In this post I will be talking about a prompt given to me by my professor for my MUS150 class. This will be similar to The "My Class" post that I have under the Scholarships tab. In here I will critic and edit another students post about the class environment they have created. I will now post the prompt in red.
"For this class, I’ll open without speaking. I’ll start playing an ostinato for the class through garage band or the like (I’ll have to make sure the class knows how to use the program before the class). The loop will go on for several bars and then I’ll give 2 examples of songs (from different genres) that could work with the ostinato given. I would then open an assignment for the class to come up with more songs or tunes that would work with the beat given. They would work together and perform in front of the class at the end of the class. The homework for this lesson would be for the students to come up with their own ostinato for homework and then some songs that would go with it. It can be in groups, but everyone will have to perform for the class the next time we met. This experience is helpful for both building confidence in a student’s work, as well as working on improvisation skills. The connections build on a student’s previous experiences with any song they’ve heard and enjoyed enough to remember. This can help with composition especially in a time where the main form of entertainment is to listen to mashups. That’s what this entire exercise is, discovery of mashups that haven’t happened yet. Ear training is gained through this, as the student should be able to make a song work with a repeating part, whether or not it did before. Then the improvisation skills will come from this as well. I’ll help them as the teacher through my showing them my examples and encouraging group work so there are multiple people and music genres going through the class. If they had been developed well, there will be a wide variety of songs through different genres and even some original works depending on the students working. Some next steps, as I want to be a choir teacher, would be to apply this to a song we’d be working on. Usually gospel songs require some improvisation. If we were to take a break in between concerts and do this lesson, and then introduce a gospel song, they’d all be able to figure out more ways to add to a song besides just singing the word “baby” a lot of times, and more than just 2 people could audition and do well. This experience is definitely based on a summer camp experience that I’ve actually had at the vocal arts camp here, but with technology. We were actually learning a gospel song and we all had the opportunity to improv. The teacher didn’t have auditions first, she just told certain portions of sections to do what they want for practice, so they find out what sounds good. She then told us not to be scared of trying something that would seem strange. She told us to sing what we were doing, and then she proved her point by singing “Hakuna Matata” to what we were doing and it sounded AMAZING. Then once entering college, we have learned how to use garage band or the like, and we even recently had a class that worked off our reading on improvisation and composition." First off I can see that the person that typed this has put a lot of though into it and has used some dynamite comparisons for their examples. But I feel like working in groups would cause the students to rely on the one student that would know how to use the programs and the rest wouldn't be obtaining any information from the situation. I agree on the fact of improvisation being important and a valuable skill, I believe that is a skill everybody could do and everybody could benefit from. I feel as that if they can improvise then they have the true understanding of music and the natural feel of rytham, as for when you improve you are writing music in your head and developing a sense of feel for chords and rytham and style. So from the beginning I would keep the class opening and I would allow my students to ask questions after I preform for them and let them pick my brain some on what I just did, also answer any questions they might have about their later assignment. I would do that so my students would understand what I was doing exactly and I would also show them how widely they can spread their creativity because the thing I want to do the most is make them think and share their thoughts, then I would have them find somebody else in the class and reflect their opinions or ideas on that student. Then I would tell them to somehow combine their ideas into one and form one hypothesis or design or whatever the case may be and then wright down what the have talked about and turn it in at the end of class so I can see their ideas. The whole point of this process is to have my students develop multiple points of view on a situation to get a better understanding of what might be a good or, not a bad idea just different idea. My students will never have bad ideas just unclear ideas. I would go as much to have them build something with an ostinato in it but, I would like them to build past the idea of just an ostinato so my students learn multiple things in one setting. I would also give them a bit more time then one class considering since this is high school and the students might be a little overwhelmed and have other classes and also it would give my students more time to develop ideas and not throw together a sloppy assignment lacking info and depth and clarity. Sometimes I feel that learning as much as we want to rush the process, it takes time to develop a healthy mind. I feel like presenting/preforming them would put a lot of unnecessary pressure on the students. I feel like for an assignment like this it should be optional to present it for extra credit but I would rather have them share it with me privately to give the students a chance to truly express their hidden creativity to me. In summery of how I would run things differently then the prompt I was given I would start out the class the same way, but then I would allow them to answer questions then wright down their thoughts of what they would take and what they would like to do with the experience they just saw. Then I would have them share their ideas with another classmate and then I would have them find a way to combine their ideas and make them really think outside of their box and dig deep into their creativity. Then I would have them wright it down and turn it in for a class work and participation grade. From their I would present my assignment , I would have them build a track containing an ostinato and then I would have them add 3 things to the track that they don't know how to use and then I want them to figure out how to use it so they can take multiple experiences from this assignment. I would give them a week so they can experiment and build on what they have started in the beginning of the week, I then would have them submit it by email or possibly google docs in a midi file or some sort of audio clip. Then later in the week I would allow the students to have them played for the class the class (optional for extra credit) and then I would have the students wright down 3 things about the clip they noticed and stood out to them. If nobody volunteered I would probably just put some of my own clips up their for the students and have them build on that. Then I would assign every student another students audio clip and I would have them add 2 new lines to the original song, then I would have them add 2 other effects/filters or ostinatos, and then send them back to me for a final grade and have a final class discussion on it next week and talk about what can they take from this experience and use in their own development as a musician I feel like with this process It would be a bit more efficient and the students would take a bit more information in the end and be opened up to new ideas and would be able to also share their ideas. I feel like not limiting the assignment to a day will also not rush creativity and will allow the students to become more open and truly design something completely from their own thought process. the class discussion and papers would just be to make sure they are thinking and they are not just taking advantage of the class. Like I said their is no wrong answer I just want to see what has developed in their heads. I want to know I have impacted them and made them a better person and musician by the end of the course. The technology needed for this assignment would be a computer or some sort of internet device, I would provide them with multiple sites with free trials that would allow them to get creative for no price and as of computers being available, I would stay after school a few days and get a computer lab reserved to make sure every student has the chance to work and build on this assignment and themselves. To lead the experience I would need a knowledge of how to do all the assignments I have given because it wouldn't make much sense to assign something and not know how to do it myself. Id also need to understand theory and voicing to be able to suggest better ideas or different ideas on their assignment when submitted. Barriers that might affect this assignment would be depending on the program it might be harder to do some things because they are all so different and sometimes even for experienced people opening new programs to you can be difficult. But I'm having faith in my students to discover what they need to be successful. I feel my students would learn independent creativity and also would be able to use the basics of some sort of music production program. I would assess it based on if it meets my guidelines as spoke of before, and if they really built it from their own mind or just copied it down and put random notes and didn't really try (you can tell). The outcome isn't as important to me as I just want them to take something from this and be able to use their new knowledge for their own experience and advancement in music in the future.
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From the assignments I have been doing in my MUS150 class, I am going to talk about what I would do if I was introducing an idea as a teacher to my students. I would teach my students how to use a program like garage band, I would probably take them to a computer lab and at first and then have them open it up and just play, then after about 20 minutes or so, then I would introduce them to other parts like loops and how to change the filters on the keyboard. I believe this experience matters because it broadens the horizon of music to students who have just been exposed to classical or jazz. I believe this will enlighten students to more then being a music major is, just being about classical music or jazz music, I want them to realize that they can be who they want as a music major and their is more to it. The abilities and skills my students would develop is to add their own feelings into music because they will finally be able to compose music how they want, and then with that, the realization how melodic lines work with chord progressions and the even flow of music between the two. Writing about this has made me realize that being a music major is not just about classical music and jazz and all the types covered in class, we are called music majors, meaning we can preform in any aspect and genre we want we have the ability and skill to do so and with my education I shall have no limits.
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Brandon RhinehartHere I will be posting lesson plans and reflections. Archives
December 2019
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