Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy by Lucy Green

     Lucy Green's pedagogical approach brings the informal learning practices of popular musicians into the formal environment of the school classroom.  I will attempt to summarize Green's book for those music educators that are looking for a new pedagogy for upper elementary, middle and high school students. Also, I must admit that after reading Green's book and the Musical Futures Resource Pack, I would be excited to try this pedagogy myself.

This project was organized on 7 stages (pg. 193-194):
Each stage lasts from 3-6 lessons of around one hour, once a week, in a normal curriculm time.

• Stage 1. Students bring in thier own choice of music, listen to it in small friendship groups and choose one song to play. They select instruments and copy the song by ear, directing thier own learning.
• Stage 2.  Students are given a recording of a funk track with 15 of its riffs played seperately and in combination. They listen, discuss and try to play the riffs through aural learning. They can also use worksheets with the note names but not pitch contour or rhythm. As a group they create their own version of the song.
• Stage 3. Repeat stage 1 with an attempt to build on the skills acquired during 1 and 2.
• Stage 4. Students compose, rehearse and perform their own music. directing their own learning in frienship groups.
• Stage 5. Students are introduced to a musical model of songwriting by a band of peer musicians or community musicians. They then continue to work on their own music, directing their own learning in friendship groups.
• Stage 6. Students are provided with recordings of 5 pieces of classical music drawn from TV advertisements. In friendship groups, they listen, discuss, select, copy, arrange, rehearse and perform the music as an ensemble.
• Stage 7. Students are given recordings of 5 pieces of classical music which is mostly unfamiliar. They also have recordings of individual melody and bass lines of the pieces, some of which are simplified. There are no worksheets. In frienship groups, they listen, discuss, select, copr, arrange, rehearse and perform the music as an ensemble.

Some of the results of using this appraoch instead of the formal learning approach were:

• The students were unusually highly motivated, and applied themselves to the task with more committment than normal.
• The students found the recording and peer directed learning less threatening to work with than the teacher.
• The students thought of this as play and not work, it was enjoyable.
• Instumental skills, singing skills, ensemble skills, and musicianship qualities were above normal.
• Student listening deepened and improved as the task went on and they were engaged in 'distracted' and 'purposive' listening.
• There was a rise in general musical appreciation.
• Autonomy was important to the students, they valued working things out for themselves. This enhanced their sense of personal responsibility and awareness of how to improve their own learning.  This led to self-confindence and satisfaction.
• Co-operation skills were acquired and refined, and the emergence of leadership qualities were higher.
• Students acquired knowledge of technical terms by using them.

     One teacher commented after using this approach "Using infromal learning practices in the classroom has generally changed my approach to teaching for the better"(pg. 181) and the other 15 teachers in the project either strongly agreed or agreed. Not only did the teachers think that this was a successful program, the students were staying after school and going to class at odd times just to work on thier music! Teaching materials can be downloaded from:  <www.musicalfutures/PractitionersResources.html>

    
     My concerns as predicted by others in the study, are lack of practice space, selling the idea to supervisors and money or resources for the instruments (which include drum kits, guitars, keyboards, microphones, amps and anything else that would be used in the popular music genre). I think music teachers always have to fight or jump through hoops to get the resources that they need or want. Unfortunately, I see this as another hurdle. I am probably jaded, however, from my 13 years of teaching experience of fighting to get what I thought would improve my music program for the better. I know that those teachers that never strive for anything more that what they are doing right now or have at the moment feel no stress because they have no hurdles. Therefore, I feel good that I was going above and beyond and my music program always reflected my efforts.  So, with that in mind, I will never let the challenges of trying something new with all of its red tape keep me from doing what I think will imrove my teaching and student learning.  I know that if you have made it this far, in this particular blog, that you feel the same way. Reading about new classroom pedagogies is not something that many people do for fun.

Why Beauty Matters a BBC sponsored video by Roger Scruton

     Roger Scruton, a writer of over 30 books and several novels, philosopher, professor and composer hobbyist who has written 2 operas, was commissioned by the BBC television station to contribute to a television series on beauty. I can see why, apart from the fact that he is easy on the eyes, he is a captivating speaker with points on beauty, that really make us think about our impact on the world and that impact on us as individuals and human beings.
   In Scruton's eyes, between the years of 1750-1930, the arts aim was beauty. The feeling was that through our quest for beauty we understand our own spirituality and "shape the world as a home".  Beauty was central to our civilization for 2000 years and seen as "the revelation of God in the here and now".  Sacred and beautiful were two words on equal planes. Artists of the past valued art as a thing of beauty, a way to bring peace from chaos, ease our suffering and help us celebrate our joy. Thus, there was a need for skill, taste and creativity. Ornaments, such as in architecture, music and art were reminders that we needed more than just practical things.
     During the 20th c., art aimed to disturb, originality was valued and beauty stopped being important .  As a result, we are now self-centered and our language, music and manners are increasingly "raucus.... as though beauty and good taste have no real place in our lives". We are surrounded by ugliness, including the architecture.  "No longer does art raise us to a higher spiritual or morale plane". "the world is disturbing so art is too". Today, art displays randomness and is meant to shock us, showing that anything can be art. This makes it a joke.  It is considered a work of art if the artist thinks it so. "It helps people see the world in which we are living". We value only the utilitarian, things that are useful. If art is thought of as being useless, nobody cares what they listen to, look at or read. Beauty has become a side-effect not a focus. "Todays works of art aim to create a brand even if they have nothing to sell". Speaking of music on a related subject, Ann C. Clements writes, in her article; Escaping the Classical Canon ;  "...keep in mind that popular musics are often popular because someone has paid big bucks for it to be that way......They are deliberate attemps at profiteering....".  Todays thought if you create a brand, a gimmick, with the popular dilineated meanings, it will appeal to the masses despite its' quality and sell. Scruton believes that if you only consider utility the things that you build will soon be rendered useless".
     Scruton states, from www.rogerscruton.com, that "postmodern culture emphasizes ugliness, despondency and desecration which is a betrayal of a sacred calling".  Beauty is a real and universal value within our nature and is indispensable in shaping the human world. It is his philosophy that if we lose beauty we may lose the meaning of life. We need to look for standards of beauty that has a firm base in human nature and build them into our lives. Esentially, what he is saying here is to look for art, and in our case music, that celebrates us as human beings instead of things that may aggravate or have negative meanings to us.
     My thoughts about this subject in relations to music. Should we be concerned about our students choices of music? And, what do we do about peer pressure that affect students' willingness to stand up for what they feel is beautiful when the majority of their friends do not feel the same.  As it states in our text by Lucy Green: "If such pressure does affect pupils' willingness to express certain musical allegiances, then that is clearly a cause for concern amongst music educators".  What about negative music that, by Scruton's view, does not exhibit beauty or add anything positive to our lives. How do we as a culture change the programming on the radio to play beautiful music, and who is going to be the deciding body of what is deemed "beautiful".  I agree with Scruton on many levels; I do not see anything beautiful in a toilet seat or an unmade bed with condoms, tissues and alcohol strewn around, I do not care if it shows reality in our world today. I do not want or need to see or hear negative things that do not elevate me to a higher plane or celebrate me as a person. I do understand that art is representative of the world in which we are living, but whatever happened to "keeping your skeletons in the closet" instead of on display for all the world to see or hear. I think that an add campaign would be nice "Bring Back Beauty", an all-out assault on all things negative and oppressive....something that shines a spotlight on, and places beautiful things in high public regard. I see this in commercials and presidential campaign goals. After watching Scruton's video, I see that it is a matter of great importance to humanity and for the children of our future. I do not want my child to think that art or music is a joke, I want him to have many beautiful and positive experiences, not time wasted in modern art galleries looking at the depressing way that the world is portrayed today, or listening to music that has no merit just made for the masses with no substance or anything that we can see as beautiful. I, on the other hand, question this stand because I feer that the term 'beautiful' in music will be taken as tonal and melodic. I fear that composers will feel a tying of their hands, afraid that their unique compositional style will not appeal to anyone because of the emphasis on beauty, and their music may not be seen in that light. This is a lot to think about but an extremely interesting and controversial topic.

    

Before The Music Dies

    I would like to thank Dr. Turner, my professor for my class entitled Current Trends in Music Education, for exposing us to this video; Before the Music Dies by Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen, www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3758949145/.  It is an eye opening video, written in 2006, about music today. I will summarize this video and insert some relevant correlations to some of the topics discussed in class.
     The main concern of this video is that music is losing its' heart and quality to commerce. Money is what is driving the music industry.  Radio inundates us with repetition of the same music and "dulls the senses" as Joey Burns stated. This is because of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which changed the ownership limits of radio stations. Before this Act was passed, a company was only allowed to own 40 or so radio stations. Now, parent companies of giant chains can own as many as 1200 stations. It is music for the masses. The advertising dollar is driving radio time and they, the corporation radio managers, decide how to fit the music in between the commercials. Erykah Badu stated when speaking of the length of music "they will cut it if it is over 4 minutes long".  A playlist of songs is made from music that gives the listener instant gratification, because, if not, they will change the channel and that radio station will not bring in the revenue that it needs to stay in business.  The music does not have to be spectacular, just good enough so listeners will not change the channel.
     Record labels are also more interested in money than talent. They let go of extremely talented musicians, because record sales are not large enough, instead of giving people exposure to new music and time to "catch up" to new music and also time for the musician to develop and find their own 'voice'.
The artists are expected to create something specifically for its' sale ability not quality. Lucy Green would say that this is poor music, music rooted in society and allowed nothing but interfering delineations. Many extremely talented artists are giving up on their craft because their self-worth is destroyed, putting their heart and soul into an album that does not sell. Their music did not celebrate them as musicians.
    Making millions does not require talent as our authors demonstrated; they had a songwriter write a song that took just a few minutes with which a teenager could identify, chose a pretty girl to sing and made a video. The chosen girl had intonation problems, which were easily fixed by a technology based program called Auto-Tune, and the end result was amazing. It was definitely something that would sell today using very little, if any, talent. We are studying delineated meanings and this is a clear example of the importance of the clothes, make-up, essentially the persona presented to the public in which the audience, in this case teens, will identify. Branford Marsalis stated that "superficiality is in and depth of quality is out". Bonnie Raitt said that looks matter if you want to make a million.  Talent used to be the focus, those days are gone.
     There is hope for the future. It is harder to find good quality music with heart than it used to be, for the reasons stated above, but the internet is a good resource. Many independent artists and independent labels are embracing the internet in order to gain exposure. Artists are understanding that their music is a business and want to form musician run music labels in which they get behind music that they believe in.  Music that is played and created from the heart and has autonomy; not concerned with fame, fashion or to make a buck.