I. THESIS ABSTRACT
Abstract
Literacy is a common foundation and goal throughout all subject areas of education; it is also a skill in which most music students are deficient. Sight reading standard musical notation is a skill in which every musician must become proficient should they wish to further their career opportunities. By comparing how students learn language, and how to read that language to learning music and how to read music, music educators can develop ways to help their students become better sight-readers. Along with some traditional practice techniques, music educators can use technologies available to help students work on their rudimentary skills. Ideas educators can explore are the use of networking, social media, and games that can help students develop their skills.
II. Introduction
The incorporation of music training, from preschool through postsecondary education, is common in most nations because it is considered a fundamental component of human culture and behavior (Yudkin, 2008). Music education develops fine motor skills in students who play instruments, and it also expands cognitive development through recognition and interpretation of musical notation. This education takes place in classes and in individual, life-long learning contexts. Amateur musicians typically take lessons to learn rudiments and skills from a beginning through intermediate level. Professional musicians continue their education in order to keep their knowledge and technique of these rudiments fresh.
Many formal and informal methodologies have been developed through time in order to help teach these techniques and rudimentary skills to various levels and ages of students. Each method has its own approach to reach the common goal of instrument technique and basic understanding of the language of music. Recent cuts in funding for music programs in the schools have left most students on their own to learn basic skills. Although the methods and lesson books allow for this type of self-education, music students trying to turn music into a career are struggling in the work field due to the lack of time spent on basic music literacy skills.
Problem Addressed
Music educators must provide a way for students of all levels and abilities to achieve the goal of literacy. Although each instrument involves unique techniques to acquire sound, each instrument’s sound is represented in the same standard written language. Some of our modern and more popular instruments can be learned through a variation of standard notation. These variations are instrument-specific, and students who only learn under these variations run into difficulty communicating musical ideas with other instruments that cannot function under these variations.
Educators need to look at ways to motivate students of modern instruments to practice this skill by altering methods traditionally used with other instruments. Incorporating traditional practice techniques with new technologies, music educators can help students develop their skills and keep live music working conditions in the future. This media project will demonstrate lessons using these technologies for one instrument, and offer a template for similar lessons and tools to be used for all instruments.
Target Audience
Students of musical instruments may begin their education at any age; this needs to be considered when teaching and developing programs. A thirty-year-old student may be at the same musical level as a seven-year-old; these two students essentially have the same desire and goal to achieve on their instrument, but their developmental levels also need to be considered. These two students also are learning the same rudiments of music, but there needs to be a variety of ways to present these based on the student’s developmental level.
This project is designed to offer interactive lessons for music students of all ages and abilities, with the goal of improving their music reading skills. The majority of the lessons offered will be aimed specifically at guitar students, but will offer a template of lessons to be created for other instrumental students as well. The introduction of the tools through this project is aimed toward other educators as an aid in planning ways to reach their students through the use of technology.
Sharing the project
Lessons are created with Udutu, Flash, iMovie, Garage Band, iWeb, and the Ning Social Network. My plan to share the project is to build a web site to either hold or launch the lessons depending on the format created. Each lesson will have its own dedicated page with an explanation of the lesson. Each page will also embed the lesson or have a hyper-link to where the created lesson exists.
III. Goals and Objectives
Instructional Goal
The goal of this project is to offer a variety of lessons for students to develop basic music skills necessary to become proficient sight-readers of standard notation. Students will build upon their basic skills in rhythm recognition, performance, and composition; instrument-specific techniques; melodic composition and performance; and harmonic composition and performance. Instructors will also be able to use this project to enhance their lessons and build upon the templates demonstrated for other instruments. The focus on standard notation in the lessons given will aide in reducing the deficiency in the skill of sight reading most beginning and intermediate students demonstrate.
Learning Domain
This instruction fits into the cognitive and psychomotor learning domains. The cognitive aspects of the lessons are the retention of the musical symbols, understanding of the meaning and function of each symbol, knowledge of where notes are located on the instrument, and how to put all of these basic skills together. The dexterity and physical demands of a musical instrument fall under the psychomotor domain. The practice exercises of this project will require a combination of both domains.
Learning Objectives
As a result of the lessons in this project, students will be able to identify musical symbols written in standard notation. Students will also be able to recall the location of notes on their instrument. Through composition exercises, students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of musical symbols and transcribe them in writing. Through the sharing in the social networks, students will also be able to read and perform the compositions of others. Students will be able to perform basic skills on their instrument as a result of the practice exercises in the lessons. Instructors will be able to include these online tools in their traditional classroom or private teaching studio. Instructors will also be able to expand the lessons within the social networking aspects of the project to fit the needs of their students and adapt the concepts of other lessons to their specific instrument.
IV. Presentation
Instructional Approach
Music instruction naturally follows Constructivist theory. Every skill and lesson in music is based off of the previous skills developed in prior lessons. This theory is applied in this media project through the sequence of lessons. Once a student becomes proficient in one skill set, that knowledge will be used to learn the next set of skills needed. Through the set up of this project, students will have opportunity to review concepts and skills needed in order to move forward. Even though students can also move forward through the lessons to preview the content, it will be difficult for them to use the higher level lessons without having a solid foundation of the information presented in earlier lessons.
Saxon (2009) boldly states, “Sight reading cannot be taught” (p. 23). If this is the case, how do we solve the issue of deficient readers in the field of music? Although this particular skill may not be taught directly, Saxon and others give strategies to use to enhance all of the skills used for sight reading and encourage the practice of reading for students. The basic tips Saxon gives for students are to keep eyes on the page, count out loud, keep going, read by intervals, do not correct mistakes, and perform an effective visual preview of the music. He also recommends that students use chunking. Jensen (2000) and Levitin (2006) also describe the idea of chunking in their respective writings. Stauffer’s (2005) tips involve the development of the rudiments and basic elements as the solution to students becoming better readers. Stauffer stresses the need for student musicians to learn the physical responses to music notation before they can become fluent readers. Richardson (2004) gives the same tips of playing nonstop through a piece and learning the elements of music in order to achieve reading proficiency. Richardson’s (2004) solution to the deficiency in sight reading skills is that music instructors need to teach music as language teachers teach language.
Any solution to helping students overcome their deficiency in sight reading must be active, relevant to their goals and style, and keep with the notion that they need to build upon the vocabulary of music discussed by Richardson (2004). The platforms used must reach musical, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, and spatial intelligences as defined by Gardner (1999). Students are more likely to learn and practice these skills in platforms they enjoy. This would include a wide range of musical styles.
Lesson Structure
The first page of the website is an introduction to the lessons provided on the following pages. The site will also allows users to navigate to various lessons out of sequence in order to review concepts or pick up where they left off from previous lessons. Since rhythm is the basic foundation to music, the first lesson is rhythm based. The concept of steady beat is explained and demonstrated through a combination of video and sound. Exercises are then given to students to perform a steady beat using Garage Band. The subsequent lessons introduce various note values and follow the same sequence of the steady beat lesson. Students also are given an exercise where they create their own rhythm examples and share them on the site for other students to practice and perform.
The next lesson is an introductory lesson to the guitar. Students are presented with the parts of the guitar through flash player and will gain an understanding of the working of the instrument. This lesson also includes notes on the neck of the guitar and is presented through a lesson created in Udutu.
The next series of lessons focuses on the rhythm playing aspect of guitar. Chords, fingerings, and names are introduced as well as basic progressions using these chords. Students are required to identify the chords by sight and demonstrate an understanding of basic progressions. Students will also perform these progressions with a play-along video that includes the written progression. This lesson is expanded to harder levels of chords using the same format. These lessons are all developed with Udutu.
A web quest is presented for the last part of the lesson. This quest has students explore the history of music in order to write and perform new music. This lesson reinforces student knowledge of notation through the writing, sharing, and performing of original work.
The last page of the website includes a trailer of a newly created game made for music students. The focus of the game is a gateway to create music and collaborate with other players in order to achieve the goal of the game. This page also includes a conclusion to the lessons and offers instructors ideas on how and where to create content specific to other instruments.
V. Evaluation
There are a number of assessments throughout the lessons that measure the learning of students. Each Udutu lesson incorporates assessment quizzes based on the content covered. Instructors can also assess the learning of students through the submission of work of the rhythm exercises and web quest activity. These assessments are also available to the creator of the lessons, so continued development and improvement of the project can take place.
Instructors who incorporate these online lessons in their classroom or studio will also be able to individually assess student learning through live performance. This assessment would need to take place for the performance aspects of the lessons incorporated into the project.
In order to get a full evaluation of the lessons incorporated, a student and instructor survey will be attached to the final page of the website. Feedback from users of the project will enable the growth and redesign of the project in order to keep the content up to date and to meet the needs of both students and instructors. This survey will cover the content of the lessons as well as the usability of the platform.
One way to continue through the evaluation process is to offer a place within the platform for students or instructors to upload videos of the performance aspects of the lesson. Through these performances, the basic skills learned will be demonstrated and can be evaluated by the creator. This offers first-hand insight to which skills are being enhanced and which ones still need work. New or reworked lessons can be developed based on the results of the evaluations of these submissions.
Once the lessons are developed and assessments meet the needs of the students and instructors, this project can be developed further by creating the same platform for a variety of instruments. By including other instruments into this project, the lessons reach a wider audience. This platform is also open to adding a variety of skills for these instruments.
VI. References
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Hayward, C., & Gromko, J. (2009, April). Relationships among music sight reading and
technical proficiency, spatial visualization, and aural discrimination. Journal of Research in Music Education, 57(1), 26-36. Retrieved July 31, 2009, from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=37830197&site=ehost-live
Jensen, E. (2000). Music with the brain in mind. San Diego, CA: The Brain Store, Inc.
Leavitt, W. (1969). Melodic rhythms for guitar. Boston, MA: Berklee Press Publications.
Levitin, D. (2006). This is your brain on music: The science of a human obsession. New York,NY: Plume.
McGann, J. (2009). Tablature vs. standard notation. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from http://www.johnmcgann.com/tab.html
Richardson, S. (2004, June). Music as language. American Music Teacher, 53(6), 21-25.
Retrieved July 10, 2009, from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=aph&AN=13584284&site=ehost-live
Saxon, K. (2009, June/July). The science of sight reading, American Music Teacher,58(6), 22-25, Retrieved, July10,2009 from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=41333516&site=ehost-live
Stauffer, D. (2005, September) Idea bank. Music Educators Journal, 92(1), 21-22.
Retrieved July 10, 2009, from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=1902978&site=ehost-live
Szymczak, M.T. (1982). Reading contemporary guitar rhythms. Boston, MA: Berklee Press Publications.
Yudkin, J. (2008). Understanding music. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
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