This page describes National Standards for music education, types of listening, singing voice development, and musical form.
Music
- Music has syntax, not grammar.
- 4 "vocabularies" of music: listening, performing, reading, and writing.
- Music is NOT universal.
K-12 National Standards of Music Education:
- Singing, along and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
- Performing on instruments, along and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
- Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
- Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
- Reading and notating music.
- Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
- Evaluating music and music performances.
- Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
- Understanding music in relation to history and culture.
Pre-Kindergarten National Standards:
- Singing and playing instruments.
- Creating music.
- Responding to music.
- Understanding music
What does the curriculum tell us?
- Skills and knowledge as objectives (not just activities)
- Diverse genres and styles of music (not just classical)
- Creative skills (not just recreating music)
- Problem-solving and higher-order skills (not just technique)
- Interdisciplinary relationships
- Technology can support music learning
- Assessment (not just participation, but assessing objectives
Why is listening important?
- Absorb the music, build music vocabularies
- Acculturate to music of culture (cultural transmission)
- Experience things a vocal model can't provide: harmony, instrumental timbres, music from other cultures, and music you can't produce vocally
- Critical listening
- Good listening selections: not necessarily classical, not necessarily "kids music", instrumental music, vocal music - foreign language, diverse styles, dynamics - loud OR soft, volume - not too loud, tempo - fast OR slow, and length for focused listening - 60 seconds to 3 minutes
Types of Listening:
- Passive Listening: important for absorbing musical sounds; unconscious?
- Active Listening: listening with a purpose or focus; teaching: draw out specific elements, qualities, movement
Why Movement?
- Research shows a connection between movement instruction and rhythm achievement
- Internalization of what you hear
- Movement elements: (created by Rudolph van Laban) flow, weight, space and time
- Safe place: model everything first - if you won't do it, they won't do it.
Early Childhood Music:
3 stages of preparatory audiation:
- Acculturation (birth to 2-4): absorb, random response, purposeful response
- Imitation (2-4 to 3-5): shedding the egocentricity, breaking the code
- Assimilation (3-5 to 4-6): introspection, coordination
- Unstructured Informal Guidance: songs without words, use of patterns, musical play, "interactive response chain", responses = looking, movement, vocal
- Structured Informal Guidance
- Formal Instruction
Singing Voice Development:
- Infancy:
- 3-4 months: imitate "motherese"
- 4-6 months: vocal play
- by 12 months: includes language of culture
- Toddlers and Preschoolers:
- 3 years: "potpourri" songs (combines cultural elements with created elements)
- overall, limited pitch range, shorter fragments of songs (phrases)
- 4-5 years: ability to express emotions through song
- School-aged Children:
- age, gender, task (whole song vs. phrases), contextual factors
- Older Childhood:
- age of 11, only 4% struggled
- more boys than girls (cultural)
- Puberty and Adolescence:
- vocal track lengths, vocal cords thicker
- 12-14 years old
- process can last from months to years
- important to sing through changes
Singing Voice Development Measure (Joanne Rutkowski)
- "Pre-singer" - does not sing, but chants text
- "Speaking Range Singer" - shows some sensitivity to pitch, but stays in speaking voice range
- "Limited Range Singer" - consistent use of initial singing range (D to A)
- "Inconsistent Singer" - sometimes use of initial singing range, sometimes uses extended range (D-D')
- "Singer" - consistent use of singing voice in extended range (above Bb)
Choosing Appropriate Songs:
- Correct Range
- 2nd through 4th: C to D'
- 5th through 6th: B to E'
- Preferably without words OR age-appropriate words
- Variety of tonalities and meters
- Variety of styles
Musical Form:
- Parts of a song are sections and phrases.
- Types of forms: AB, ABA', AABA', rondo, theme and variations, verse/chorus form.
Tonality:
- Scale: notes that can be used
- Chord: select notes from the scale played together
- ***There are 7 tonalities, but only 2 are used regularly in our culture (Major and Minor)
- Pitches that sound together in a pleasing way
- Melody = horizontal, Harmony = vertical
- Chords: combinations of 2-4 pitches
TEACHING HARMONY:
- Vocally before instrumentally = better audiation!
- Rounds/Canons: example: Row, Row, Row, Your Boay
- Partner songs: example: One Bottle of Pop/Don't Throw Your Trash/Fish and Chips
- Root Melodies: 1/2 sing roots of chords, 1/2 sing melody
- Singing 2 parts, 3 parts, 4 parts