This week’s workshop looked at ‘listening to music’ or
organising sounds. Students should not only be learning how to play a musical
instrument but they also need to learn how to listen to a piece of music and
understand what it is trying to tell the audience. It is argued that students
in music class seem to only be listening to music passively and not learning
that music is an “expressive artform” (Gibson and Ewing, 2011, pg. 114).
The
four musical pieces were Camille Saint Sáens Carnival of the Animals: ‘The Swan’,
Edvard Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’, Danny Elfman’s ‘The Ice
Dance’ and John Williams composition for the Harry Potter movies ‘Hedwig’s
Theme’. These four songs had to be listened to very carefully to look for the
main instruments that played the piece, and what elements of music were present
in each. We had to listen for “duration, pitch, tone colours, dynamics and
structure” (Gibson and Ewing, 2011, pg. 111). Teaching students how to
understand the elements of music can make them a better learner in class.
Reference:
Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the Curriculum through the Arts. South Yarra,
Australia: Palgrave Macmillan.
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