Teaching secondary music

Introduction

This free course, Teaching secondary music, explores some of the key ideas and concepts that beginner teachers in secondary schools need to understand so they can plan their teaching to support the musical development, understanding and skills of all the young people they teach. These include:

• what it means to teach and learn musically
• the musical knowledge(s) teachers teach
• where and how young people are taught and learn music
• the pedagogies that underpin different forms of and approaches to music education.

Through coming to a greater understanding of these concepts and the issues they raise, and reflecting on the implications of them for your own teaching, you will develop your practice as a music teacher. You will be supported in coming to this greater understanding through being introduced to the work and ideas of some significant contemporary music educators.

Now listen to an introduction to this course by its author, Gary Spruce:

Download this audio clip.Audio player: nc3002_2016_pgce_teaching-music.mp3

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Transcript

Welcome to the Open Educational Resource Course: Teaching Secondary Music – Issues in Practice.

Hello, I’m Gary Spruce. I’ve worked for many years in music education as a secondary school teacher and in initial teacher education.

I learned that music is one of the most rewarding subjects to teach in secondary schools but also that it is one of the most challenging.

For many young people music is a very important part of their lives and something about which they feel strongly, so we music teachers have a foundation of enthusiasm to build on.

But music teaching is more than just about reinforcing these enthusiasms. It is also about enabling children to develop musically, to help them become aware of the rich variety of music in society and the many ways in which it is practiced, and then to help them become fluent and knowledgeable in some of these practices themselves. This means challenging young people’s conceptions of what music is and what it means to be musical but also challenging our own conceptions as music teachers.

When writing this course I looked at key ideas and concepts that secondary music teachers at the beginning of their careers should know about.

These include what is meant by musical knowledge, what there is to teach and learn in music and the different ways in which young people are taught and learn musically. It concludes by proposing key principles to underpin a musical approach to music teaching, principles, which enable young people to develop musically.

I am sure you will find it interesting and useful.

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As you work through the activities you will be encouraged to record your thoughts on an idea, an issue or a reading, and how it relates to your practice. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to discuss your ideas with colleagues. We therefore suggest that you use a notebook – either physical or electronic – to record your thoughts in a way in which they can easily be retrieved and re-visited. If you prefer, however, you can record your ideas in response boxes within the course – in order to do this, and to retrieve your responses, you will need to enrol on the course.

This OpenLearn course is part of a collection of Open University short courses for teachers and student teachers.

Learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• understand what is meant by musical learning

• understand how and where young people are taught and learn music

• recognise what there is to teach and learn in music

• identify the key principles that underpin musical teaching and learning in the secondary classroom.

1 What is musical learning?

It might seem strange to begin a course on ‘teaching’ with a section on learning. However, as the eminent music educationalist Keith Swanwick (2008) says, teaching cannot be said to have taken place unless learning has occurred. Teaching therefore should not, and cannot, be conceived of as separate from learning. As Jo Glover puts it, ‘The connection between teaching and learning is not hard wired – we cannot say that “I teach, therefore you will learn”’ (2008, p. 1).

1.1 What is learning?

One commonly cited definition of learning is that it has taken place when a young person is changed or altered in some way. Swanwick suggests that this definition brings to mind the fate of August Gloop from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, ‘when he is shot up a pipe into the mincing, mixing, slicing machine’ (Swanwick, 2008, p. 10).

Philpott writes of such changes as being when young people’s ‘behaviour, attitudes or values’ are altered ‘through the development of knowledge and understanding and their consequent understanding of the world enriched’ (Philpott, 2008).

This suggests a conception of learning and hence an aim of teaching as being about more than the mere transmission and acquiring of factual musical knowledge or even instrumental or vocal skills.

1.2 What is musical teaching and learning?

A basic tenet for all music teachers is that everyone has the capacity to think and act musically and therefore everyone has the capacity to learn and be taught music. No one therefore should be labelled as ‘unmusical’. Indeed, in many cultures the idea that one can be ‘unmusical’ would be seen as absurd.

Young people demonstrate the capacity to be musical from a very young age. They experiment with their voices and take delight in exploring sound-making sources of all kinds. Young children also naturally ‘integrate’ music into their lives rather than seeing it as a separated activity, as described here by Shehan Campbell:

Activity 1

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes

Watch this video clip in which the children demonstrate a similar relationship with music, integrating it into their play. Identify the different ways in which the children act musically and the kind of musical understandings they are demonstrating.

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Transcript

Being outside means opportunities to climb, balance, be adventurous, be vigorous in an allowing space, coordinate movements with teammates and express joy noisily.

Being outside is about skipping and marching as you play the pipe. Exploring the dynamics of instruments without worrying about the noise, it's about sharing things.

Being outside is about experimenting novel ways of making sound, novel ways to be off the ground, and a novel place to have a chat.

Being outside is about swinging and twisting and weaving. Being outside is about concentrating in your own space; and a sense of balance, with a spring in your knees, until you can jump on to something fresh.

End transcript

 

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Both Shehan Campbell’s description and the video clip alert us to how musical behaviour and understanding is embodied – i.e. is demonstrated through the doing of music; through ‘acting musically’. What the children are doing in these examples is really no different from a concert violinist playing Beethoven’s violin concerto: both are demonstrating their musical knowledge and understanding through physically making and doing music. Musical understanding is embodied understanding. As Elliott writes, ‘The proof of my musicianship lies in the quality of my music making, in what I get done as a performer (improviser, composer, arranger, or conductor)’ (1995, p. 57).

There are, of course, many ways in which one might act musically. Daniel Levitin (2012) points out how within the areas of composing and performing there are many ways in which musical understanding might be demonstrated, often related to the musical tradition or style within which the performing and composing takes place. For example, whereas the classical music tradition sets much store by the capacity to use notation, in the majority of the world’s music the overarching skills are those of improvising and ‘playing by ear’.

Figure 1 Street band

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This image is of a street band with musicians playing violin, saxophone and string bass.

Figure 1 Street band

Levitin also describes ways in which people are musical other than through playing an instrument and composing. He cites as examples people who demonstrate an ‘intense receptive sensitivity to music’ (2012, p. 634) by remaining deeply affected by music and the emotion it has engendered in them long after they have finished listening to it. He also notes how record producers and sound engineers often possess very highly developed receptive musical skills, yet many do not play an instrument or compose.

Then there are also those who have the auditory equivalent of a photographic memory – what Levitin calls a phonographic memory:

So, lots of ways in which ‘music teachers’ can support ‘musical learning’!

Figure 2 Female DJ

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This image is of a young female DJ.

Figure 2 Female DJ

2 What is there to learn in music?

Music teachers are constantly involved in making decisions about what should be taught in music lessons and how it should be taught. Such decision making needs to be underpinned by an understanding of what there is to learn in music, and how different kinds of musical knowledge promote different kinds of music teaching and engender different kinds of musical learning. In this section you are going to look at one particular conception of musical knowledge developed by Reid and adapted by Philpott. We will ask you to consider the implications of this model in the work of a secondary music teacher.

2.1 Philpott/Reid’s typologies of musical knowledge

Philpott (2007), drawing on Arnaud Reid, posits a framework that identifies three inter-related types of musical knowledge:

• knowledge about music (the facts of or information about music)
• knowledge of how in music (the practical skills of music)
• knowledge of music (a relationship with particular music).

The characteristics of these different kinds of knowledge are outlined in Table 1 below.

Knowledge of music

Although conceptually the most difficult to pin down, the most important of these knowledge types is knowledge of music as it is this knowledge that makes music meaningful for us as human beings. It is the reason why we and young people engage with music. It’s what makes us pick up and play ‘our’ instrument, download a track by our favourite artist or compose a song to perform at, say, an open-mike session.

Figure 3 Girl playing guitar

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This image shows a teenage girl playing an acoustic guitar in a secondary classroom.

Figure 3 Girl playing guitar

Philpott suggests that knowledge of music has been developed when one has an:

Spruce (2007) describes it as like coming to ‘know’ a particular wine. One’s knowledge ‘about’ a particular wine might be that it comes from the Bordeaux region of France, that it results from the blending of particular types of grape and comes from a vineyard that has a reputation for producing ‘Premier Cru’. One might also know ‘how’ to lay it down; to decant it; to pour it and to cork it.

However, few would argue that this knowledge ‘about’ and ‘how’ is any substitute for actually drinking the wine. It is only through drinking wine – regularly and thoughtfully – that one comes to really have knowledge of it and its many types and varieties. The Guardian’s one-time wine correspondent, Victoria Moore, describes this kind of knowledge of wine thus:

This understanding of music might be demonstrated in the way in which we perform something: how we out its subtleties and nuances in our own personal way. It might be manifest in compositions or improvisations – how we make these uniquely our own or do something unexpected and engaging with a common musical device. Or, it might simply be how we talk about music in a way that makes others think differently about it or that represents a creative and original viewpoint.

2.2 Applying the knowledge types

Figure 4 is the staff notated version of the French tune Frère Jacques. In Table 2 Philpott shows how this tune could be used to develop the three kinds of musical knowledge.

Figure 4 Frère Jacques

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This image is the staff notation for the French song Frère Jacques.

Figure 4 Frère Jacques

Now that you have worked through this section, we’d like you to reflect on what you have learned.

3 Where do music teaching and learning take place?

Musical learning can be said to take place in three different contexts, all of which have to be taken into account by music teachers in secondary schools. In this section you will consider each of these contexts and their implications for musical knowledge and pedagogy. You will focus particularly on informal settings and their pedagogies, as these have gained particular importance in many secondary school music departments as a result of the influence of Musical Futures and the research of Professor Lucy Green (2002) into how popular musicians learn.

3.1 Formal learning and pedagogies

Formal learning is typically thought of as being provided by schools, colleges or music service instrumental lessons. Here, knowledge typically lies with the teacher. It is they who define the learning objectives, and structure the teaching and learning (the pedagogy) in order to try to ensure that the objectives are achieved. Learning will tend towards the regulated and systemised.

The success of the teacher is likely to be evaluated in terms of the extent to which the learning objectives are achieved. In formal learning and pedagogy the learning that is to be achieved is often predetermined and often set down in official documents (music national curricular or music exam specifications) or quasi-official documents such as music schemes of work.

3.2 Non-formal settings and pedagogies

Non-formal settings are where musical activities led by adults (often professional musicians and musicians working in the community) take place in venues such as youth clubs. It is important to note that these are not unstructured or unplanned sessions – the difference lies in the way the music educators who lead them tend to come to the session not with fixed ideas about what is to be learned and how learning will be sequenced, but with what Smith describes as ‘a proposal for action which sets out the essential principles and features of the educational encounter’ (Smith, 2000, p. 15).

Figure 5 Brass band

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This image is of a youth brass band.

Figure 5 Brass band

3.3 Informal settings and pedagogies

Informal learning pedagogies are characterised by the learner having greater ownership over what is to be learned (deciding what is important knowledge) and how that knowledge is to be learned (pedagogy). Within music education, informal learning is most explicit through the pedagogies propounded by Musical Futures, which is underpinned by the pioneering work of Lucy Green into how popular musicians learn (Green, 2002).

Activity 7

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes

Watch this video in which Professor Lucy Green outlines the characteristics and dispositions of young popular musicians. Note particularly what she has to say about:

• motivation
• musical autonomy
• aural learning
• learning from a recording
• learning from friends rather than learning from teacher-expert
• musical challenge.

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Transcript

PROFESSOR LUCY GREEN

: Well, my work has been premised upon a close analysis of how popular musicians have acquired their skills and knowledge. When they’re working in the informal realm that is to say outside education, often without teachers, and using resources such as recordings in the past or nowadays the Internet, to help them direct their own learning. That’s what I started this project by looking at.

One of the most important things I think is that pop young popular musicians are very very highly motivated, they get huge levels of enjoyment, they’re very committed to music and furthermore they often have very wide musical tastes because their ears are open, although they might be only playing popular music they have a huge respect for other kinds of music as well and they enjoy what they do.

And I felt at the time I started this research, I think a lot of us felt in many different countries that children in school were not experiencing this level of enjoyment and commitment from their music-making, so that’s why I went to look at how is it that these popular musicians do it how do they acquire their skills.

And I found of course as everybody knows in a way that the main difference is I think from the formal realm is that young popular musicians choose their music themselves and that’s absolutely crucial, because it means that you are working on music that you identify with, that you are familiar with, that you understand in a deep personal way. And it’s very different from what tends to happen in formal music education where the teacher will choose music which is often unfamiliar to you.

Secondly of course the young popular musicians learn orally which as you know is it totally different way to acquire musical skills it’s as old as the hills human; beings have been learning music orally early since the inception of civilisation in any form.

But what’s new is that that we’ve only had recording technology for just over 100 years and that introduced a new way of learning which wasn’t available to our ancestors, and that is to put on a recording whether it’s an audio recording or whether it’s got video with it as well, and learn by watching and listening.

This is different from learning from another human being it’s different from learning from a teacher, because the recording doesn’t turn around and tell you you’ve got it wrong. You control the recording you can turn it off when you want to and work on a little bit or not, And of course it’s a very different way of making music to notation and another thing that’s very important is that young pop musician’s work with their friends and this means that groups of learners are working together, all of whom are at the same or a similar standard to each other. And so you know somebody who’s quite a beginner will be leading somebody else who’s quite a beginner and knowledge is shared in that sort of way. Both consciously and unconsciously and this is of course very different to having a teacher who is usually a more senior person, an expert in the field, and who is likely to tell you that you got it wrong and who it’s more difficult to identify with.

People seem to learn more easily from others who are at a similar level to them because they can see their friend doing something and they can think yeah I can do that, whereas if you see Someone who is highly trained, adult, expert doing it you think no I can’t I can’t even start that, so these are very important principles I think.

And that the final thing which I think is particularly important is that popular musicians in the informal realm start by using real world music, music which as I said before means something to them but which is also available in the world; and that means that they are approaching something complex and difficult and each learner approaches it at their own level.

This is very different from the way that we tend to break down musical tasks and knowledge in music education into what we experts think of as being, simple music which we start with and then we progress gradually to more and more complex music.

And in some ways we might be what what what what you know people called dumbing down the knowledge and skills that young learners are actually capable of achieving by doing that

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Figure 6 Young people composing

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The image shows a group of young musicians.

Figure 6 Young people composing

As Green notes, teaching pedagogies underpinned by principles of informal learning are characterised by:

Cain (2013) quotes Jenkins (2011) who argues that:

3.4 Informal learning in the classroom

In the video that forms the core of the next activity, Professor Lucy Green of the Institute of Education in London talks about how her interest in informal learning in music developed from an investigation she did into how popular musicians learn.

Early on in the video, Green identifies five practices of informal learning. She then goes on to describe examples of how informal learning practices have been implemented into classroom music.

Activity 9

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes

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Transcript

FLAVIA NARITA

I understand that one of your research projects involves informal musical learning practices.

LUCY GREEN

It started probably when I was a teenager actually when I started wondering how popular musicians learned their instrumental skills because I myself was having classical piano lessons and you know it it was a mystery to me how popular musicians sort of did it really, so that's driven my work for many many years and it ended up about ten or fifteen years ago doing a study of how popular musicians learn. And from that study I took that the main characteristics of their learning practices and adopted them and adapted them for the school classroom.

It was based on five things, one that they learn by choosing their own music therefore they’re using music that they know and love and identify with.

Secondly they learn by playing by ear, as you know that everyone knows they put on their own favourite music and just attempt to play along with it.

Thirdly they work both by themselves and with friends and it’s very important that they work with friends who share similar musical tastes.

Fourthly because of all this way of learning their learning tends to be idiosyncratic, it’s very personal, it’s haphazard, it’s not structured in the kind of progressive way that we normally try to structure music learning in formal environments, and also it often takes place without any teacher or adult or anybody who is able to you know give them expert help.

And fifthly they tend to integrate all the skills of listening, composing, performing and improvising all the way through the learning process and I simply adapted those for the school classroom.

So we worked first of all in secondary schools and the kids were asked to choose their own music, choose friendship groups, choose their own instruments, pick a song and attempt to copy it by ear from a recording

FLAVIA NARITA

So probably the practice was and was important –

LUCY GREEN

Did it change my own musical practice?

I did start using those practices myself, so I found myself putting on some songs with one of my favourite musicians Joni Mitchell and you know starting to learn to play the song and to sing it by ear.

Which I found a fascinating a fascinating task because although I you know I have basic sort of ear skills and improvisation skills I've never actually sat down, with a recording before and fully tried to copy it and the interesting thing to me about that was, I was doing this whilst I was at the beginning of my project taking the learning practices into the school.

FLAVIA NARITA

Alright.

LUCY GREEN

And because I found that doing it myself opened my own ears, I added a question to the interviews that we did with children: ‘Since you’ve been doing this project have you noticed any differences in the way you listen to music at home?’ and I'm so glad I added that question because the Answers to it have been fascinating.

And a large number of kids said yes, it had affected the way they hear music and it made me realise and it made them realize that they tend, young kids who listened to popular music tend to focus entirely on the lyrics and the singing, and many of them actually said things like before I did this project I didn't realise there was any more to music apart from the lyrics.

FLAVIA NARITA

Interesting.

LUCY GREEN

You know and now it’s what they call the underneath bits the background music means more to me than the lyrics.

FLAVIA NARITA

So you and you’d also kind saying that it doesn’t matter just being the curriculum right so music being the curriculum or even if you take popular music in to the curriculum it doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to have a full experience of how to make music, so it’s a method of pedagogy.

LUCY GREEN

It's a pedagogy that's absolutely right Flavia because as you know popular music has been in the school curriculum here and in many other countries as well for many many years, but what we've tended to do as teachers is to approach the popular music in the curriculum in the same way that we would approach classical music or any other kind of music from around the world.

And therefore we weren't actually using the techniques that the musicians themselves use to create the music, so in a way what we had in the curriculum was a kind of not the real thing.

FLAVIA NARITA

Right.

LUCY GREEN

Children could listen to it but there wasn't any development of their ears going on or any development of their skills going on that way.

This wonderful project musical futures approached me and asked me to join them and I then had the opportunity of doing that, and musical futures is now a major UK national project, it's also a project which is going on in Australia, we hope as you know that it's going to happen in Brazil, there are also parts of the USA and Canada where it's beginning to be used and the musical futures project was funded mainly by the Paull Hamlyn foundation.

This way of bringing in popular musicians learning practices into the classroom has of course affected the role of the teacher as well. The role of the teacher is to stand back at the beginning of the process, observe what the pupils are doing, try to sympathize and empathize with the goals that the pupils are setting for themselves and only at that point start to step in and offer guidance and also to act as a musical model by playing the instruments themselves or whatever.

Now this is a little bit different from the role of the teacher of course in that a more standard pedagogic form where the teacher is the one who knows, the teacher chooses in the case of music the teacher chooses the music, the teacher will tell the pupils which notes to play, sometimes how to play them, what order to play them in and it comes from the teacher to the student.

In this way the student is given much more autonomy to make their own choices and to direct their own learning, with their friends and to find their own route through the learning process.

Now as you can imagine at the beginning of musical futures quite a few of the teachers in the very very early stages were quite worried about what was going to happen, if we give students in in school classrooms all this freedom and of course the first time that I tried this in my very very first London classroom I thought the same thing, I had no idea if the technique would work or not. But luckily it has worked it really has worked incredibly well and what tends to happen is that after two or three lessons the teachers begin to get pretty nervous, because they're not sure where it's going to go but after three to four lessons most of the teachers are amazed at how highly motivated the kids have been, how well-organized they’ve been, how they've got themselves into their friendship groups, how they've sorted themselves out, and how they've actually shown that they have musical abilities that very often the teachers didn't know they had.

And a lot of our teachers have said it made them realize that previously, they were not giving children enough credit for having as much abilities as they actually do have.

Of course this is something that we trained classical musicians ourselves have haven't usually done.

Nowadays with a you know younger classical musicians coming up some of them are what we might call bi-musical; they have a foot in either jazz or popular music or folk music, traditional music and a foot in the classical camp but they're still in the minority, I think.

And in the formal education one thing that we don't learn as musicians is how to play by ear or how to improvise, and you know there's an awful lot of music educators and teachers in this country and many places, who are very highly proficient trained classical musicians but who don't really know how to play by ear or improvise themselves and therefore don't know how to teach it.

And this is why instead of looking at what skills we have as trained musicians and music educators I went to look at what skills those people who do know how to play by ear and improvise have, and bring those skills into the formal music education realm.

And that's partly why of course the teachers who are trained you know if they've not really had the experience themselves of copying a recording by ear, it's quite you know it's quite a mysterious thing it's quite worrying and frightening.

FLAVIA NARITA

Mmm-hmm.

LUCY GREEN

And very revealing as well.

FLAVIA NARITA

Yeah, I think that for both teachers and pupils –

LUCY GREEN

Yes.

FLAVIA NARITA

It’s going to be an interesting experiencing enriching experience and what you said it's also about the progress right so it doesn't mean that because you're not reading from the score that you are not Progressing in your technique or in your musical skills rather the opposite.

LUCY GREEN

There's a kind of level have relaxation and also fun and experimentation a getting to know the instrument in a way which is more like the instruments is a part of their body, you know which is of course how we all want our instrument to feel.

FLAVIA NARITA

So you’re talking about it a lot of intrinsic motivation from the part of students, right?

LUCY GREEN

Yes

FLAVIA NARITA

Because they chose the music that's the music they want to play so that's why they go and play by ear even if their teachers think it's quite an advanced level and how do you think that the teachers can help Them in this in this negotiation or not.

LUCY GREEN

Ok right well this is an absolutely crucial point and it's something I've been looking at in more detail in my instrumental project. So teachers help by obviously making suggestions for how to hold the Instrument, for example a teacher could show a pupil who has tried to get a note and they can't get it, the teacher will allow them to try for a while and then step in and say why don't you put your finger here on this string that's the first note.

It's about watching what the child's doing, listening to them, trying to gauge where they’re attempting, trying to trying to gauge what they're attempting to do and then thinking how can I help this pupil achieve this particular goal.

If I hadn't done a lot of philosophical and theoretical work, would I have done the same practical work in the classroom, I think in a nutshell the answer is no.

Because if we're going to do work which changes practice then that comes out of a whole wealth of knowledge and understanding, doesn't it and that's why we come to university and that's what we're doing at universities, is expanding our minds and helping our students to expand their minds, so that they can have a fresh look at practice with new eyes and new understanding.

FLAVIA NARITA

Sure, well thanks very much, Lucy, it's been lovely to talk to you.

LUCY GREEN

It's been lovely to talk to you too, Flavia. I'll see you at the next tutorial.

FLAVIA NARITA

Yeah.

End transcript

 

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Watch the video and note down in what ways Green suggests that being involved in informal learning changes the way in which children listen to music at home in a very significant way.

1. What do you think are the implications of this for the way in which you might teach popular music?

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2. What assumptions about the way in which children listen to music might you have to rethink?

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3. At approximately 4’40” on the video, Green talks about Musical Futures being pedagogy, not a method. What, for you, is the distinction between these two terms?

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4. What changes to the role and responsibility of the teachers does Green suggest are implicit in the informal learning approaches? What are the implications of this for how music is taught in the secondary classroom?

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4 What is a musical music lesson?

A common criticism of music teaching in schools is that it is insufficiently ‘musical’. For example, in its triennial report into music education in English schools, Ofsted (the body responsible for the inspection of schools in England) reports that:

In this final section, and drawing on the learning in the previous sections, we want you to begin to explore and identify some characteristics of a musical music in the context of planning a lesson.

Characteristic 1: Musical music lessons adopt an integrated and holistic approach

Integrated and holistic are understood in two ways here. Firstly, that music lessons in schools need to have cognisance of young people’s musical experiences and activities outside of school, or in a previous school, such as their primary school. These experiences should be integrated into what is planned in the music classroom, using them to develop young people’s musical understanding in ways that build on and extend these experiences.

Secondly, integrated and holistic refer to how the most musical lessons tend to be those that integrate the three main aspects of musical experience – listening to music; creating music; performing music – into common learning outcomes. This leads more readily to young people being immersed in music and, as Matthews says, reflects the way in which music is typically experienced outside of school:

Matthews goes on to cite examples from jazz, African township music and hip hop to reinforce this point. Similarly, if you take part in a karaoke session you will naturally integrate these activities: you will listen to the backing track and compose/improvise the ‘on the hoof’ cover version of whatever it is that you ‘perform’.

Activity 11

Timing: Allow about 1 hour

Part 1

Watch the video clip Bugs, which is taken from a key stage 2 whole class instrument lesson and note how composing, listening and improvisation are integrated into this lesson.

Download this video clip.Video player: exn885_1_2013_vid003-320x176.mp4

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Transcript

Bugs

[PIANO PLAYING]

[VIOLIN PLAYING]

TEACHER

What did she start with? What notes did she play? Atiya?

ATIYA

A?

VIOLINIST 1

No.

TEACHER

What did she start with?

VIOLINIST 1

Started with a D, that’s right.

TEACHER

D. What was the first line she played? You got it, Rosaria? [SINGING] D, D. Did she use a finger?

STUDENT

No?

TEACHER

Did she use a finger?

STUDENT

She used one with D.

TEACHER

Good girl, well done. She went [SINGING] D, D, one, one, D, D. Sing that with me. Ready, and –

[VIOLIN PLAYING]

VIOLINIST, TEACHER AND CLASS

[SINGING] D, D, one, one, D, D.

TEACHER

Then there was a little rest, two rests, and then she went what? Listen again. Next bit?

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

What did she do then?

STUDENT

Then she did the same as the first one, and then she went on to A.

TEACHER

Good. So she went D, D, one, one, A, A, A. What else did she do that was something that made it a bit more interesting?

STUDENT

Oh, she did this.

[PLAYS ACCENTED NOTE]

TEACHER

Great. The last note she played was a really short stab on the –? You did the right –

STUDENT

On the A.

TEACHER

On the A. How many As did she play? How many?

STUDENT

Three.

TEACHER

Three. And what did she do with those three As? Were they all the same? The last one was short. Did she do anything else? Play it one more time?

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

What did she do? How would you describe what she played? Yes?

STUDENT

She made it louder.

TEACHER

She made it louder. She started quiet. She went [SINGING] A, A, A. And a stab at the end. Try it, on your A string. One, two –

VIOLINIST 1

A string.

TEACHER

– three, go. [PLAYING VIOLIN]

VIOLINIST, TEACHER AND CLASS

[SINGING] A, A, A,

TEACHER

Start even quieter, and then you’ve got somewhere to have your stab – wait, wait, wait. If you start really quietly, you can get louder. One, two, three, go.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

Let’s sing the whole thing once, and then we’ll play it. This is the chorus to Bugs. Let’s just try singing it once, then we’ll get ’round to playing it. Get ready.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

TEACHER

Singing now.

VIOLINIST, TEACHER AND CLASS

D, D, one, one, D, D, shh, shh. D, D, one, one, A, A, A.

TEACHER

Try playing it. Up you get. Violins up. Find your one on D.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

VIOLINIST

Starting with open D.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

VIOLINIST, TEACHER AND CLASS

[SINGING] D, D, one, one, D, D. Shh. D, D, one, one.

TEACHER

Fantastic stab at the end. There’s a couple of rests there. Shall we bend, bend in the rests? It’s going to go [SINGING] D, D, one, one, bend, bend.

STUDENT

And then it goes D, D –

TEACHER

Off we go.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

VIOLINIST, TEACHER AND CLASS

[SINGING] D, D, one, one, D, D. Bend. D, D, one, one.

TEACHER

Fantastic. That’s our chorus. Now we need some verses. And it’s up to you now. What kind of creepy-crawly insects can you think of? Have a think. What could try and play on the violin? What creepy-crawlies can you think of? What can you think of?

STUDENT

Spiders.

TEACHER

Spiders. What can you think of?

STUDENT

Caterpillars

TEACHER

Caterpillars.

STUDENT

Cockroaches.

TEACHER

Cockroaches.

STUDENT

Beetles.

TEACHER

Beetles.

STUDENT

Daddy-long-legs.

TEACHER

Daddy-long-legs, fantastic. Daddy-long-legs fly as well, don’t they? And they’re very light. Let’s go with beetles, first. And it’s a really little beetle that moves very quickly. How could we play that? Listening partner, have a go. Have an experiment. What could you do? Both play to each other.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

OK! Thank you. We’ve got one here. Do that again, right in the middle. Listen, listening.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

Right. Which string? Do you want it on the E?

STUDENT

Yeah.

TEACHER

So we’re going to go on the E, tiny little bows. And we’re going to go really fast. Go.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

Thank you! Thank you. If you hear this,

[PLAYING KEYBOARD]

TEACHER

That’s a bit – can you hear that?

[PLAYING KEYBOARD]

TEACHER

You stop. You take your bow off. So let’s hear beetles. Off you go, you beetles, and listen out for that thing to take your bow off. Go.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

[PLAYING KEYBOARD]

TEACHER

Stop immediately. Let’s do it again. Beetles, go.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

[PLAYING KEYBOARD]

TEACHER

Then we’re back to our chorus.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

[SINGING] D, D, E.

VIOLINIST 1

Let’s go with –

TEACHER

Daddy-long-legs. See if we can get the idea of them flying really fast, or buzzing. Off you go. Daddy-long-legs.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

Something different. Something different.

[VIOLINS PLAYING]

TEACHER

Yeah, but daddy-long-legs, think of how they fly. Try doing that with your bow. Try getting it to go up and down. That’s brilliant. OK! Look at this! Just do what you did. These two have got one. Quickly. Listen and watch. These two have worked out one. Go.

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

Try it.

[VIOLINS SCRATCHING]

TEACHER

Great.

VIOLINIST 2

I like that one. Makes a funny noise, doesn’t it, James? What do you think?

[PLAYING KEYBOARD]

TEACHER

Stop. You didn’t hear?

[PLAYING KEYBOARD]

TEACHER

Daddy-long-legs have stopped. Get ready for the chorus.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[PLAYING VIOLIN]

TEACHER

[SINGING] D, D.

VIOLINIST 1

Bounce, bounce.

TEACHER

Fantastic. You can see how we’re going to fit that piece together to play in the concert the end of term. We’ll do some more insects next time. I fancy having a go at caterpillars, definitely.

End transcript

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Part 2

Imagine that you are teaching this class at the start of their first year at secondary school and you want to build on their experiences of this holistic and integrated approach to composing at primary school.

Think of a topic that you feel would build on the pupils’ experiences and provide opportunities for continuity and progression. Then, using either this lesson plan or one of your own choosing, note down some broad headings for the lesson, including:

1. the aims for the lesson
2. the activities that will support these aims and which:
   • integrate performing, listening and composing/improvising
   • provide a suitable level of challenge and opportunities for progression for the class, knowing their experiences at primary level.

Return to this lesson plan and amend it after each of the subsequent ‘characteristics’ have been examined and the activity completed.

Characteristic 2: Learning objectives/outcomes must be musical

As we have noted, formal learning contexts tend to be driven by predetermined objectives or outcomes. It is important then that these objectives are musical ones. So, for example, to gain an understanding of Gamelan through using its techniques and protocols to perform Gamelan music, and then to use these techniques to compose and improvise one’s own music is to gain knowledge of music from the inside. To know the names of the Gamelan is not a musical learning outcome. It is here that Philpott’s analysis of different knowledge types, and the work that you have done previously in this course, can help you to ensure that you focus on knowledge of and knowledge that is rooted in the practice of music.

Characteristic 3: The lesson is a musical experience

The third characteristic of a musical music lesson is that it is full of musical experience: the entire lesson, from the opening seconds (where music might be being played as the young people enter the classroom) to the moment they leave should be a musical experience. Musical experiences will, of course, include opportunities to perform, compose and listen, but also to discuss music and to express informed views about it. A good test is to ask oneself whether the activities that are planned for a lesson would be recognised as musical outside the school. If the answer is no, then there are probably better ways.

Activity 13

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes

Download this video clip.Video player: trinity_guildhall_dvd_12_musical_start.mp4

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Transcript

INSTRUCTOR (SINGING)

C, so we go, one, two, three, four.

CHILDREN (SINGING)

One, one two, one.

One, two, three, two, one.

One, two, three, four, three, two one.

One, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, one.

One, two, three, four, five, six, five, four, three, two, one.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

INSTRUCTOR

Well done.

But this time we're going to sing the note length.

We're going to start on a C. (SINGING) Here we go.

One, two, three, four.

ALL (SINGING):

C, C D, C, C, D, E, D, C. C, D, E, F, E, D, C.

C, D, E, F, G, F, E, D, C. C, D, E, F, G, A, G, F, E, D, C. C,

D, E, F, G, A, B, A, G, F, E, D, C. C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, B, A, G, F, E, D, C.

End transcript

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Watch the video from a whole class instrumental lesson with a key stage 2 class. Note how the lesson begins with music that continues into the first activity with the children. Very little is said.

Return to your lesson plan and think how you can begin the lesson with music and musical experience. Have at the forefront of your mind how this music will motivate and enthuse the young people and link to the main focus of the lesson.

Return to your lesson plan and amend it accordingly.

Characteristic 4: Opportunities for young people to be and to act creatively

Professor Pam Burnard writes that:

She suggests that creative teaching and learning in music can be developed through teaching approaches that promote:

• collaboration
• risk-taking

and the activities of:

• improvising
• composing
• performing
• listening.

Activity 14

Timing: Allow about 45 minutes

Part 1

Complete Table 3. For each ‘context’ give an example from your own practice, from teaching that you have observed or from a speculative example.

Table 3 Contexts for creativity in music education

	Examples from practice	Further ideas
Collaboration – activities that engage both teachers and children in music-making.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Risk-taking – activities that allow learners to experiment musically without always being assessed or judged. For example, setting an unsupported task involving a problem or teachers modelling ‘risky learning’ by attempting to compose a song with their class.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Improvising – activities that encourage exploration of sounds, both acoustically and using technology, developing non-verbal communication during improvisations and a sense of play and experimentation.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Composing – activities that focus children on thinking about structures, purpose and intentions, following improvisation activities. For example, learners quickly relate to modern technology.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Performing – activities that engage learners in developing their confidence, self-esteem and analytical thinking, helping them to feel the excitement of preparing to perform and the joy of doing so.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Listening – activities that engage learners in listening to a wide variety of music played and made by other artists.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.

Words: 0

(Source: adapted from Burnard, 2012, p. 3)

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Part 2

Now watch the video clip Scales Doh.

Download this video clip.Video player: exn885_1_2013_vid004_320x176.mp4

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Transcript

[PIANO PLAYING]

[PRACTICING SONG]

Swing. Swing. Swing. Swing.

[PIANO PLAYING]

[PRACTICING SONG]

Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe.

[PRACTICING SONG]

In the chorus this time, really get lovely, long bows-- right from the heel to the tip. Are you ready? Four, let's go and wash my car.

[PRACTICING]

Round. Round. Round. Round.

[PRACTICING SONG]

[PIANO PLAYING]

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

[PRACTICING SONG]

And the bow around.

[PIANO PLAYING]

[PRACTICING SONG]

[PIANO PLAYING]

And the caterpillar.

[PRACTICING SONG]

Back around.

[PIANO PLAYING]

[PRACTICING SONG]

End transcript

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What kinds of creative teaching and creative learning can you identify here? Note these down.

Can you think of other ways in which the teacher might have promoted further any creative aspect of this lesson? Explain how you think this might have been done.

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Part 3

Finally, return to your lesson plan and amend it, ensuring there are opportunities for children to engage creatively with music as decision makers and problem solvers.

Characteristic 5: Experience different musical practices

Figure 7 African drumming

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This image is of West African drummers.

Figure 7 African drumming

This characteristic is most often realised through engaging with music from a range of traditions and cultures. The danger though is that it can become what Fautley (in Fautley and Savage, 2008) refers to as a Cook’s tour of musical traditions resulting in superficial engagement with these musics – simply brushing against the musical artefacts of a culture.

What different musical traditions and cultures do offer to music teachers and young people is an understanding of music as a social phenomenon whose meaning is rooted in the purposes to which it is put and its value evaluated in terms of the extent to which it meets these purposes. Music from different traditions and cultures also offers alternative pedagogies for musical learning that can be drawn on in the classroom.

Conclusion

In this free course, Teaching secondary music, you have looked at some key concepts and theories that underpin music teaching in the secondary classroom. You began by thinking about what is meant by learning and noting that teaching cannot be said to have happened unless there has been learning. You then went on to consider the many different ways in which musical understanding might be demonstrated.

In the second section you considered what there is to learn in music and particularly different kinds of musical knowledge. We argued here for the centrality of knowledge of music in music education.

Section 3 looked at how and where musical teaching and learning takes place. You noted how important it is that secondary music teachers recognise how much musical learning takes place beyond the school gates and take this into account in their own teaching. Finally, drawing on the previous three sections, Section 4 identified some key principles underpinning musical music teaching.

References

Acknowledgements

This free course was written by Gary Spruce.

Grateful thanks to Milton Keynes Music Service for kind permission to draw on and amend materials from the Certificate of Music Educators’ module materials written by the author of this course, http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/ schools-and-lifelong-learning/ music-faculty-community-learning-mk/ certificate-for-music-educators.

Grateful thanks to the Times Educational Supplement for kind permission to draw on the materials written by the author for the ‘Enriching the primary curriculum: music’ course, https://www.tes.com/ institute/ music-cpd-primary-schools.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

Course image

© courtesy Jason Kubilius

Figures

Figure 1: Image courtesy of Gillian Howell, Australia. Crowd participation at the Big Jam, Melbourne International Jazz Festival 2010

Figure 2: Honored/dreamstime.com

Figure 3: Echo/Getty Images

Figure 5: © BASTIAAN STABBERS/iStockphoto.com

Figure 6: With kind permission from Yorkshire Youth and Music.

Figure 7: Emilio Labrador. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Videos

Bugs video clip: courtesy of Trinity College London, www.trinitycollege.com

Class Instrumental video clip: courtesy of Trinity College London, www.trinitycollege.com

Scales Doh video clip: courtesy of Trinity College London, www.trinitycollege.com

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