More Music Learning Theory

This is a PowerPoint I made over Music Learning Theory. There was so much information that I couldn’t really do it justice in this PowerPoint with the time that I had.

Music Learning Theory

Music Learning Theory

For my presentation, I chose to cover Music Learning Theory. This theory is based on the research of Edwin E. Gordon and focuses on developing musicians’ tonal and rhythmic audiation. A detailed overview of this theory can be found here.

Activities

More Activities

There doesn’t seem to be any form of assessment for this teaching model. The closest thing to assessment is to measure a musician’s Musical Aptitude.

Singing (or in this case…Song)

Here is my guitar quartet, instead of the elementary song for this project. Written in 5/4, Desert Rose Waltz has fun, yet challenging, parts for each player.

Listening

The students will diagram two different songs about wind, then compare them.

The students will listen to two different songs about wind (Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas, and Wind by Brian Crain) and draw what they see or feel into their music journals. After listening to both songs, the students will compare the songs and how each song expressed wind.

Instruments

After learning how to play the recorder, students will perform Leapfrog with 80% accuracy.

 

I wrote this song to make a lively, yet challenging, piece for the students to play. It has small jumps to represent playing leapfrog. Also, it challenges the students by involving accidentals that the students will need to learn in order to play it.

BoomWhackers

Students will learn the chords to Let It Go from the movie Frozen and play them in time with the song.

Create

After reading the story The Dark Dark Night, students will create shadow puppets to make their own story.

Since the story The Dark Dark Night is mainly about shadows, and I’ve already made sure that the students are comfortable and happy with shadows from my Movement lesson, I will let the students make their own shadow puppets. After each student has made their own puppet, we will create a new story about shadows as a class, then reenact it with our shadow puppets behind the bright light we used in the Movement lesson. Not only would this tie in well with the book, but it could also lead to teaching them more about international music, such as the Chinese music that goes with Chinese shadow puppetry.

Rhythm

Students create rhythms by playing BoomWhackers to the song Jump by Van Halen.

In this lesson, I will introduce my students to the song Jump by Van Halen. After listening to the song, I will hand out BoomWhackers to the students, advising them to keep everything quiet until we begin playing them with the song. After making sure that each student has a BoomWhacker, I will explain the rhythms of the songs along with the chords being used. Finally I will play the song and call out each chord and notes so that the students can play their parts at the right time.

Movement

Students create moving shadows by dancing to music in front of a light.

Since the story The Dark, Dark Night is about a frog that is scared of his own shadow, I want the students to learn that shadows don’t have to be scary. Creating moving shadows will show the students that shadows aren’t bad while having fun dancing to music. The music I have chosen is entitled Shadows by Lindsey Stirling, an upbeat piece that has Lindsey dancing with her shadow. I believe that showing the students this video and asking them to dance with her will give them a fun opportunity to learn about shadows and music.