Balance in Music Classes

After watching and reading about the less traditional way of learning music, it makes me understand where some of my students are coming from.

At the school I teach we have a large intake of students in year 5 and a large number of them come from schools that have had not music. These students are then merged with a class a of students who have had music as part of their learning each week as well as the opportunity to learn traditional instruments as part of a 4 year instrumental program.

Some of the new students latch on to the music and discover that they really love this opportunity while others find it very difficult.

I do use garageband with them and let them compose and explore their own style of music – setting very broad boundaries like looking at the form of music, limiting the number of chords that they can use.

I do get out classroom percussion instruments and ask them to create patterns individually and then with small groups.

I really like Lucy Green’s idea of getting them to copy a song that they like. I don’t have all the instruments that they would need to make the exact same sound but I think as a group we could come up with some ideas.

I watched some more clips about the Music Futures project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iscSFg0GKk

This was interesting to hear from the students perspective.

I enjoyed Richard Gill’s ironic comment that school is where you learn new things!! I think this has become a little lost for some students. Music is new for a number of them and just like it is for the teachers who don’t get enough hours to learn how to teach music, it is a little scary when you are suddenly expected to perform. It is always a good idea to start from s known place to move into unfamiliar territory.