The

Content
of Music
Classes
 What do you think?

Vito Amata Sharond Billups

Teaches his band Has her middles

through a series of school general music
class figure out the
“WARM-UP” and the band
“WORD SPELLED”
plays through some of the by patterns of notes in
music in their folders treble and bass clefs.
 Do You Think?

01
The students of Vito’s and
Sharonda’s students learn?
02
The students learn from just
playing through some
music or only naming
notes?

03
Vito’s students learn from
the warm-up routines that
did not relate to any of the
musical played in the
rehearsal?
 Learning in
Music Classes is
WHAT IS ALL
ABOUT!
(As Chapter 1 Pointed Out)

Note to the Music Teachers (including us)

We NEED to THINK CAREFULLY about the
“stuff” that we are trying to TEACH OUR
STUDENTS and to be SURE that it is SIGNIFICANT
in terms of MUSIC and that is USEFUL and
MEANINGFUL to the students.
LEARNING
IN MUSIC
 The chorus at
Middlebury High
school is singing the
Shaker song “Simple
Gifts”.

SimpleGiftsPDF.pdf

• What should the students be

learning from singing this
beautiful song?
 Five things a student can learn
about the song

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Skills in
Patterns of The song as a Understanding performing and Attitudes
musical sounds work of music about musical listening to about the
or the Syntax of music; and particular
processes and
piece and
Music organization about music
in general
Musical Syntax
If music is organized sound
(as it was defined in Chapter 2)

then a sense of organizations and

patterns of sounds is…

ABSOLUTE
LY
required for a person to hear the sounds
as music.
 Research Study
Singing

Instruments

Learning of syntax and the

pronunciation of words
Dance
develop early in life.

But by the time a child is 10 years old, the

ability for such learning begins to
decrease.
Musical
Works
The amount of music created throughout the world
over the past couple of thousand years is huge
beyond comprehension. There are also thousands
and thousands of works of folk and popular songs.

Question: is there a person who knows every music

that was created?

Ofcourse! There is no one, even the most avid

listener to music, could in an entire lifetime hear
each work even once and the amount of music
increases each day.
 -One of the things the students
should learn in music classes
is where a particular piece of
music fits into the world of
music.
In the case of “Simple Gifts”, the singers should acquire
some understanding of the

Text Melodic Social Setting Similar Information

characteristics about this work

It is not just enough to sing a song but the singer should know something about it as
a piece of music.
A difficult problem for teachers is the selection
of music.

Therefore, some hard decisions must

be made, and many fine works of
music simply have to be left out.
 Intellectual Understandings

Concepts Way of
Skills and
Thinking
Activities
Concepts

-The resultant of a
generalizing mental
operation.

-Generalizations
about phenomena.

Some concepts such as Music are Broad in scope, while others are more Specific like
tempo.
 Conceptual Ideas
Subconcepts of melody

Motive Expression
Rhyth
Harmony
m

Melod
Form
y
Contour Theme
 Concept and Definition

Concept
Is not the same as its verbal
symbol or definition. It can
exist without a verbal symbol.
Definition
Is merely the assignment of a
verbal “handle” to something
already formed in the mind. It
is more accurate.
 It means that the Teachers are limited to
establishing situations in which the
A concept must first exist on students can form the desired concepts.
which to affix the verbal The formation must happen within each
symbol. student’s mind.
What is this
mean?

They are never learned once and for all.

The reason
that teachers
should be
interested in
concept
formation is
that concept
facilitate the
ability to
THINK.
Way of
Thinkin
g
 Way of Thinking

Every field of study

has its mode of
Part of the
thinking, its way of
students
looking at things.
should learn
A Musician is in school is to
A Social
interested on think as
A Physicist how sound
scientist is manipulated and musicians in
is interested
in the interested in the tonal effects a music class.
the effect of and
physical compositions

properties sounds on
that can be
of sounds human created with
behavior them.
Musicians value
organized sounds.
They think the way
Mozart put sounds
Also, musicians
together in the last analyze the
movement of his sounds they listen
Musicians value
Symphony No. 41 is to. They are sounds and analyze
pretty impressive. interested in them

figuring out what

Mozart did with Musicians enjoy
the sounds music more.
because
Musicians know more
about it than do
nonmusicians.
CREATIVE

PROCESS
Learning in music should not
be confined to the re-creation
Creative activity is valuable
of what others have done. because it requires students to
Students should engage in think about how sounds are
creating music through manipulated, which is a central
composition and/or feature of a musicians think.
improvisation.
It also educates the students about the process of
creating music, including its mental trial and error and
just plan hard work and it allows them to explore their
own music potential and sense to know themselves
better.
Skill and Activities

Skill and activities are not

synonymous.
• Skill- physical activities such as
vibrato on the violin, tonguing
on the clarinet, and sight-
singing. Some music classes
have the acquisition of skills as
a major part of their content
• Activities- cannot substitute
matter content.
Singing one song after another,
class after class, does not
contribute much to the students’
understanding of music or their
aesthetic sensitivity.

The Goal of Music Education is not just to do something in music.

Rather, it is to EDUCATE students in music.
When students sing or play
pieces of music, they are
usually
● Strengthening their concept about
music -Sometimes music teachers
● Gaining some information about it
concentrate so much on one
● Improving their skill at performing
category of outcomes that little is
it
● Affecting how they feel about the accomplished in other categories.
piece in particular and music in
general. -Effective music instruction
The extend of which of these results is avoids this pitfall. It strikes a
achieved depends partly on what the reasonable balance among the
teacher chooses to emphasize. making, understanding, and
valuing of music, regardless of the
level or type of class
 A.T.T.I.T.U.D.E.S
How a person feels about what he or she knows is important.

Attitudes and Knowledge

are Complementary.
Teachers first task:
• Remove the ignorance so that
there will be intelligent
preferences and at the best
there can be “Enlightened
Cherishing”.
People tend to like things that
are similar to what they
already know and like.

People are influenced by the

person who is suggesting a
change and the associations
people make with music can
influence their attitude The Family has a significant
toward it. influence on childrens’ attitudes.
 Attitudes are also influenced by one’s friends
and peer think.

If all your friends like a

particular piece of Partly because
music
Chances are greatly You don’t want the
increased that you will friction involved in
like it
disagreeing with
them

BECAUSE Partly because

You respect and like your You tend to “go with the
friends flow” of their
feelings as you
perceive them.
 Guidelines

Piano Singing DJing Metronome

EDUCATIONAL VALID FUNDAMENTAL REPRESENTATIVE

Percussion Sol-fa Wind Instruments

CONTEMPORARY RELEVANT LEARNABLE
 EDUCATIONAL

The students should gain information, skills, or attitudes that they did not have prior to the
class. This guideline is a simple but important one, it has sometimes not been followed.

Some teachers have felt that:

● Effort to teach something would not be worth it
● It would not make any difference to the students
● There is not really anything to learn in music.
 VA L I D

Music
is an established academic Therefore, it is not valid in the
discipline. A recognized field field of music.
of knowledge and study.

*Would most trained musicians

recognize and accept this
content as a part of the field?
For example:
a few teachers of violin with
The call of validity is
elementary school children use a logical one.
a kind of notation in which
note are identified not by pitch
but by the name of the string
and fingering: A1, D3, and so
on.
FUNDAMEN
TAL
Closely related to validity of content is the
belief that the students should learn the basic
ideas of the subject.

When information is associated with a

concept, it is useful, but memorizing
insignificant facts is not effective learning.
 FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS

Tonality Development of 2:1 ratio in rhythmic

themes notation

Unity of words Music art songs

Are valuable because they are comprehensive and have wide

application in music.
 R E P R E S E N TAT I V E

If the music curriculum is limited to only few types or aspects of

music, the students are not being given a well-balanced
education in music.

*Example:
The band director who has the band play one march after another
and the general music teacher who spends all the class time
working with the synthesizer are BOTH Guilty of
shortchanging their students, because both are omitting many
other important areas in music.
 *Some teachers give the students
very little art music that contains a
sophisticated handling sounds.

Pastime Entertainment

Are never introduced to the idea that music is an Aesthetic,

Expressive human creation.
 CONTEMPORA
RY
Music and Information taught in music classes
should be up to date. This refers not only to
the date when composed but also to the style.

The main problem for teachers in this matter is

the technical difficulty of many twentieth-
century works. They would like to have the
students sing or play them, but many times the
music is too hard.

It requires some searching, but

contemporary works that are not
technically so demanding can be found.
R E L E VA N T
Students
Students Growth
Growth

● Those things vital for survival and

living
● Topics that one happens to like or to
be interested in
● Relationship between a person and a
given subject.

Sometimes the interests of the students and the requirements

of valid subject matter have appeared to be in Conflict.
Relevance
is probably affected more by the method of teaching than by
the content. Topics and subjects have little relevance. People
make things relevant.
Relevance results when a topic is given meaning through
teacher’s attitude and skill in organizing the subject.

Teachers need to teach so that the real content of music becomes

relevant to the students.

Achieving relevance is quite an assignment, but the job of

teaching music well is not as easy one.
 Learnable

The Music Curriculum must be Learnable. It is Students

useless to teach something for which they are not Preferences
prepared.

While the students’ backgrounds and interests

should be considered, these are not the only
factors that teachers should think about.

Teaching a piece of music that is of a suitable

level of difficulty for the students should be
80% 20%
determined in relation to the other guidelines.
A Good Teacher can build on
the interests the students
already have without
abandoning the subject.
If students seem uninterested in
a worthy topic, perhaps another
approach to it is called for
instead of giving up on it
entirely.
In the case of education versus relevancy,
the solution lies in the proper methods of
teaching. However, some of the time
teachers need to strike a balance in making
curricular decisions between conflicting
needs.
A Clear Understanding of the subject
matter content is essential for Good
Teacher. For this reason, future music
teachers need to teach concepts and skills
from a carefully selected menu of music
and music-related activities.
Thank You
and God
Bless Us
All!
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