I had not viewed listening to music as something other than part of performing, practicing, or creating music. Even though these aspects of experiencing music cannot be approached as separate and apart from each other, we often discuss music and music teaching in terms of performing, practicing, or creating. However, integral to each of these, and to the sum of these, is practiced and intentional listening. Approaching listening to music as a disparate skill is new to me.

Some interesting statements in the reading of the textbook (Bauer, 2014) this week included “Music is a natural and essential part of being human, capable of invoking a variety of responses in people” (p. 105). That music is uniquely human remains a part of my everyday teaching. The discussion that music retains the capability of evoking emotional responses in addition to evoking an infinite array of additional experiences occurs more infrequently in my teaching. Although my daily class piano discussion inevitably includes the end goal of creating beautiful (or whatever the intended ‘sound’) music, the underlying reason for doing so is too often left unsaid, I believe.

Bauer (2014) states that

the ability to listen is often considered to be the preeminent musical skill. All musicians and musical participants – performers, composers, conductors, audience members, audio engineers – need to listen, often in a very sophisticated manner. (p. 106)

A mere six months ago, this statement would have caused me great concern and challenge. However, upon the introduction of the idea of listening included as a creative product, I engaged in ample reading and thought on the subject. Bennett Reimer continues to enthrall me with his assiduousness in asserting his personal philosophies regarding music education. In a compilation of selected essays, Reimer (2009) makes these bold statements:

I have long championed the cause of making the single most practiced role in music, that of the listener, as central to our professional responsibilities as it deserves to be in the face of a long history of resistance to that need. (p. 221)

Listening to music with absorption, imagination, discernment, understanding, feeling, and caring, is as active as reading a book when all those characteristics are being manifested energetically. (p. 231)

Perhaps the hardest of all roles in which to succeed in [the goal of achieving optimum levels of active involvement], unfortunately, is in the teaching of listening. Unfortunate because it is the most pursued musical role of all, involving far more people than all the other roles put together. (p. 232)

Perhaps listening can be recognized, finally, as a genuine, precious role in and of itself, not only as a means to other ends. As with every other way to be musical, but more urgently given its primacy in our musical culture, the role of the listener deserves the full devotion of our energies and intelligences, to face its dilemmas, devise useful means to surmount them, and position ourselves thereby to make the fullness of contribution our culture deserves from us. (p. 234)

Peterson attempted to configure an argument for listening to music as a creative product in her 2006 article. When laying the groundwork for her argument, Peterson addresses the importance of developing the skill of listening to music:

Music education is not just about learning to perform with voices and instruments; it is about guiding students toward understanding music, what it is, how it works, and what it does to and for us as human beings. (p. 15)

There’s that being human stuff again. Peterson also states:

Although listening is included as one among a list of other activities, listening is really at the heart of all musical activity, because musical activity of any kind invariably involves attention to sound through listening. (p. 15)

Because of the unbiquitousness of shared opinion regarding listening to music as the most important skill a human can acquire – among all of the aspects of engaging in music – I changed my teaching practice accordingly.

Utilizing technology affords integration of a vast variety of listening experiences with my students. Although I now include the use of CDs and YouTube in my teaching, there must be caution exercised here. There is no true substitute for listening to live music. For example, with the repetition of playing a single phrase and asking the student if they hear the right hand playing legato while the left hand is non-legato, it takes many iterations before the student is able to detect the subtle difference between legato in the left hand and a gentle non-legato in the left hand. Only after acquisition of the listening skill is a student able to then emulate the same sound. If the student cannot hear the error, they cannot correct the error.

I found the Diigo assignment quite frustrating. After spending several hours over a period of days, reinstalling my browser, restarting my machine, and a futile search for an answer of how to accomplish the task, I still am unable to utilize the toolbar in Diigo. Even with the diigolet, I am unable to view the tools while on a web page other than the Diigo webpage – which means I am unable to highlight or put sticky notes on a web page. For my personal purposes, this ability seemed to be the most valuable when researching. The use of a different browser produced no new results, either.

The software evaluation project proved enlightening. The program that I eventually chose was one that challenged even my reading skills. I learned that there is a significant difference in my ability to name bass clef notes as fast as I can read treble clef notes. I already knew that there was a discrepancy, but until I used the note naming program several times, I did not know the extent to which the discrepancy existed. Since I have always maintained a high level of sight reading ability, this surprised me.

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References

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

Peterson, E. (2006). Creativity in music listening. Arts, Education, Policy Review, 107(3), 15-21.

Reimer, Bennett. (2009). Seeking the significance of music education: Essays and reflections. Lanham, MD: Published in partnership with MENC: The National Association for Music Education by Rowman & Littlefield Education.