Week 5

This week, we have spent a lot of time learning/discussing about students responding to music. I find this one of the most important aspects of music. If someone does not enjoy music enough to at least have an opinion about what they are hearing, why bother at all? As teachers, I believe one of our main goals is to develop a students ear and provoke thoughts about music. Of course I want my students to be able to tell me things about the melodies they hear, the form, instruments and rhythms used, style, and culture of the music we listen to. But, I also want them to have an opinion about what they hear- How does it make them feel? What does it make them think of? Is it enjoyable to listen to? How do the specifics they are hearing (such as form, melodies, instruments, rhythms) affect their listening experience? All of these are incredibly important questions as well. It is important to understand music technically, but it is also important to understand the music within yourself.

One of the best ways I have found to encourage this learning is by tying things to music my students already know and love. If you can get a student to understand some of the more theoretical concepts such as form through a popular song, they will be more likely to actually have some thoughts when they hear music that is different from what is common for them. One program we learned about this week that can help achieve this is www.zaption.com . Through Zaption, you can create Interactive Videos that can be accessed by students at school or at home. You have the ability to create slides that will either pause the music and ask a question or slide out and inform the listener of what you want them to know while listening.

This week, I used Zaption to create a review video for my students about form. Every spring when we begin reviewing certain topics, I take some time to work on some cup songs with my 4th and 5th graders. Cups are a very inexpensive instrument to purchase, and my students adore learning the different patterns and the success they feel when they are able to put it together as a class. Generally this is a time that I try to gear towards what they enjoy hearing. I have a cup song for Cotton Eyed Joe, but this past year I added one in using "Happy" by Pharrell. I was impressed with how much of a hit this was with my students. Usually we spend half of a class reviewing concepts heard in the song and discussing the form, then spend some time learning the patterns with cups. On the second week, we practice the patterns and put it together. The reviews tend to be a lot of me talking, so Zaption is a great way to efficiently review what I want them to know. The videos on Zaption could be viewed at school individually in a lab or in small groups, and discussed as a class.

Below is my video that I created for Zaption to review form.
In addition to Zaption, we also reviewed a music software program or website. I chose to review Carnegie Hall’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”.

It is a website I used with my 2nd graders every year and every year after they still ask about “the orchestra game”. Using a safari theme to find instruments, a girl named Violet finds each instrument of the “extinct” symphony orchestra and learns about each one along the way. It teaches the students about the orchestra as a whole, the families of the orchestra, and each individual instrument.

The game is incredibly interactive and could be used at home individually, or as a full class activity. If at home, the student simply creates a secret username and password (no personal information is required), or a teacher will create a class username and password. I would highly recommend this software to anybody in an elementary music classroom. Students enjoy interacting with the IWB (Interactive Whiteboard), and for the most part, if the students have experience with an IWB, the game is self-run. The teacher simply facilitates discussions about what they are hearing from each instrument and assists with the games as needed.

Tools such as Zaption and YPGO are great tools to enhance a students listening. With Zaption you can create a guided listening environment for the students, whether it be songs they already know, or songs you want them to hear. With YPGO, it teaches the students along the way about the sounds of different instruments as well as important concepts such as theme and variations.

In our readings this week, one passage about listening really stood out to me. It said, “Students frequently differentiate between the music they experience in and out of school, expressing a preference for listening to music at home. School music is often perceived as passive and difficult, with students indicating they engage with it to please their parents and teachers. At home, they are able to listen in private and can choose what they will listen to. Students often use music as a means of emotional regulation while at home.” (pp. 107). If we as teachers can connect to students musically by tying our standards and curriculum into things they enjoy such as pop music and video games, we should take advantage of it. If we can use that same music they enjoy to invoke deeper thoughts about what they are hearing, I think it is even better. If we can connect to what they want to know and learn, they will probably have these same thoughts when they are listening for enjoyment at home. Musically, if we can engage them in class with music they know and appreciate, I believe we are more likely to have a chance to engage them in the music they perceive as passive and difficult.