Brian Marshall

Kari Veblen

December 14, y

Annotated Bibliography
Ward, K. S. (2009). Musical soundscape: Teaching the concepts of R. Murray Schafer to
elementary students. Canadian Music Educator / Musicien Educateur Au Canada, 50(4), 40-42.
In Wards article, Musical soundscape: Teaching the concepts of R. Murray Schafer to
elementary students, he takes a look into the life of Murray Schaffer and his impact in music
education. Murray in this article a had three principles listed out, the first being, Try to discover
whatever creative potential children may have for making music of their own. (Schafer, p. 243).
Schaffer continues to find traditional methods and supplement them with new ones. The first
principle I can relate to because its one of the best ways to show creativity through music. I
remember the first tame I made my first song I was six and it sucked, but the point is that it was
my song that I made and it took my own imagination and creativity. I am always interested in
bringing the compositions into the school systems because allow large amounts of creativity. The
second principal was to introduce students of all ages to the sounds of the environment; to treat
the world soundscape as a musical composition of which man is the principal composer, and to
make critical judgments which would lead to its improvement (Schafer, p. 243). Schaffer is a
huge fan of active listening and ear tuning. The world is your oyster, meaning that everything
that you can put your hands on can be a tool for creating music. This allows kids to bring
different outlooks to what ever they do musically. For example compositions like 4:33 where
there are no traditional musical instruments and the whole piece is up to interpretation is prime
example of using the world as your soundscape. The 3rd principals was To discover a nexus or

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

gathering-place where all the arts may meet and develop together harmoniously, (Schafer, p.
243). In high school I went to an arts school that consisted of all four major arts: Dance, Music,
Drama and Art. These programs would come together and work harmoniously on stuff together.
For example, during the musical, the art program would design and create the set, the music
would play music (the pit band), drama would do some acting and dance numbers could be done
by people in dance program. Murrays Schaffers ideas inspire and interest me idea and in my
opinion should be implemented in more schools today,

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY