An orientation to musical pedagogy

Didactics assignment

Newborns attend more to sounds that they have been exposed to repeatedly prior to birth. When
given a choice between two dissimilar sounds, newborns will innately attend to sounds played
for them in utero. As they get older, the parents have a big influence on the child’s musical
development. Children are surrounded by the musical sounds of their native culture. Through a
process called acculturation, children absorb not only the musical grammar and syntax of their
surroundings but also the cultural and social functions of music.

The process of learning musical language and skills parallels the development of spoken and
written language skills. For each skill, the first step is for the child to actively attend to an aural
stimulus in the environment. The sound stimulates the development of neural connections,
which the child experiences as a mental representation of the modeled sound.

Musical development in children occurs slowly as they create representations based on musical
models and through musical activities such as singing, listening, and moving. At first, their
understanding is procedural; they only know how to participate in musical activities. Only
gradually do they know about music and develop verbal and symbolic representations. Below
you will see how this simple model explains much about how children and adults acquire
musical understanding.

Infants use glissandi, and they attend to the melodic and rhythmic contours of their caregiver’s
intuitive use of motherese. Between about three and four years of age, children can repeat song
fragments and combine components into something resembling a melody yet completely
distinct from speaking. At six or seven, children can usually sing an octave.

To infants, the perception of rhythm precedes the perception of melody. They have heard their
mothers heartbeat, and hear the difference between regular and irregular heartbeat.

Learning to use music notation for music performance is analogous to learning to use written
language, the most significant point being that children typically have acquired a working
vocabulary of nearly five thousand words prior to their initial efforts at reading. Written text only
becomes decipherable and meaningful to children when it is paired with sounds and meanings
they already understand. This process is analogous to the importance of knowing how before
knowing about. It’s important that children have a relationship to music before learning music
notation. Research shows that children younger than four generally cannot focus on systematic
instrumental instruction, and students younger than six cannot practice without direct
supervision.

A good definition of practice suggests that it is any effortful activity that results in learning—an
observable change in ability. However, knowledge and skills are intertwined; an increase in
certain kinds of knowledge may result in improved performances. Therefore, many of the
activities associated with musical learning—reading a book about music, mock performances
and auditions, listening to recordings of self and others, for example—may not appear on the
surface to be practicing, yet they contribute directly to ongoing changes in behavior and should
therefore be considered a form of practice.

The practical outcomes of practice should be twofold:

1. To obtain various generic knowledge and skill representations that will assist in learning
additional repertoire quickly; and

2. To learn new music from a variety of perspectives, not just the skills required to execute the
notes.

Music practice can result in finely tuned context-specific audio discrimination skills. For
example, musicians develop fine discrimination of frequency (pitch) and loudness (volume).
Brain scans of expert musicians show neurological changes that directly coincide with the
quality and intensity of practice. For example, the neurological areas associated with the le(
hand in string players have been found to be significantly larger than those associated with their
right hands. The connections associated with performance or listening discrimination are not
limited to discrete areas of the brain but actually extend into related areas of the brain.

There is a general consensus that approximately ten thousand hours of practice time is
necessary to attain expertise in music performance. It appears, however, that the most
important factor in practice effectiveness is not only the number of hours but how those hours
are organized. Here are some tips to make it more efficient: Spread practice over time (not
crumming), daily practice with goals, practice for one to one and a half hour, practice until you’re
physically and mentally fatigued, but not beyond, shift between formal and informal practice. Do
mental practice.

Musicians attempt to develop an internal aural representation of the pieces they play. They
analyze the piece and use the structure of the piece to determine how to divide the piece into
practice units. As they become more proficient in the technical aspects of the piece, the
practice units become longer, and the practice becomes more focused on musical aspects
rather than technical aspects.

Modern ideas of motivation list three factors involved in motivation: extrinsic motivation,
intrinsic motivation, and personal attributes and effort. People are intrinsically attracted to
music because making music and listening to music are rewarding activities. Subsequent
teachers are sources of motivation because they help the young musician develop a productive
belief system about music and music involvement. Teachers at this stage of the student’s
musical development must be able to inspire the student as a role model through their own
exceptional musicianship. The teacher’s most important role in developing independent
musicians is teaching them how to practice. Practice is not in itself inherently enjoyable, but it is
the key to obtaining the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators that fuel continued involvement and
success.