Activity 1 – Teaching Music in the Elementary Grades

Directions: Share insights on the following. Your answer will be rated using the following criteria:

Substance and relevance of ideas - 50%

Organization of thoughts - 25%
Grammar and structure - 25%
Total - 100%

1. Music is a social activity.

2. Music has an impact to the economy.

3. Music is a key to understanding other people.

4. Music can be difficult to explain. Do you agree or disagree in it? Support your argument.

5. Why is music important to teaching?

Prepared by:

ANNALYN JAWILI-DECENA, PhD

Associate Professor
Faculty, SED
Decena, Matthew Dave J.
BEED-3

1. Music is a social activity.

I believe that music is the most profound of all the arts because of its ability to convey the
deepest thoughts of life. Music seems to be omnipresent in every culture and aspect of human
experience, inspiring most of us to even claim that music “is the most significant thing we ever
made”. From rituals and other worshipping activities, to lullabies, concerts and even national
anthem etc., it is incredibly evident that music is everywhere.

Music is a social activity due to its communicative power and functionality as an agent of
social bonding and affiliation. Listening to music can be perceived as a socializing activity in the
sense that it may train the listener’s self in social attuning and empathic relationships. Moreover,
music may also serve as a good conversation starter. Everyone loves music and talking about
your favorite song with another music-lover person will yield to a good social interaction.
Additionally, when a concert occurs, people unite in one area to watch the show. This allows
citizens to feel close to one another, and safer knowing there are a lots of people around them
who share the same values as they do. Furthermore, attending to concerts of your favorite
musician, singer or band and meeting thousands or even millions of people with the same taste of
music is what makes music a social activity that forms strong social connection in spite of
cultural and linguistic differences.

2. Music has an impact to the economy.

It can’t be denied that music has a striking impact on the economy. Since the music industry
is continuously expanding by the day, the amount of singers grows rapidly from every country
across the globe. Believe it or not, this affects the economy in many ways. Music industry fuels
job creation by giving job opportunities to people, whether wanting to be a music producer or a
musician, promotes tourism development, artistic growth and strengthens the city or the
country’s brand.
 Over many generations, the music industry has created some interesting types of music and
genres. You may be thinking how a whole industry can relate to economics, but they have a lot
more in common than you think! Economics is the production, and consumption of goods and
services. The music industry provides production type of music; these are the ones we are able to
hear on the radio or on our smart phone devices. The music industry provided us with goods (the
good quality of music), and services (concerts). This is how they relate to one another and may
not be different at all. We all have a favorite song, it’s good for something. Additionally, a strong
music community attracts highly skilled young workers in all sectors from whom quality of life
is priority. This in turn attracts business investment.

3. Music is a key to understanding other people.

I strongly believe that music is the “language of soul” which can reveal the nature of
feelings with a detail and truth that language cannot express. Through this we are able to
understand other people on how they feel about something.

. Music has always been considered as a crucial part of human experience and its
prevalence, even from the earliest stages of life, has been associated with its connection to
emotions. For example, singing is more effective than speech at holding an infant’s attention
and caregivers across cultures intuitively capitalize on this phenomenon by speaking to
infants in a very music-like manner, with exaggerated pitch contours and slow, rhythmic
rates. Moreover, caregivers appear to use musical cues to communicate with infants because
they express emotions in an effective way. Not only in infancy, but also during adulthood the
emotional expressiveness of music and its role in regulating affective states have been
reported as the main reasons for music listening. Based from my observation, people tend to
listen to music because of the memories attached in it. Sometimes, the music they listen to
tells about how they feel that their mouth can’t even express.

4. Music can be difficult to explain. Do you agree or disagree in it? Support your argument.
 In my viewpoint, music is one of the most complex and difficult to study of all cultural phenomena

but it’s not that difficult to explain after all. The people’s love for music may serve as a motivation to

understand music even harder. Even from our childhood we were exposed to various kinds of music and

we loved listening to it even without understanding its context.

5. Why is music important to teaching?

Music is an extremely important subject for all children to learn and can lead to better brain
development, increases in human connection, and even stress relief.

Music education is crucial because it will give students a way to connect with other people.
Children are naturally very social, and it’s important to encourage them to build relationships by
providing them experiences to share with each other. Creating a school band or small ensemble,
or encouraging participation in a chorus will allow children to work together towards a final
product. Furthermore, music will also teach children to develop time management skills and
discipline. If students are expected to learn their instruments and practice outside of school, then
they will develop the ability to create a practice schedule. They will be able to balance every
other activity they have going on in their lives. Learning discipline and time management from a
young age will have countless benefits on a child’s future. For example, if a child develops
discipline in elementary school, they will be much more able to balance the workload they’ll
receive in high school and excel in their classes.

Additionally, music is an excellent way to relieve stress. This is significant for students
who may feel overwhelmed by schoolwork and try to balance extracurricular activities. Studies
have found that music can reduce burnout and improve mood states. This is why music is
important to teaching.