Listening to music is not the same as hearing it. Hearing it can be considered a passive process, while listening is a process involving attention and cognition (Bauer, 2014). Listening is one of the most important abilities for a musician (Bauer, 2014). Listening, however, is culture dependent, and therefore proper listening depends on the values of each culture. Preference is related to experience with a style of music and the ability to listen to it properly (Bauer, 2014). In our modern society, some desirable outcomes for any student are the ability and openness to listen to diverse musics, the ability to provide verbal or nonverbal reaction to the expressive qualities of music, the use of appropriate vocabulary according to the music style, relate music to another discipline, and describe why music is important personally.
Some tools used to promote an adequate music listening are call charts and listening maps. I decided to focus on listening maps, which are graphical tools to follow some determined aspects of a piece, in the same fashion of a score, but not necessarily involving music notation. Charts also may involve text, drawings, and more.
Internet access as we know it today has
broadened the possible ways in which we can use technology to facilitate music
learning and, specifically, response to music. .
Perhaps one of the greatest resources available today is
Youtube.com.One of the great things about youtube is that it
afford us to integrate visual elements with the sound element of music, and
have access to a variety of mixed arts works. This can be useful in a variety
of ways, but I will just show here two cases from Western Art Music.
The
video above is the video made by Donald Craig of the visual score developed
by Rainer Wehinger to accompany Gyorgy Ligeti's Artikulation. Since the
video follow the picture as the music happens, it can be used as a listening
map, which can help the student to engage in attentive listening.
The
following video is an example of a visual interpretation of Mozart's music
according to the harmonic functions.
Another interesting web tool is Zaption.com. Through Zaption, one can manipulate a video to include captions, questions, pictures, and more, to create a sort of tour through a video (See here my Zaption tour example). In the case of music education, we can make comments on videos with music pieces, scores, listening maps and more. Students could also create their own Zaption projects to show to the rest of the class, and the teacher can organize a cycle of Zaption tours. The important thing, in the case of culturally relevant music education, is to be flexible and honest: We have to assume the limitations of our perspectives and we have to be open to our student’s interests and opinions.
Music performance is an important element of music in our
culture (Western culture). Since we have developed our music around a specialized
segment of society, quality standards are technically and artistically high,
and a high degree of proficiency is required within this specialized world in
order to be successful. In a democratic western society, our goal as music
educators, besides providing each student with the possibility of express
musically, must be to also provide our students with the necessary skills to be
successful if they were to decide to become professional musicians or to follow
any profession related to music and music industry.
In the field of music performance, these skills are highly
technical, and require constant practice. The development of psychomotor skills
is a process that may imply time and effort, especially considering the three stages
of this process: cognitive, associative, and automatic stages (Psychomotor
Learning, 2010, as cited in Bauer, 2014). The development of self-efficacy and
intrinsic motivation are key to a consistent development a set of good
practices necessary for success (Bauer, 2014).
Luckily, technology can be our ally, since it offers more
affordances than ever as a tool to practice with. Desktop and web based metronomes
and tuners can help to optimize a practice session. Access to video and audio
recordings can be used as a tool for modeling, which is crucial for the
development of standard technical skills (Bauer, 2014). Audio tracks, MIDI
files, MIDI capable software, notation software, and special software designed
to generate accompaniments can be used either to enhance the practical of
technical exercises or to simulate the presence of a live accompanist, which
can prove to be essential for students and schools without enough resources to
have an accompanist.
On the stage performance aspect, technology can also provide
new possibilities. It is important to understand that the traditional ensemble
setting is not all encompassing, and that an estimated 80% of students do not
participate in them or any other music class in high school (Bauer, 2014). To
remain focused exclusively in the remaining 20% is an undemocratic practice. It
would be naive to assume that the 80% of students that do not participate in
school music have interest in music what so ever. Music is there and students
are part of it, and the 80%-20% is not reflect of music participation or music
interest, but of a systemic failure to become relevant in the musical life of
the majority. The creation of new ensembles accord to the musical practice of
our students is imperative. Technology might provide the means to implement
these new ensembles and to encourage self-efficacy in their participants.
The creation of digital ensembles might offer new aesthetic
possibilities that can be of interest to our students. This type of ensembles
may offer students the chance to perform without having the need of a high
proficiency level in a traditional instrument (Bauer, 2014). Also, since the
standards of quality of such ensembles is not yet defined, technical proficiency
might not be the main focus.
One constraint to this technological approach can certainly
be the access to adequate software and hardware. Software might be expensive
and, if used with low quality hardware, it may behave in a faulty way. The purchase
of powerful computers and audio devices might prove out of the possibilities of
many schools. The implementation of a digital ensemble might be unpractical if
there is no access to adequate amplification. In order to become a democratic
community, music educators should develop networks to promote the use of the
best software possible at the lowest cost. Programs with plenty economic
resources will not have issues in finding appropriated software and hardware.
VS
In contrast, teachers from schools in which the budget is limited can find the
implementation of the above discussed technological elements very frustrating.
One example of a counter measure is the creation of a database of free
software, and discussion forums on cheap and creative hardware solutions.
We must never forget that education is a right for
everybody, and that it is our task to make education as democratic as possible.
Last week's entry was more focused on improvisation. Today's post should be focused on composition and the affordances of technology to develop composition skills.
Kaschub and Smith (2009, as cited in Bauer, 2014) state that all children should be able to study composition, since:
it challenges children to consider their understanding of the world in new ways;
it allows children to exercise their generative potential in music;
it develops a way of knowing that complements understanding gained through other direct experiences of music;
and it is a process that allows the child to grow, discover, and create himself or herself through artistic and meaningful engagement with sound.
It could be easy, however, to assume uncritically that all those benefits can only be achieved through music composition in a Western art aesthetics. Form, for example, is a constraint that may allow our students to compose successful pieces under our Western-trained ear, but if we are truly attempting to "challenge children to consider their understanding of the world" we must open our arms to diverse aesthetics, and form is one of the very cultural-specific elements of music, as it is tonal composition and perfect temperament.
The following is an example of music from India, which doubtless has a structure, but which challenges some of our Western aesthetic values such as the need for contrast or development, and the tempered tuning.
According to Shepherd (1977), tonality was “not generated simply from within musical forms, but was constructed and created as part of a continually developing social process.” He argues that the definitive tendency of the harmonic progressions to “progress” towards the “key note,” among other characteristics of music notation and textural developments of the period, are reflexive of and only conceivable under the perspective of the industrialized society and its notion of progress as a spacial-temporal movement towards a focal point. This perception is linked to the growing awareness of industrial man of his capacity to manipulate the environment in a specific period of time, namely his life span. In this sense, he explains, the perception of musical progress as conceived in tonality is hardly understandable from the perspective of medieval man who lived more in “a revelationary time.” It is necessary, in the light of what is discussed above, that we become aware on how the values we try to foster in our students might serve the purpose of hegemonic ideological interests.
Going back to the benefits of developing composition skills, and to entering the realm of affordances of technology within composition, Bauer (2014) states that music composition-oriented software can benefit the development of an aural vocabulary and facilitate the critique process, especially since it makes easier to obtain immediate feedback through playback capabilities. At the same time, the uncritical use of notation software can have detrimental effects on the development of audiation.
One important distinction to be made is that of composition and music literacy. The ability to create music is related directly to music literacy in terms of managing a language, but the use of language does not necessarily implies the acquisition of notation literacy. According to Bauer (2014), there are two approaches to composition regarding the need of notation. One approach is that of notation as being a prerequisite for composing. The other suggests that notation will come as needed to have a record of aspects of composition that want to be preserved and for which memory would not suffice. It is this last approach that I advocate, and the use of technology opens the door to a practice that can easily lead towards the development of some type of notation. The use of Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software allows us to manipulate sound via MIDI and digital audio.
The following link (click on the picture) will take you to an online software with both, MIDI and digital audio capabilities
and here you can see my little composition using this software
In this example I used MIDI and digital audio. MIDI is not an audio format, but it is a protocol which is used to convey information that can be interpreted by MIDI capable devices and software. It can be used to control a great range of parameters using a small amount of data processing. The quality of a MIDI rendering varies depending on the way MIDI data is being used. Generally, today's computers have an audio card that is MIDI capable and can reproduce MIDI using little data processing, but the quality is not very good. There are a number of software and hardware that can render MIDI using more developed digital instruments such as VST, which quality is better, but they use more data processing.
In contrast, digital audio is a digital image of an audio signal. It is used when recording acoustic or electric instruments or your voice, and it can be thought as an extension of the process undertaken by a transducer when transforming acoustic data into electric one. In the digitalization, the electric image of the acoustic signal is transformed into binary-coded data, which has to pass the inverse process to be rendered as audio signal. Sometimes MIDI can be use to control prerecorded audio signal in the form of samples.
The use of software as Soundtrap.com gives our students access to a wide variety of music possibilities which they can manipulate in several ways to create their own compositions. They will also have immediate feedback, and in a near to professional quality. By exploration, then, our students will be developing musical composition skills and potentially notation skills. They will also be developing skills that can be very useful in the current musical industry, as a field separated from traditional classic music.
Two musical activities of utmost importance for the development of creativity are composition and improvisation. They are somewhat similar processes, but they differ, according to Kratus (1996, as cited in Bauer, 2014) in that as opposed to improvisation, composition implies the revision of the material produced. In that sense, improvisation is more of a ephemeral experience in which the communicative process bares more importance than the final product. It would be more accurate to say, though, that their final product is different in nature, since the product in the composition process is a fairly fixed piece of music, and in improvising the product is reflected in the evolving ability to produce new improvisation.
Both composition and improvisation share some features, and there are pedagogical practices that can be applied in any case. First of all, they both are types of creative process, which Wallas (1926, as cited in Bauer, 2014) has four stages: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Secondly, and here we can see how some practices can be applied in both cases, Hallam (2008, as cited in Bauer, 2014) suggest that creativity can be facilitated by (a) developing aural skills, (b) imitating, (c) analyzing, and (d) engaging musically with more experienced people. Educators should be able to provide students with (a) creative opportunities, (b) necessary resources, (c) appropriated stimulation, and (d) sufficient time ( Hallam, 2008, as cited in Bauer, 2014). One way of facilitating the process is to deliberately putting constraints which give the process a framework.
The following video shows a basic exercise of improvisation which is limited to just a few elements
This exercise constitute part of the exploration level or level 1, a pre-improvisatory level according to a seven-level model for learning to improvise, described by Kratos (1996, as cited in Bauer). Exploration is also important for the composition process, which constitutes part of the preparation stage of the creative process discussed above (Wallace 1926, as cited in Bauer 2014), and helps to develop aural skills, the first facilitator described by Hallam (2008, as cited in Bauer 2014).
Technology (meaning digital technology) can be of great use to foster creativity in music. Some affordances of current technology are
Developing aural skills
A variety of software might be useful to this purpose. Notation software allows one to associate notation to sound, providing the means to explore harmonies, melodic gestures, textures and so forth. The development of MIDI (see previous entry on Pixel Tune) protocol have resulted in an increase and diversification of software, from MIDI sequencers, to mixed media software as Pixel Tune (see previous entry).
Developing an understanding of a particular style
Internet provide us with access to many resources in various formats, such as videos, audio recordings, music scores, even books and articles, which allows us to explore a broad variety of styles with practically no effort and almost at any instant.
Understanding musical structures
A variety of software and web sites are designed to develop an understanding in such matters. The following website contains links to many such apps.
Software such as Band-in-a-box are designed to provide a somewhat interactive environment that can be used to practice . Here a video on the specific software
Live ensemble participation
Social media tools, which increasingly become more capable to provide multimedia communication, either previously recorded or in real time, is being used to produce virtual ensembles. The following video is a clear example of such a use of technology
The use of such technological resources, however, also has its limitations, and we cannot afford not have a critical perspective regarding its uses. According to Bauer (2014), the use of notation software may have a negative impact on the development of audiation (the ability to imagine musical sound, see http://giml.org/mlt/audiation/). Availability of notation software can also lead individuals to skip stages in the composition process, such as sketching (Bauer, 2014), therefore committing to the development of the musical idea too early, which might result in a more random decision making and less exploration of melodic and harmonic possibilities.
Noteflight is an online score editor similar to MuseScore, Finale, or Sibelius. It is fairly easy to use and has all the necessary options to write and edit a relatively simple score, I am not sure that it would be suitable to write or edit a large score. The navigation could be better. As an free editor, I prefer MuseScore. However, it is a tool with educational potential, especially to smaller children since it does not require to install any files on your own computer.
Plus, you can also download the app for mobile devices!!!!
