Week 4

First, what do these girls' statements, and the video in general, demonstrate about the value of music in people's lives?

(18 points)  Second, how could you make this fact better known in your community and school district?  What more can you do than just say, "Every student should have music"?  In addition to making the performances informative about music and the school music program, think of at least three ways in which you might educate people who are not musicians about the importance of music.

Possible actions might include holding a "parents' evening" in which parents can sit with their son or daughter as the group rehearses, or having a student essay contest on the topic "Why music is important in my life."

A city such as Cateura, Paraguay does not have excessive amounts of money to spend.  They are built on a landfill and the people of the city work in the landfill.  Despite the fact that there is no money and that the cost of a violin is greater than the cost of one of their houses, inspiration took root when they found a shell of a violin. 

                The people of the city created what they call the “Landfill Harmonic.”  In order to promote music, the take garbage from the landfill and up-cycle it to create musical instruments.  This demonstrates the power and desire that music brings to a culture.  People yearn for music.  Every culture has music but they may not have the funding to give a great music education to its young people.  The people of Cateura did not let that stop them from promoting a music education in order to promote a culture of music.  This really shows that people search for music in any way, shape, or form that they can: despite living in poverty, they found a way to include music in their culture by using the materials of their culture.

                I have experienced trying to promote the value of music education to the community in which I teach.  I am new to my school this year.  I arrived at the school, coming from a school that was a small private school.  At my previous school we had 6 Orff instruments that were completely broken and almost unusable.  At my new school, I had 14 Orff instrument in great condition.  I found myself feeling very blessed.  However, my boss at the county level came and visited me and noted, “You only have 14 Orff instruments?”  At the time, I stated excitedly “Yes, I do!”  She insisted that in order to have a proper Orff ensemble, 14 instruments were not enough.  I quickly found that she was correct.  I could only accept 14 students into my ensemble.  During class, I found that I had some classes up to 28 students.  Students would have to take turns playing the instruments.  Or, if we were low on time, I had some students playing a game to the song while others would play.  The students would then leave without getting play that day.  We would have to wait a week more and then have the students switch.

                I decided to try to get a couple more instruments.  I went on a website called Donorschoose.org, and very ambitiously created a project worth 2,200 dollars that would give us 4 more instruments if it was fulfilled.  I managed to raise 1,400 dollars until it expired yesterday.  My boss at the county level got wind of this.  She had a little bit of money left in HER budget and ended up buying us the instruments we needed!  So in addition to raising 1,400 dollars from the community, we ended up getting 2,000 dollars’ worth of instruments from her as well. 

                In order to promote this project to the community, I did the best I could.  From flyers, facebook, pinterest, and other places, I managed to get the word out.  I attempted to reach out and connect to other people’s experiences with elementary music class.  I ended up with donators who understood the power of elementary music.  These donators were not music educators.  Some were teachers, others engineers, and more. 

                In addition to this project and the information that I provided people, I would like to do something fun for parent-teacher conferences next year.  I never get parents who stop by during these conferences.  It’s so bad that they don’t even expect me to attend parent-teacher conferences.  I would like to shake that up.  Next year, I plan to leave signs around the school inviting parents and teachers to my room after their conference.  In my room, I would have instruments set up in stations so that the students could bring their parents around the room and show them all of what they learn in music.  In addition, they can teach their parents to play the instruments they have been learning in class.  I think this would be a great opportunity to show the parents that the students DO learn things in music class.  This would give evidence of learning.  A lot of parents think music class is sitting around and singing songs.  This would show them that the students are learning how to play, sing, the theory, compose, improvise, notate, and more.

                Another idea to inform the parents of how valuable music education is for their students is to have the students keep a portfolio.  I started gathering a bunch of student work this year.  This is going to be a lot of work on my part, but I’d like to create folders for my students to keep their musical work together in one place.  I’m still debating whether or not to send them home at the end of each year or to keep the work from Kindergarten until they reach 6^th grade and have them take the portfolio home in 6^th grade.  I may just have them keep the portfolio with me until 6^th grade but I can bring them out to show parents during the parent-teacher conference time.  So in addition to playing and showing their parents what they are currently learning in music class, the students and parents can track their musical progress during that time as well.  I think this is a really great way to show the parents they are LEARNING music and that music is valuable!

Nonmusical Benefits of Music

There are many nonmusical benefits to learning music.  Studies over the years have linked higher test scores with involvement in the arts.  According to David Levitin, “Musical activity involves nearly every region of the brain that we know about, and nearly every neural subsystem” (Levetin pg. 299).  Because of this music is said to help improve our reading skills, speech skills, ability to focus for long periods of time, and helps us learn to empathize with others.  Those who study music have higher IQs, more grey matter in their brains, and better information processing.

In addition to all these things, students who are involved with music have increased spatial awareness.  With greater spatial awareness, one has the ability to better perceive the world and to form mental pictures.  This link has twelve benefits of musical education: http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/12benefits.html that talks about the link between spatial awareness and music education.

Despite all the nonmusical benefits to studying music, we can’t be 100% sure that music is the cause of these things.  It has been theorized that people who are involved in music have all these things naturally which causes them to become involved in music.  Music in turn may enhance these already natural abilities, therefore making it a cyclical relationship.

In order to maintain support for music education, music teachers should be able to support their desire to keep music in schools by using musical benefits as support.  Musical benefits include learning to sing, play, compose, and improvise.  We cannot simply rely on nonmusical benefits to support music education because they are not going to be the same for every person.  Music educators who advertise that music education will increase a student’s IQ might see that happen with some of their students but not all.  In a way, this would be false advertising.

In addition, we cannot rely on the support of nonmusical benefits because they can be taught in other subjects as well as music.  For example, we may learn good citizenship through music.  However, you can also learn this in a government class.  If students can learn these things in other subjects, why would we need to teach music in addition to those subjects? 

One more reason to be cautious when supporting music education with nonmusical benefits is that it is easy to forget that we should be teaching our students music.  If we state that learning music will help raise test scores, increase spatial awareness, increase IQ, and teach students to focus for longer, we will be forgetting about all the musical ideas that students must learn.  Teachers will be so focused on teaching the nonmusical ideas that they will let the musical ideas fall to the wayside.  

Teachers need to be careful when showing evidence that music education is necessary.  There are many nonmusical benefits to teaching music.  But we must remember that our goal is music education.  If teachers provide a balance of nonmusical benefits and musical benefits to support their program, they will be in good shape.

References:

The Benefits of Music Education. (2014, April 1). . Retrieved May 1, 2014, from https://www.rcmusic.ca/sites/default/files/files/RCM_MusicEducationBenefits.pdf

Twelve Benefits of Music Education. (2013, January 1). . Retrieved May 1, 2014, from http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/12benefits.htm

Tchaikovsky's Symphony 4 - Movement 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83F2cK4gG0M&feature=youtu.be&t=18s

I currently teach Pre-K through 6^th grades.  I see my 6^th grade students but once a week.  When they enter my classroom, I have a piece of music playing.  On the board are three questions that I intend to ask them when the piece is over.  The questions usually range from, “What emotion did you feel when listening to this piece of music?” and “What in this piece was interesting to you?” 

The students know they must support their answers to me with information from the piece of music.  They cannot simply tell me that Tchaikovsky’s Symphony 4, movement 2 was “sad.”  They must tell me something like Tchaikovsky’s Symphony 4, movement 2 felt said because of the instruments that were used in the piece – violins, oboe, and flute.  Or they could tell me something along the lines of “I felt that the dynamic changes in the piece were what really made the piece interesting.” 

I usually let 3-8 students share their answers (depending on how long they speak) and we then list ideas such as what dynamics were heard, what the tempo was, what instruments were heard, etc., on the board.  That way we can see the list together and really identify what made the song aesthetic as a class.

Aesthetic Experience

I guess it’s hard for me to think of just one aesthetic experience to put into words.  It’s honestly hard for me to put any aesthetic into words because it moves me inside.  That’s the power of music – it is moving!  Thinking back through the years, I remember an experience in 8^th grade.  I was singing in the middle school all county chorus.  At this concert, we performed first and then the high school all-county chorus performed second.  I remember hearing this piece of music, and I honestly don’t even remember the name of the piece.  But I remember being so incredibly moved by the music.  The chords, the way the voices blended, the soloists, the instruments used; all these combined to make this powerful performance.

There really was no “practical” purpose to the song other than it was a piece chosen in an 8-piece lineup and that used to showcase the “best” singers in the county.  The piece, however, left me in awe.  To this day I think about that experience as almost life changing.  I heard the beauty of the piece and just knew I was headed down the right path.  I remember thinking that I wanted to be in that choir; that I wanted to make music as gorgeous as that. 

What particularly caught my interest was the pure tone of the soprano singers.  At that point, I was used to singing with middle school choirs. And while we were also the “best” in the county, we were definitely still learning how to sing.  Hearing the high school sopranos sing up high and hit the correct notes really left me with feeling like I needed to continue singing.  It left me feeling that that music was part of me and that I needed to be there with them, singing that same song. 

I know that many people study music from elementary school and even into middle and high school, but few continue performing and learning music after they graduate from high school.  In this moment, I knew that I needed to continue in music for the rest of life.  I didn't know I wanted to teach at that time, but I knew that I wanted to do something with music as my career in life. I knew that I didn't want an ordinary 9-5 job.  I knew that it needed to have some kind of music as part of my daily work.  

Module 1 - Reflection Post - Article Summaries

Music and Morality

“Plato may be right, even in relation to a modern democracy, that changes in musical culture go hand in hand with changes in the laws, since changes in the laws so often reflect pressures from the culture” (Scruton 2010).  Roger Scruton published an article titled “Music and Morality” in February 2010.  Scruton states that he agrees with Plato in that music has a power of people.  He notes that in today’s society, pop stars are given a place high in society.  People envy pop stars, emulate pop stars, and want to be pop stars.  Even though we cannot ban certain kinds of music by law, music still influences those who make laws whether they realize it or not.  He suggests that instead of judging music which would only serve to insult certain people who enjoy that kind of music, that we should teach our students to analyze music instead.

Scruton goes on to state that it is hard to just a musical idiom without judging the culture from where it came.  They are not separate entities, rather, they stem from one another.  Scruton wonders if it would be simpler to just let pop music be and reserve all analysis for “classical” styles instead as many musicologists have suggested.  However, he states “If you do submit [to listening to pop music], the moral qualities of the music vanish behind the excitement; if you listen, however, and listen critically as I have been suggesting, you will discern those moral qualities, which are as vivid as the nobility in Elgar’s Second Symphony or the horror in Schoenberg’s Erwartung” (Scruton 2010).

Scruton is very much aligned to the thoughts that were stated in the Doctrine of Ethos.  Plato wrote that music and other arts greatly influence human character.  Because of this we must educate our students on music and other arts in order to help them make good choices.  Music is not just passively enjoyed by humans rather it affects everything.  It has a profound influence on the will of human beings. 

Scruton stated that there are many songs today that we would consider “pop music” that attempts to express emotions.  They are very different than the music Plato would have listened to in Ancient Greece and they are very different than the music written by the great composers Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and more.  However, we can’t just simply let “pop music” fall under that radar.  We must still teach our students to listen and analyze the music just as Plato suggested. 

Music and Morality 

                “In the first place, music in some form is a language that is universal in its appeal” (Britan pg. 48).  According to Britan, who wrote “Music and Morality” in 1904, every man in every culture listens to music.  They may not listen to it in the same way, but they understand that music is powerful.  Because music is so powerful and so popular, Britan insists that we look into the essential nature of music itself. 

          Britan states that we have gone through three major periods of creative arts: sculpture in Ancient Greece, painting in the middle ages, and music today.  When you look at sculpture and painting, it was easy to see how they came about: artists wanted to portray what they saw and preserve it.  However, he said, this doesn’t explain why we have music.  Music is not external nor does it attempt to imitate something that is.  Because it is not external, music must come from within from our desire to express what we feel inside. 

          “In social life its power is due to the fact that it leads all to one common meeting ground of temper and prepares the minds of all for unanimity of thought and action by a unanimity of feeling” (Britan pg. 50).  Britan’s thoughts are much like Scruton.  Popular music of the time, whether it be the early 1900s for Britan or 2010 for Scruton, is something that society holds dear.  People are influenced in their social life by the music to which they choose to listen.  Like Scruton, Britan touches on the topic of culture.  Both men are in agreement that music is a reflection of a culture even if you aren’t talking about the moral or ethics part of the music.  As a reflection of a certain culture, it will express the ideas of that culture. 

These points brought up by both men correspond to the idea of Plato and the Doctrine of Ethos.  The Doctrine of Ethos states that music is so powerful it has the power to influence a man to make good or bad decisions depending on the type of music to which he listened.  Plato, Scruton, and Britan all agree that music is powerful enough to influence others.  Scruton stated that even if we can’t ban music like was suggested in Plato’s day, we can say that lawmakers who listen to a certain type of music are thereby influenced by that music.  Whether we know it or not, our actions and beliefs influenced by music.  Plato, Scruton, and Britan all live in different time periods through history.  However, their beliefs are the same. 

References

Britan, H. (1904). Music and morality. International Journal of Ethics, 15(1), 48-63. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2375826

Scruton, R. (20120, February). Music and morality. Retrieved from http://spectator.org/articles/40193/music-and-morality

Module 1

Music and Morality

“Plato may be right, even in relation to a modern democracy, that changes in musical culture go hand in hand with changes in the laws, since changes in the laws so often reflect pressures from the culture” (Scruton 2010).  Roger Scruton published an article titled “Music and Morality” in February 2010.  Scruton states that he agrees with Plato in that music has a power of people.  He notes that in today’s society, pop stars are given a place high in society.  People envy pop stars, emulate pop stars, and want to be pop stars.  Even though we cannot ban certain kinds of music by law, music still influences those who make laws whether they realize it or not.  He suggests that instead of judging music which would only serve to insult certain people who enjoy that kind of music, that we should teach our students to analyze music instead.

Scruton goes on to state that it is hard to just a musical idiom without judging the culture from where it came.  They are not separate entities, rather, they stem from one another.  Scruton wonders if it would be simpler to just let pop music be and reserve all analysis for “classical” styles instead as many musicologists have suggested.  However, he states “If you do submit [to listening to pop music], the moral qualities of the music vanish behind the excitement; if you listen, however, and listen critically as I have been suggesting, you will discern those moral qualities, which are as vivid as the nobility in Elgar’s Second Symphony or the horror in Schoenberg’s Erwartung” (Scruton 2010).

                “In the first place, music in some form is a language that is universal in its appeal” (Britan pg. 48).  According to Britan, who wrote “Music and Morality” in 1904, every man in every culture listens to music.  They may not listen to it in the same way, but they understand that music is powerful.  Because music is so powerful and so popular, Britan insists that we look into the essential nature of music itself. 

          Britan states that we have gone through three major periods of creative arts: sculpture in Ancient Greece, painting in the middle ages, and music today.  When you look at sculpture and painting, it was easy to see how they came about: artists wanted to portray what they saw and preserve it.  However, he said, this doesn’t explain why we have music.  Music is not external nor does it attempt to imitate something that is.  Because it is not external, music must come from within from our desire to express what we feel inside. 

          “In social life its power is due to the fact that it leads all to one common meeting ground of temper and prepares the minds of all for unanimity of thought and action by a unanimity of feeling” (Britan pg. 50).  Britan’s thoughts are much like Scruton.  Popular music of the time, whether it be the early 1900s for Britan or 2010 for Scruton, is something that society holds dear.  People are influenced in their social life by the music to which they choose to listen.  Like Scruton, Britan touches on the topic of culture.  Both men are in agreement that music is a reflection of a culture even if you aren’t talking about the moral or ethics part of the music.  As a reflection of a certain culture, it will express the ideas of that culture. 

These points brought up by both men correspond to the idea of Plato and the Doctrine of Ethos.  The Doctrine of Ethos states that music is so powerful it has the power to influence a man to make good or bad decisions depending on the type of music to which he listened.  Plato, Scruton, and Britan all agree that music is powerful enough to influence others.  Scruton stated that even if we can’t ban music like was suggested in Plato’s day, we can say that lawmakers who listen to a certain type of music are thereby influenced by that music.  Whether we know it or not, our actions and beliefs influenced by music.  Plato, Scruton, and Britan all live in different time periods through history.  However, their beliefs are the same. 

References

Britan, H. (1904). Music and morality. International Journal of Ethics, 15(1), 48-63. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2375826

Scruton, R. (20120, February). Music and morality. Retrieved from http://spectator.org/articles/40193/music-and-morality