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"Back To Basics"
Music Manifesto champion Marc Jaffrey says we need to go "back to basics" when it comes to music education. Are we analysing too much, and making music too little?
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If we are to take the 5 Key Aims seriously then we need to come up with curricula that addresses them. This must be based in a practical framework. I have tried my hand at this, and my course works well for my students at KS 3 level. You can download it/ check it out/ read about how it relates specifically to the music manifesto at www.musiceducationworld.com I would welcome your opinions. Michael
I am interested to know when teaching basic musicianship skills, either in a group or to an individual, how many of you use Kodaly or Dalcrose methods. I'm thinking not only for school teaching or singing, but for individual instrumental lessons. I have found over the last 15 years of using these methods Kids of all ages develop basic musicianship skills quickly and in a way that makes great sense to them. It seems to me to be the ideal way of instilling a good sense of pitch and rhythm and helps Kids with other elements of music such as improvisation and reading notation. Our motto at Exeter Young Strings is "aiming for a greater understanding and enjoyment of music". I hope I am correct in thinking these methods are still gaining in popularity. My ideal would be for all music teachers to be trained in Kodaly and Dalcrose methods.
Kirsty - I have just submitted a new topic dated 25/01/08 titled 'Music - An Experience or a Subject'? Wrote about Kodaly and Dalcroze methods there as providing a necessary progression of study. I went through 4 years of teacher training and didn't encounter either of these methods - not right!!! I firmly believe that music will continue to be too daunting or confusing to teach unless these methods become part of a teacher's training. My advise - google these names now and enrol on some courses as soon as you can.
Did Ed Balls really say 'play an instrument OR sing..? No, actually, it was just an inaccurate report. Singing is essential for musical learning, and we have to get ALL children singing. As a direct result of Music Manifesto I have been teaching Wider Opps. Singing for KS2 this term. It is a marvellous experience.The school is now going into Christmas mode, and I will be back in January. A performance was not possible, so I recorded them today, and will produce a CD that can be played in assembly, and maybe used on the school's coming website. I've used mainly traditional songs, and a class with a large proportion of slow readers learnt far better by ear, and produced some passable harmony singing in Swing Low, and Drunken Sailor. Y6 did Siya Hamba. But the surprise favourite has been the Soul Cake song, which I have in the 1893 Lucy Broadwood book English County Songs. It's for All Souls' Day, 2nd November; but there's lots of history to be found in so many folk songs.
Some of us never moved away from basics! I have taught now for over 40 years, dreading retirement. We need to promote singing as a health issue as well as a social one. We also need to promote traditional music from all over the world, as well as from our own country.
I help run vocal jazz workshops here in Scotland. If teachers in general are not being given the skills to teach improvisation then how is this going to be included in the national campaign and is improvisation going to be something that's encouraged? From our experience, primary school children are the most open when it comes to improvising and it's the teachers who tend to resist. How can we change this attitude.
I teach part time music in schools. I think that the way it is taught in most schools at the moment is useless.
How can you teach 30 students music at the say time? It just ends up in chaos. Students have no respect fot their equipment and then are not able to achieve something that could be taught in 10 mins in a one-to-one or small group setting.
Group sizes should be made alot lot smaller. Even if it is the case that students have intense periods of music training in smaller time frames during their school life.
This way the lessons will give each student alot more attention and allowed them to try out a large range of things such as instruments and tech nology, which is not possible in large classes.
This way they can really see the results of what playing an instrument or learning how to read or bringing sounds together is.
This way students can start to see music as a good subject to learn about which provides an avenue of expression, not an excuse to have a dos and muck about, which is how it is seen in most cases in secondary schools.
In my opinon, a massive reform is needed and how music lessons ( especially at KS3) is taught in schools.
We are no longer back to basics we need to move with the times and find a new way of teaching music in schools so that it inspires students. From my experience at Year 8,9 10,11 most students are not interested in singing songs and hymns.
Its like trying to get blood of a stone.
We at Big About Music have sympathy with anyone struggling to engage young people in activities in which they have no interest. However we have had our successes too. This is what one of our Music Leaders says:
"To encourage teens to sing, finding music that is immediately engaging is a huge part of the battle.
Using songs that they already know; pop, rock, chart music which is easily accessible or finding music which is specifically written for this age group (from the Youth Music Singbook for instance).
Young people are more likely to join in with warm ups that are fun and funky than with traditional scales. Getting them to move, clap a beat and do call and response vocal lines in gospel, hip hop styles can be a quick way in – getting them to take the lead on some of the warm ups shows them the importance of them and why we are doing them. Using silly words or made up words to get the mouth moving gets them laughing but more willing to join in, especially when they get to choose the words (with in reason!!!!).
Finding ways to get those less willing to sing to join in by having rap parts, dancing or adding instrumentation that they can lead – anything from claves to guitars.
Try giving the young people something to aim for, maybe a performance or recording of their hard work. If they are having a performance they can come up with a name for the class and the show, start on producing posters etc. If they are aiming for a recording they can come with a name for the CD and they can contribute to the art work etc.
By making the singing part of a project and calling it that project name rather than “class 2 singing” makes it more exciting and engaging."
Lisa may make it sound easy, but that masks a lot of planning, thought, experimentation, and importantly a "can do" approach to the challenge.
Dave Howard
Big About Music
http://www.bigaboutmusic.org
All that Howard Goodall says in his update is positive and exciting.
I am particularly relieved by plans to use as broad a range of songs as possible. The thought conjured by the news reports of children whose only experience of songs is current pop being expected to choose 30 definitive songs was not encouraging...
I am a junior supply teacher using traditional songs in class when I have the opportunity. I am also involved in folk music, and would like to draw attention to a newish song which has already received some recognition in that it was a finalist in the EFDSS Young Songwriter Competition, the finals of which were held at Cheltenham Folk Festival in February.
Anna Tabbush was not the eventual winner, but her song, ‘Last Springtime,’ is beautifully constructed and inspired by the young men going to war in Iraq, and, in the best tradition of folk song, lamenting the separation war brings.
It is probably more suited to older children, and I believe there are many folk songs that could be used to enthuse KS3 pupils. Mel says getting Y8,9 10 to sing is like trying to get blood out of a stone, but I know it is possible.
Yes, the way class music is taught at KS3 has not yet (even 15 years after I covered it for a term) in many places, worked out how to accommodate the mix of children who learn a variety of instruments and those who have no musical knowledge at all, despite the requirements of the national curriculum for KS2 music.
This is where singing can give children a grounding in musical concepts and language, and take away the mystique associated with reading music. Learning tunes by ear is important too.
Being able to sing back a shanty call is valid music making. And there are so many ideas in folk song: protest, history, struggle....people!
It now believed that man was singing long before he developed the ability to speak. The ability to sing is therefore an innate ability that we all posess. Perhaps getting back to basics should therefore be about changing our musical culture - encouraging parents and carers to have fun singing songs and nursery rhymes(unaccompanied) with their children, thus making music a joyful and part of every normal day.
Agreed! I studied music for ten years, worked through the grades and the theory, and although I could do it, it didn't inspire me. Dropped out of active music-making for 15 years, then got inspired for the first time by African rhythm, which is taught aurally. I've been working with it for the last twelve years, and now teach it in a wide range of settings.
My point is that while David's way is great for some, for others it just doesn't inspire - the creative approach he's talking about is essential for some of us, not for others, but shouldn't be diemissed. I'm regularly introduced to a class by a teacher who will mutter warnings not to worry about certain students who don't 'get' music - and most of the time, they're the ones who respond most effectively to the aural teaching style I use. Not a semi-quaver in sight!
There's no quick answer, but all too often I hear music services and music theoriest poo-pooing a less formal approach. How many gifted students are they missing along the way? How many of their students will - like me - eventually drop away through the stifling grade system?
The problem with a 'creativity' based syllabus is that study of the 'Body of Knowledge' which is music education is downgraded. Schools do not start by delivering 'Creative French' because there are basics which are needed before one can create within the language. As a professional player and composer, I know what basic input was necessary to get me to this level. "Music is compulsory..KS3",yet "only 8% choose to take Music GCSE". Could this possibly be because by Year 10 pupils still don't know enough about the basics to have confidence in the integrity of the subject? As a teacher of both youngsters and adults, I have found no resistance to learning the basics; quite the reverse! The lessons seem to focus the students' efforts far more than frustrating attempts to 'compose' to order in a less than conducive environment.
This 'body of knowledge' can be taught in various ways responding to the different ways people learn ie visual , aural, practical etc. In the summer I was singing 'Oh How lovely is the eve' with a tennis ball in my hand and bouncing it for every 3rd interval and throwing it up for every 4th interval. Had been taught solfa lanaguage first and carried out various activities to get to this point. It was practical, engaging, challenging, tremendous fun to be doing it with a whole group of people and not a whiteboard or worksheet in sight! I would say this was teaching music theory in a creative way. I was told that this activity works really well with teenage boys but I bet if I went into a senior school to witness a music theory lesson I would find all the kids sitting down. This I would say is un-creative and uninspiring teaching.
I'd love to hear less about teaching and education, more about joy, connection and having fun making music together.
Live music making is so important: The value of getting together to jam can't be underestimated. I'd like to hear about families singing round the piano. I encourage musical improvisations in my house, as well as my music teaching business at any chance.
Here at NOEL we have, for the last 10 years, been advocating music in primary schools to everyone in the West Yorkshire region, whatever their ability. However this means educating the teachers as well as the pupils. We have through a series of workshops been able to help give the confidence to teachers to deliver music by utilising the Kodaly concept (an international language of music) but the key to "going back to basics" is, as with everything, funding to deilver it! There have been many reports commissioned and all have come up with the same conclusion, hopefully this time we can work together to put something into action! Lets please ensure that this report does not end up going nowhere.
Marc is absolutely correct. We do need to go back to basics - back to making music as this is what it is all about!
As a person who has previously worked in the music industry and then on the web for 5 years ( I produced Radio 1's OneMusic *learning* website for the last couple of those years), I have noticed a cultural shift in recent months. Once all kids wanted musically was to be be signed to a major record company (i.e. make money and be famous). Now I get the impression that kids just want to satisfy their desire to create. Even though, if you ask them, kids still say they *want to be famous*, in fact they want to collaborate in bands or as music producers and then share their music (and videos) on file sharing community sites like MySpace and YouTube. Am I right in thinking that music making and creativity in general is becoming something that kids just *do*. I would love to get teachers' impressions on this and whether they have noticed an increased desire to make music amonsgt students.
Back to basics would be fantastic. Unfortunately the examining bodies are thwarted by goverment intervention when any "radical" ideas about music course being about playing music are suggested. Instead the emphasis has been shifted to socio-polictical analysis and academic preparation.
Further to this, I would note an article in the Wall Street journal - "A new study shows where orchestras err in reaching out to new audiences". It suggests that possibly the best source of concert-goers is those who have some experience of playing an instrument or singing. Read the full article here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110009208
I couldn't agree more. Looking at the new National Strategy materials I'm inspired by what seems to be a return to what's most important... making music!