La-di da

Music

La-di da

* “If children are expected to create art works or write stories, they should also be given the chance to create music.” (Sinclair, et.al, 2009)

My musical story started walking to school as a grade oner, when I would compose long life 'n love songs , all the time, a bit Disney-esque, but importantly in  a voice different from my own speaking voice (like role play).  I recognise a similar pitch in the voice that my daughters sing ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ in, like they are trying really hard to make it pretty, special, poetic.. . A special sweet, otherness that you get to try out with some music and songs .   Of course different songs conjure different moods, I didn’t sing ‘Old Macdonald’ in that same voice. I remember thinking I was a very talented singer /songwriter as a grade oner. A very hip teacher, who came to our small country school to give us music lessons and also roles in an operetta, stopped me pursuing a musical career. I got a main role… but for my two songs, that my character was supposed to sing, I was given a stand-in. It is true that the abundant tapes I recorded of myself singing my own compositions, when played back, had suggested to me that there was something at fault…could have been the lyrics, the pitch, the beat, the tempo, timbre, tone colour, texture, structure.

Today’s workshop really 'resonated' with me…we touched on all of the above terms, a musical language, with some overlap to a vocab used in the other art forms. Just like it was stressed in Science ed. how important it was to act/talk like a scientist, art education is showing it is important to talk like an artist.

Bill Baker played Vivaldis ‘four seasons’ , we listened , we guessed the seasons and we talked about how the composer made it sound like that season. We did similar ‘soundscaping’ exercises of our own , made real-world noises from musical instruments . The synaesthesia links that can be facilitated by music and visual arts would be invaluable to a literacy or poetry class where students can explore composing sounds through  metaphors, similies, ‘n imagery too.

I really liked how “comprehensive musicianship” , an approach made popular in the 60’s (Sinclair et al ch.8), engages with history (or music from other eras) and other cultures. Again this week it has been reinforced that MUSIC, like all art forms, is an imperative part of MEANING-MAKING and Building Understanding.  I see opportunities to strengthen roleplays by playing music from another era in this approach.
 I think I am likely to adopt a teaching approach that preferences my own ‘aesthetic understanding’ of music. Sinclair, Jeanneret & OToole (2009) give a Summary of approaches to music education…”student learning in music is categorised under two general headings:
Music practice- (making music, exploring &developing music ideas, skills, processes, conventions, composing and performing music)
Aesthetic understanding-(listening and responding to music, and understanding music’s social, cultural and economic significance) (DEST 2005, p91, cited in Sinclair et.al, 2009)”
I also know I will need to be collaborate with specialist teachers and student mentor’s , in recognition of a mismatch between how important I think music is to all curriculum areas and the limitations of my own musical abilities.

"The first task in a new integrated arts program or project is to gather and define the artistic vocabulary (both verbal and symbolic) that is shared by all participants. Some discipline specific words have very different meanings in different artforms.eg music teachers use of tension n rhythm is different from drama and a performance" (Sinclair, Jeanerret &O'Toole, 2009)