Kelly Rock - MUED371

Gordon Response

Much of Edwin Gordon’s music learning theory centers around the comparison of

learning music to learning a language. Children learn language by listening to those around them,

trying to make similar sounds, and then learning the rules about those sounds. However, in

comparison music is often taught backwards from this. Typically, beginning music is taught by

learning rules and constraints first, without really trying to emulate the sounds that they hear.

This is why I found audiation the most compelling topic when thinking about my approach to

beginning instrumental music.

Gordon explains in ​Quick and Easy Introductions​ that all capable musicians have some

ability to audiate. I would add that everyone has some ability to audiate and think about what

they hear and what they are going to hear. Similarly to how people are able to expect how

sentences being spoken are going to end, people of all abilities are able to pick up on some kind

of pattern in the music. I find the different stages and types of audiation to be a useful resource to

keep in the front of my mind as I begin thinking about how informal learning will play a role in

my future classroom. By having these ideas and steps, it will provide a great way to have goals

set while still leaning into student centered learning. Audiation is an essential tool for all

musicians to have, and it is something I would want all my students to leave my classroom with.

When thinking back to my own beginning instrumental education, I find a lot of

similarities and possibly more differences to Gordon’s writings. The main difference that I have

realized since coming to college is my ability to audiate. Audiation was not emphasized in my

beginning band class beyond singing parts of the music that we had already heard.

Discriminatory learning as described by Gordon was something I could see bits and pieces of in

my beginning class. While I think we missed out on the first three levels dealing with audiation
Kelly Rock - MUED371

(possibly the most important levels,) more emphasis was put on learning the symbols and what

those symbols mean.

From a student perspective, I think one of the cons could be that it could become really

frustrating. Obviously all students learn differently and at a different pace. Trying to understand

audiation could be almost impossible for some, while others will have no problem with it. This is

where I think inference learning could be tricky for students to grasp because they are dealing

with the unfamiliar. However, this disadvantage could quickly turn into an advantage with some

help from the teacher. With inference learning, students could have a much broader view of the

music that they are playing, and have a deeper understanding of how they learn. At the root of all

of this is the ability to audiate, and this ability aids students in going beyond just what is written

on the page, and allows them to be more independent in their music education. Similar to

informal learning, I think this enables the classroom to be more student centered and opens up so

many possibilities for the students.

One thing that personally worries me from a teacher’s perspective is my own ability to

audiate. As I have said before I recognize how important it truly is for students to be able to

audiate, so this type of learning is something I want to be able to do in my classroom. However,

the idea of auditation was something I was not really introduced to until college, and because

audiation is so key to music learning theory I worry this would inhibit my ability to teach with

this theory. An advantage to this theory from a teacher’s perspective, however, is that there are

more options for what to teach and how to teach it. Another big idea in music learning theory is

whole-part-whole. This is the idea of when students are able to recognize patterns as units of

meaning, rather than just notes. In going back to the language comparison, this is similar to

understanding sentences rather than just seeing the words in the sentence. By using this idea as a
Kelly Rock - MUED371

guide for music education, you open up a much wider range of things that are able to be taught.

This idea in music learning theory emphasizes listening to the whole thing to develop familiarity,

listening to parts of patterns that reveal underlying meaning and musical context, and then again

listening to the whole thing with a deeper understanding of the tune, while also being able to

comprehend unfamiliar tunes. This idea, and music learning theory as a whole, is so widely

accepted and well-studied that I feel like teachers are able to use some parts that best fit their

teaching philosophy, as well as their comfort levels with different topics.

Kelly Rock - MUED371

References

Gordon, E. E. (2012). ​Learning Sequences in Music: A Contemporary Music Learning Theory.

GIA Publications.

Gordon, E. E. (2013). ​Quick and Easy Introductions. ​GIA Publications.