When I had to give my class on the basic form of songs I thought it was going to be a subject I was fairly comfortable with. And indeed I was comfortable with it. The biggest issue though was making sure my students understood it as well. As a musician it's very hard for me to talk about it in non-musical terms. I would equate it to a doctor attempting to discuss his patient's current fitness/ well-being in non-medical terms. It's quite possible but fairly difficult as there is a lot a vocabulary that we as musicians understand, in order for us to communicate on a deeper level, that those who aren't musicians would instinctively know. That becomes a simple matter of are we teaching our students what we need them to know?
My main focus was to help my students understand that like many things in life, music has structure; songs have a structure. From this structure determines all that we know and love about the musical experience. This structure has worked and been modified constantly ever since it's invention because musicians are like mathematicians by the fact that we always want to crunch numbers and groupings of numbers and see how complicated we can get; then we get to see where that complexity has landed us. It really is an enthralling experience which is why those who are good at it, such as J.S.Bach was, become master's in our world. Bach is a great person to teach song forms with because he was a master at many song forms. In fact his whole early life was dedicated to the experience and experimentation of song forms and sounds.
In short I noticed that though I introduced different genres and basic ideas, I could've engaged my students more by having them actively participate in this discussion either with cards they could hold up that would be labeled according to the different sections of the song form, or even by having them look for songs or think of songs that fit a standard ABA song form. I must say that these types of discussions are my favorite because they show the logic and beautiful structure of music. It never fails to amaze me that for people who aren't musicians song writing to them is such an awesome thing, and indeed it is, but the average person will never truly appreciate why we hold composers such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in such high regard until they learn song form and structure at the very least; and let's not even talk about music theory.
This experience for me was literally the epiphany to my teaching career because it showed me that with simple ideas and fun concepts I could teach anyone, regardless of age, why a song is a song and build an appreciation for music in them beyond what the lyrics in their favorite song make them feel. I watched a TED talks video on YouTube yesterday (here's the link) talking about this very idea; the idea that we as educators can create that magic in our classrooms by being engaging and helping our students yearn for the knowledge we wish to teach them. I think we could all benefit by this philosophy as well as the understanding and practice of teaching in a way that reaches everyone. But I digress. Simply put I'm very fortunate to have had this opportunity because I can see myself slowly but surely being more effective at teaching the subject I love with the effectiveness I wish to have.
My main focus was to help my students understand that like many things in life, music has structure; songs have a structure. From this structure determines all that we know and love about the musical experience. This structure has worked and been modified constantly ever since it's invention because musicians are like mathematicians by the fact that we always want to crunch numbers and groupings of numbers and see how complicated we can get; then we get to see where that complexity has landed us. It really is an enthralling experience which is why those who are good at it, such as J.S.Bach was, become master's in our world. Bach is a great person to teach song forms with because he was a master at many song forms. In fact his whole early life was dedicated to the experience and experimentation of song forms and sounds.
In short I noticed that though I introduced different genres and basic ideas, I could've engaged my students more by having them actively participate in this discussion either with cards they could hold up that would be labeled according to the different sections of the song form, or even by having them look for songs or think of songs that fit a standard ABA song form. I must say that these types of discussions are my favorite because they show the logic and beautiful structure of music. It never fails to amaze me that for people who aren't musicians song writing to them is such an awesome thing, and indeed it is, but the average person will never truly appreciate why we hold composers such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in such high regard until they learn song form and structure at the very least; and let's not even talk about music theory.
This experience for me was literally the epiphany to my teaching career because it showed me that with simple ideas and fun concepts I could teach anyone, regardless of age, why a song is a song and build an appreciation for music in them beyond what the lyrics in their favorite song make them feel. I watched a TED talks video on YouTube yesterday (here's the link) talking about this very idea; the idea that we as educators can create that magic in our classrooms by being engaging and helping our students yearn for the knowledge we wish to teach them. I think we could all benefit by this philosophy as well as the understanding and practice of teaching in a way that reaches everyone. But I digress. Simply put I'm very fortunate to have had this opportunity because I can see myself slowly but surely being more effective at teaching the subject I love with the effectiveness I wish to have.
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