Volume 12, Issue 2 As stated in the article, the teaching of the elements is often the only thing fellow teachers believe that music teachers are ‘good for’ as to say. This surprised and frustrated me as I did not realize the way in which music teachers are seen as ‘useless’, or ‘unimportant’. I believe that the teaching of music is one of the most important and necessary methods of teaching. The article stated that only 5.4% of high school students took music voluntarily, which is also extremely surprising to me. This puts a insane amount of pressure on music teachers to change the way they teach and make their classes more interesting to attract more students, which in turn could cause they teachers to drift so far from the original rules that they become nonexistent. One thing about this article that frustrated me the most was the amount of times that the elements were treated as if they were not as important as I truly believe they are. The elements are one of the most fundamental things that need to be taught to students in the music program. Without teaching the elements it is impossible for a music student to ever properly learn everything they can about music and how to teach it, as they are extremely important in learning how to properly do all the different kinds of music (i.e theory, General Integrated Musicianship, etc. ) Therefore, if I could say something to the author of this article I would like to discuss why they think that the elements are not as important as I personally believe they are. Without enforcing teachers to teach the elements eventually the elements themselves would become something that no one would truly knew how to use or define, which would someday make very confused music students. I would also like to ask the author of this article in which ways they would go about ensuring music teachers are properly challenging the rules and not showing any bias towards the things they are teaching. Whether it be teaching the teachers that they cannot let their own personal bias get in the way or another method, as I find the subject extremely interesting.
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.
In this article, the invisible student, Ryan M Hourigan explains the difficulties of dealing with a ‘invisible’ student and the ways in which you, as a band director, can help to alleviate some of the pressures that they might feel to make friends. Although I agree with many of the points that Hourigan brings forward, I also believe there are some improvements that could be made to his argument. Students who are believed to be ‘shy’ or ‘awkward’ often need an extra push to help them make friends in social situations, however, once a student has demonstrated that they do not wish to make friends on more than one occasion the teacher in this situation should no longer feel that they are responsible for the students ability to make friends, as they may simply not want to. In some situations, yes, said student has restrictive issues stopping them from making friends but, there are also students who simply do not wish to make friends and this must be taken into account when the teacher is trying to help them. I agree with Hourigans idea that band directors should try and create situations in which the ‘invisible’ student will be able to be included by the more outgoing students as this is a great way for both of them to learn how to make friends with the opposite ‘type’ of person as to say. I also agree with Hourigans point in which he describes that whenever the band is leaving the band room, seating, buddy and room assignments should be made in advance despite what some of the other students may say. Overall, Ryan M Hourigans article is extremely interesting and detailed and a question I would like to ask his would be related to his experiences with any students he has met that fit his criteria to be considered an ‘invisible’ student. Which method worked best to get them to work well with their classmates and which one's didn't and how would he improve his methods for future teachers to use in their classes.
Hourigan, Ryan M. 2009. The invisible student: Understanding social identity construction within performing ensembles. Music Educators Journal 95, (4) (06): 34-38,5, https://www.lib.uwo.ca/cgi-bin/ezpauthn.cgi?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/197197642?accountid=15115 (accessed September 22, 2017).
Think Everything's Normal? In this article by Drew Serres, he discusses the problems surrounding the challenges that students who aren't considered to be ‘normal’ face. For the most part I agree with what Serres has to say in this article, and find reading about how society defines ‘normal’ to be extremely interesting. What surprised me the most in this article was when Serres talked about how schools go as far as to hide wheelchairs in photos to ensure that everyone else feels comfortable, as if to say that the mere sight of someone's disability will cause controversy, regardless of the way the actual wheelchair bound person feels. So, not only do the disabled have to face discrimination by their peers but are more often than not placed in classes by their teachers with other disabled where they will not be expected to reach the same academic level as those who are considered to be ‘normal’ regardless of their actual capabilities. By doing this the student is forced to believe that they are not equal to the other students and can never achieve the same things that a ‘normal’ student can. If this were to be eliminated and all students were placed together regardless of any disabilities, I believe that the decrease in stigma surrounding disabled students would drastically decrease, as instead of ‘normal’ students watching the ‘non-normals’ from afar they would be able to interact and learn to accept each other. I also believe that in the long run this could be the solution to end the stigma surrounding those who do not fit into the ‘normal’ mold are not equal to those who do, as when the students grow up around multiple different kinds of people they will learn to not carry the stigma against the ‘non-normals’ for the rest of their lives, creating a welcoming and positive world for all.
"Think Everything's." Organizing Change. Accessed September 30, 2017. https://organizingchange.org/think-everythings-normal-then-its-time-to-reconsider-and-promote-a-new-narrative-of-disability/.
Fumbling Towards Vulnerability: Moving Out of the Familiar for Music Education's Sake Within the first couple minutes of reading this article I noticed the mention of the 'grey' area and instantly I can connect to the author as her and I have had almost the exact same experiences musically, given this fact I have found this to be one of the most interesting articles we have read so far. The idea she presents that in order to truly progress as a musician you must understand how to deal with nerves and failure is a harsh yet well-known truth of the musical world. From personal experience I have undergone many different nerve-racking and embarrassing moments during my musical studies and can argue for both sides, one being that students should never have to preform new music on the spot and the other side being that this should be a more common occurrence. Although preforming in front of the class was an extremely stressful and nerve-racking experience I do believe that I become a better musician from it and learned several different new techniques from my classmates to use in the future. On the apposing side of the argument, the stress most students put themselves through when preforming solo often strips music of all fun and makes it something that students will dread doing if they are made to do things such as sight read in front of classmates too many times, so therefore it is a balancing game that the teacher must preform based on their students. Overall I agree with what the author has put forward and would discuss different techniques that she recommends for nervous or new music students to make peer performances as smooth as possible while still remaining a learning technique that teachers may use.
Dawe, L. (2016). Fumbling Towards Vulnerability: Moving Out of the Familiar for Music Education’s Sake,Canadian Music Educator, (57)2, pp.22-24.
Music Education Workshop Reflection Although it was very cold and early on a Saturday I quite enjoyed the workshop Dr. Sandra Stauffe provided. At first I was a bit sceptical about the entire thing as I have never been to a workshop that I truly enjoyed and learned anything useful from but this one proved itself to be quite different within the first 15 minutes. I have never experienced anything so 'jam-packed' full of information done so quickly and efficiently while still being entertaining and rememberable. Within the first couple minutes my attention had already been grabbed and I found myself listening and digesting everything Dr. Sandra Stauffe had to say. I hope that I will be able to put some of, if not all, the techniques that Dr. Sandra Stauffe talked about today into practice sometime in the near future. The technique that I found to be the most useful was the second to last exercise we did and although at first I didn't really understand what the point of it was after learning it was to teach children to use 6/8 time I was blown away. I really wish I had learned 6/8 with this technique because I feel like it would have been a much smoother and less challenging road. Overall I quite enjoyed the entire workshop and learned many useful and interesting techniques and facts that I cannot wait to use in the real world. I would be thrilled to attend another one like it as long as there are donuts involved again!
Leslie Dawe Reflection Hearing Leslie talk about something she is so clearly interested in and passionate about was quite an experience. I found that she was incredibly good at explaining was she was talking about, which is probably due to the several years she has spent teaching young children who need the extra explanations. The only thing I wish was different about this interview was that I would've liked for us to have more time to listen to Leslie speak and not have to worry about when her break was ending. Given the opportunity I would love for the music education class to have a period in which Leslie actually comes and speaks to us face to face and more questions can be asked and answered.
Music Education, Multiculturalism, and Anti-Racism – Can We Talk? I found this to be an extremely difficult article to read. I found myself getting lost as the author continued to use extremely "scholarly" words when they aren't needed. Overall I wasn't exactly sure what the article was trying to get across, nor have I ever thought that Music Education was considered to be racist in any way and I therefore do not agree with the author. When Bradley states "Meeting the challenge of collaborative practice demands that we move beyond thinking about music hierarchically and Eurocentrically" she is basically grouping together all musical people instead of including those who do already think in a non-eurocentrically way. Although yes, there are people who do think about certain genres of music in a racist way, it is more often than not unintentional and rather just the way they were taught to think about music. I do not believe that people mean to do any harm by referring to a certain type of music as "black" music but rather they have observed that only certain race groups listen to certain types of music and therefore draw conclusions by themselves. Therefore, if I could speak to the author I would like for them to explain their point in a more clear way without the use of unnecessarily long words and maybe help my understanding of the point they were trying to get across.
Bradley, D. (2006) “Music education, multiculturalism, and anti-racism: ‘Can we talk?” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 5/2. Accessed Oct 13th, 2017 : http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Bradley5_2.pdf
Another Perspective: The Ipad is a Real Musical Instrument This article by David A. Williams argues that the ipad is a real musical instrument which, to being with, I did not agree in the slightest. However after reading the article that Williams has put together I now have a completely different outlook and understanding of the ipad in musical terms. To begin with my opinion of the IPAD being used as a musical instrument was the same as most of the other musicians talked about in this article, that the only real instruments are those that are viewed has honourable and although other things could make music, they were not really instruments. After reading this article I now understand that to some extent anything and everything can be an instrument if handled by the right person. Although I agree with most of the article there are a few things that I either do not agree with or I'm not quite sure what they mean, for example, once I was finished the article I noticed it had a link to view one of the Ipad concerts and I've discovered that it has changed my opinion on the idea that anything can be a university level instrument. The concert, although it sounded alright, overall was less impactful than I believe it could have with other instruments being used. To me it just looked like a couple of guys standing in a semi circle touching buttons on ipads and not like they were putting forth any true effort to make music, which is something that should never be done, music should always be made with the most effort possible to make it sound the best it possibly can. Therefore if I could speak to the author of this article I would like to discuss the amount of effort shown in the ipad band in comparison to a full orchestra or ensemble and discuss ways in which this can be levelled out.
Williams, D. A. (2014). Another Perspective The iPad Is a REAL Musical Instrument. Music Educators Journal,101(1), 93-98.
Public School Reflection I found this public school visit to be an extremely unique and interesting experience. I quite enjoyed spending time with the children and getting to see first hand how they think and reaction to certain things. The children really seemed to become engaged once we began singing songs that required them to listen to every word the age difference between us university students and the grade 4s virtually disappeared and we were all just students trying to learn. I was quite impressed by their abilities to learn the songs and actions that went along with them so quickly and on top of that be able to come up with new lyrics and actions on the spot when asked, this is something I did not think would go as smoothly as it did. Overall I feel like I learned many new things about young students by actually getting to work with them instead of reading about it online. My opinions of young students has changed as I've now learned that they do not need to babied as much as I thought and are perfectly capable of doing and learning things that I would have though were at a much higher level than they are.
Tobias, E. S. (2013). Toward Convergence Adapting Music Education to Contemporary Society and Participatory Culture. Music Educators Journal, 99(4), 29-36.
At first I did not really understand the articles views and opinions but after rereading it once I have actually come to agree with what it is saying. I do think that by bringing in/working with "outside" music programs students and schools programs will evolve. An example I can think of right off the top of my head would be students who are interested in recording and editing themselves singing or rapping would probably become much more interested in their schools music program if it incorporated editing software such as soundcloud or garageband into the curriculum. I believe that by including these new and modern programs music will become more popular and students will begin to enrol in it to actually learn instead of to fill up their required arts credit. If I could speak to the author of this article I would like to discuss different statistics and trials that may have been preformed to get a better idea on whether or not this modernization of music programs will actually work or if they will just turn music class into a computer class. I would also like to discuss about the whole concerned parents who think that by bringing computers into a music class it will be losing its "musicalness" and the class will end up just staring at computers all class instead of what most parents consider to be music (i.e. playing an instrument, singing, etc.)