Teaching students how to compose is an essential portion of a child’s musical development. The reading this week was based on how teachers should approach teaching composition. Bauer stated two common approaches to composition: “standard music notation,” and “non-notational compositional strategies” (Bauer, 2014, p. 59). Prior to reading this week, I believed that students should know how to read music in order to compose music. However, the following statement changed my thought process entirely: “Skilled teachers can use this as an entry point to further develop students’ musical understanding” (Bauer, 2014, p. 60). With new technologies, a student can learn how to compose without being musically literate. If a teacher is doing their job properly, we can teach the students who are not musically literate to become musically literate through using technologies like Soundation, Mixcraft, and GarageBand. This reading has inspired me to change two things about my Electronic music class. First is to be more involved in the process of teaching students to compose using Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs). Second is to teach these students to be musically literate through composing in DAWs. In the past, the projects for this class has been set up where I would hand students directions on how to set up a project. I would then give them minimal feedback on how they were progressing. Then we would move on to the next project. I believe I had done this because I felt that I was not comfortable with the technology. After reading this week, I want me and my students to be more involved with the compositional process and to become musically literate. I am inspired to make this class more rigorous for me and my students.
As a first year teacher, my cooperating teacher was a wealth of knowledge in music technology. He was the previous Electronic music teacher and was able to set me up with everything he had taught in that class. Over the last few years I have found myself becoming complacent. After this week’s readings, I feel rejuvenated due to being able to understand concepts of this subject better than when I started. Although I had heard of these terms before, Bauer’s explanation of the following concepts clarified how these concepts work: connection between soundwaves, frequency/Hertz, and amplitude/decibels; differences between analog and digital recording; and the the way he categorized audio file types by “lossless” and “lossy” categories (Bauer, 2014, p. 31). I absolutely have a better grasp on these concepts and can bring these concepts back to my Electronic music class.
All the applications that have been used in this class thus far has been useful for many different reasons. Soundation is no exception. The sharing capabilities of cloud-based programs are always valuable. Although there was only a limited time to explore Soundation, I find the loops in Mixcraft and GarageBand to be better quality. In regards to my musical practice and performance, I find that I can just work quicker in Mixcraft or GarageBand. In my current teaching situation, I do not find Soundation as beneficial in my teaching and student learning since Mixcraft and GarageBand are easily accessed in my building. There is always a value for any resource for music teachers. Especially when it is a free, and cloud based program that allows teachers to supplement their program.
References
Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to
music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Hi Samuel, Thanks for your thoughtful and honest reflection this week! I too was inspired by Bauer's quote that you included in your reflection: "Skilled teachers can use this as an entry point to further develop students’ musical understanding” (Bauer, 2014, p. 60). I had previously thought that programs like Soundation were "fun or interesting" but if I was going to teach composition I should use a program such as Noteflight where students are actually composing and writing the notation for their creations. I believe that there are many skills that can be learned from a sound-based composition approach. On the other hand, I do believe that students should learn basic note-naming and rhythmic-counting skills in a music class. These skills can be practiced and reinforced using a notation-based composition approach. However, like you stated, I think as teachers we can be very intentional about using a DAW to teach musical terms and literacy. I could see terms like tempo, pulse, beats, dynamics, measure, etc. being taught using one of these programs. There can be a lot of educational value using a program like Soundation if teachers structure the lessons and projects appropriately. I still believe that students should be exposed to notation-based composition to learn how to notate music and so it should be included in the curriculum as well. Do you use any notation-based programs in your current classes or do you focus on DAW approaches?
ReplyDeleteMixcraft is the only program I use currently. However, I have a unit where I teach them how to read basic drum notation. The final product is that they have to enter in drum grooves reading notation.
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