"Music is a foreign language."
People say it all the time. While I've learned that it is not a universal language (as other cultures have music systems that do not translate to Western music), I am learning more and more that it is its own language with it's own set of rules.....and dialects I guess (I mean, Taylor Swift and Pavarotti can use the same notes and rhythms, but they are going to sound different and would probably have a difficult time understanding one another).
I heard a student in our class say "I teach a foreign language. Everything we do is vocab." .....And I realized that there is a lot more vocabulary to teach in music than I've ever noticed. To be honest, I don't remember my teachers focusing on vocabulary. At least not in any creative ways. I think we had a test once a year that would list 20 or so words and we were expected to write down what they meant. When did I learn the definitions? I have no idea. I suppose it was just repetition. After playing in band for four years, I was bound to figure out that rit. (ritard) meant the teacher would slow down.
My teachers didn't leave us to figure out everything on our own - that's not what I mean. They'd just teach us through performance. Explain these things as they came up in rehearsal - or even prompt us to figure it out on our own and discuss it (briefly of course) as a class. I wonder if that's the best way to go about teaching vocabulary in an ensemble setting. If I have a specific set of related words I want to teach to my band, I could find specific examples in our music to assist in the process.
Something that was stressed at two separate workshops I attended at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago last December was the idea of using "WORD WALL" in your band program. You have a wall full of vocabulary words. When you use one of the words in rehearsal, you ask a student to pick it off the wall and place it on the board. For the rest of the week, you can make reference to the words on the board.
I thought about the WORD WALL for a while, but I don't know if I like it. Writing words on the board is fine by me, but.... When I picture a word all, I picture a first grade classroom, not a middle school band room. The idea behind it is good, though.
And now, with no transition whatsoever, I'd like to discuss pop music:
For my IB Music Class in high school, we were led in a discussion about whether or not pop music should be used in high school curriculum. Our teacher helped the conversation along sometimes, but avoided sharing her opinion. There were students who strongly opposed using pop music (probably thinking they were pleasing the teacher) and there were students who thought some references to pop music were okay. In general, however, we were of the opinion that there was little to no educational value in pop music.
Then our teacher introduced the next unit.......Active Listening/Analysis. Part of the testing process was listening to a classical piece of music and writing down information under the headings: Instrumentation, Form, Style, and Texture. To introduce us to this kind of listening assignment, our teacher used Pink Floyd and film scores. Those four music elements were present in the examples she used. YES, you can learn an awful lot about texture and instrumentation from The Lord of the Rings!
I think we can learn from that - use what the students know to introduce new concepts. We can then build a bridge that will connect the concepts to more "intellectual" repertoire - or the music they'll be playing in their ensembles.
- Sarah
Music is definitely another language! I agree!
ReplyDeleteAnd then on top of that, I'll be teaching several other languages since singing in English is only part of what we do.
Vocab is tricky with music. How to introduce terms without taking too much time away from rehearsal or how to do it in rehearsal without too much interruption... I'm not sure. The word wall sounds interesting, but I agree that it seems juvenile.
Haha! You touched on pop music. Here's the thing. I plan on using it. A lot. I think there is a ton of negativity surrounding pop music. Particularly trained musicians. Remember when we did some pop music at the Gala? Dr. Scheer was very vocal about how he thought that was a terrible idea. There is a lot to learn from pop music. I think the key is to introduce students to every genre and show them the benefits of each.
I learned music vocabulary in the same way that you did,through rehearsal. But I remember that when we came across a new symbol in our music, our teacher would ask us what we thought it meant,and then after we had made our prediction she would explain it,usually taking an instrument to demonstrate. This might be a way to incorporate vocab into your class, because obviously you don't really have time to stop rehearsal to have an extensive vocab lesson.
ReplyDeleteTo me the word wall may be a bit juvenile, but I think if you make the words to put on the word wall as you introduce them to your students would be cool. Then at the end of the year they could see what they have learned, and what they should remember as they play.
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite people in the world, the best middle school earth science teacher I've known, used a word wall in her classroom. I think that whether or not something is juvenile depends on how you present it and use it. If you speak to your students with respect and treat them like independent thinkers, I can't imagine that they will think that you are treating them in a juvenile way. At the same time, however, you have to do what feels comfortable to you. Your teaching should not only fit what your education program has taught you, but your teaching should also fit your own personality and you should always feel comfortable in your own skin. So if you always feel insecure about having a word wall, then it wouldn't be a good thing because students would sense your insecurity. At least that's my two cents.
And in regards to pop music...I think it's interesting how Charles Dickens was considered "pop" for his time and Shakespeare was considered "popular" for his time, but now that they are old they have become "classics." We as a society always seem to venerate things that are old, but I personally think the line between "pop" and "classic" is subjective. In 100 years, music teachers may have students performing variations of Led Zeppelin, with their students complaining they cannot perform contemporary pop because their teachers do not think it is high brow enough. :)
Thanks for a thought provoking posting!