Nurturing Student Self-Efficacy in Composing

A resounding theme in this week’s readings and discussions was the ways that we as music educators can engage with the “other 80%,” or students who do not participate in musical ensembles or traditional music classes. A related component of this is the interplay between non-music students and their peers  who are engaged in traditional music programs. And, in a more general sense, how we might reach out to both simultaneously. Technologies like the one we explored this week, Soundtrap, allow us as educators to instruct students from a variety of musical backgrounds using the same pedagogical medium. While the program itself does not change, Soundtrap is equipped to cater to the needs of expert musicians and novices alike. In my own experience with the program, it allowed me to dabble in a more modern compositional method (which is not my forte) for this week’s project, while at the same time imagining a number of classical applications for my own personal use.

This hearkens to another area discussed in this week’s literature, or the diversithy of thought on compositional pedagogy. On a basic level, there is some agreement on the benefits of composition in school curricula. Our reading cites five different rationale that make up these benefits, ranging from expanding children's understanding of the world, to developing direct understanding of musical concepts through experience, to encompasing a full breadth of musical knowledge in "a proccess that allows the child to grow, discover, and create" through "meaningful engagement with sounds" (Bauer, 2014, p. 59).

But academics are divided when it comes to how to instruct students in compositional theory. There are two basic schools of thought, one of which advocates the use of standard musical notation in composition as a demonstration of basic musical literacy. The text uses the anlogy of whether or not one can be said to be proficient in a language if he or she cannot read or write in that language (ibid.). Conversely, others advocate for composition without notation, specifically with the “other 80%” in mind. Resources like Soundtrap, as I discussed above, have the potential to reach out to both schools in providing an avenue for composition that can make use of both traditional theory and more sound-based methods. Still, it does not make use of notation, which may be a drawback for traditionalists.

A final aspect of this week’s module touched on the nature of MIDI and Digital Audio. This was particularly relevant in constructing our composition for this week using Soundtrap, as these were two of the three mediums available (and required) for use in our compositions. MIDI simply refers to stored information in binary that informs MIDI-capable devices of a specific sound or sets of sounds to be played. This file-type is utilized by sequencers to create musical sounds. Digital audio, in contrast, denotes an actual digitized recording of a musical performance, captured with a microphone or other recording equipment and transmitted as an audio file.

References

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Creativity and Technology

When it comes to the extant literature on the subject of creative thinking, researchers have identified a "creative process" that consists of a number of stages, which vary depending on the source. Our text cites Wallas’ four-fold model of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification as a standard (Bauer, 2014, p. 49). In this context, the preparatory stage of the creative process involves the acquisition of the basic knowledge necessary to adequately develop a unique creative idea. Tying this into improvisation, for example, this means that one must understand basic aspects of music theory in order to be equipped to create a sensical melodic and/or harmonic progression.

In my own case, while I have had a grasp on music theory for some time, improvisation has been one of the weakest areas of my musical proficiency. To be honest, it is an area in which I have had little experience, which is why I have considered it a weak area. However, since beginning my course of study at the University of Florida, I have been encouraged to venture outside of my comfort zone and engage in all areas of creative musicianship, including improvisation. Last semester, I actually had the opportunity to make improvisation the focus of my final project for a course dealing with the area of creativity in music education. The exercises and process I undertook in completing that project expanded my outlook on improvisation as such and encouraged me to incorporate improvisation into my pedagogy. I even took the opportunity to work improvisation exercises into my curriculum, exploring improvisation with my students as I worked on the project.

Another area of creativity I mentioned above is composition. This week’s course of study had us taking a look at a number of different vehicles for musical notation, including software and web-based approaches. As someone who has “grown up,” as it were, using Finale, I was a bit outside of my comfort zone this week. But I quickly grew fond of both MuseScore and Noteflight, finding their interfaces both intuitive and, in some cases, easier to use than Finale. It was valuable to explore these resources, as they open the door to possibly using these tools with my students in the future. Tools like these would them to engage in creative compositional pursuits. 

A final area we explored this week was the realm of MIDI. As the text explained, MIDI simply stands for "musical instrument digital interface" (Bauer, 2014, p. 26). MIDI is something I have had familiarity with since I was a young child exploring the novelty of the internet. Its application in the realm of music education is manifold. For example, MIDI is used in the compositional software discussed above. It is also featured in sequencer programs, which allow students to explore different musical sounds and patterns and the ways they interact.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to devote a significant amount of time to the study of creative areas like improvisation and composition in the context of institutional curricula that are predominantly focused on performance and/or mastery of the fundamentals. And even on a pragmatic level, we may find it difficult as instructors to justify spending precious classroom time on improvisation when our students cannot even identify basic rhythms and note names. Still, this program has shown me the importance of incorporating a healthy balance of all of these aspects of musical pedagogy where and when possible. A multi-faceted approach will garner results and a more balanced understanding of musicianship as a whole in the minds of our students.

References

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Bicycle Built for Two

Noteflight is a convenient web tool, which opens the world of music notation to a variety of people who might not otherwise have access to expensive programs like Finale. It is also convenient in that it does not require a personal computer to download, unlike other softwares that are free for use. The easy-to-use interface is helpful for those who might not be particularly adept when it comes to using the aforementioned software. Most of the locations of tools were intuitive; I did not have to study the tutorial materials for long, and a quick google search garnered fast results when a question arose. This is an excellent application that I would consider using with my students, who have access to school-issued Chromebooks.

The Flat World

The title of this blog post alludes to a reference made in the inaugural reading for Module 1 of "Technology Assisted Music Learning" (MUE6696), a graduate course at the University of Florida. In the text (Music Learning Today), Bauer (2014) cites Thomas Friedman, who contends that technology is a major contributing factor to what he calls the "flattening" of the world (p. 4). Not to be confused with the polemical "flat earthers," this notion of a flattening world posits the idea that the historic barriers that geography (manifested in space and time) posed to human civilization are vanishing as a result of the ever-expanding technological advances of the same. The advent of affordable, user-friendly hand-held computers (masquerading under the auspices of "phones") and the ubiquity of the internet have made it so that the average person can have access to nearly the full wealth of human knowledge at any time and in almost any place.

Individuals born into this context are referred to in the text as "digital natives," while those born before this period are "digital immigrants" (p. 5ff). While there is some dispute concerning what constitutes the so-called Digital or Information Age in terms of starting date, if we are strictly speaking of the ubiquity of the information available on the internet, one might say that I was born on the cusp of this epoch. I can remember a time before having a computer in my home, then going through the period of "dial-up" and snail-speed internet access. Still, some of my earliest and formative experiences are from the Internet. I regularly engaged in online debate forums from about age 9, and have been a frequent computer user ever since.

But I did not have a smart phone until well into my college years. And many of the social networking platforms utilized by my students are foreign to me. Keeping abreast of the media used by the younger generation today is a real challenge in this regard, and ensuring technological resources remain relevant is something I have spent time thinking about to this end. This provides a sort of segue into the next area discussed in module 1, which is the role of technology in education.

From the time I started middle school, my teachers have made use of SmartBoards for educational purposes. In elementary school, these were often used ineffectively (occasionally, as backgrounds for overhead projectors!) due to their novelty. But by high school, nearly all of my teachers used them regularly for multimedia presentations. Having grown up with this standard, I have naturally incorporated it where appropriate in my pedagogy as well, fine-tuning it to accommodate the specific content at hand. Unbeknownst to me prior to viewing the lecture video for this module, there is actually a model called TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge) that deals with the intersection of area-specific content, pedagogy, and the effective use of technology.

To use a more pointed example, I would submit the Incredibox application we utilized in this week's module as a way to examine TPACK in action. Effectively utilizing this application in a classroom setting would require an instructor to possess basic content knowledge pertaining to musical areas like form and rhythmic groupings. The instructor's pedagogical knowledge would have to be such that he or she could effectively communicate not only these basic principles, but also how to effectively use the application to demonstrate and enable his or her students' self efficacy to create their own mixes incorporating these ideas. Finally, the instructor would have to make sure that the application fits into the curriculum agenda and goals for his specific context  and is able to be utilized with the technological resources at hand.For my own part, I can readily envision utilizing the application in such a way.

To wrap up this module 1 blog post, I would like to make note of the new Personal Learning Network (PLN) that I have established as a part of this course. While I am an avid user of social media, Twitter is not a medium I have ever considered in a professional context. It has been interesting over the course of the week to view my classmates' posts and see how "tweeting" can be an effective way to collaborate and share strategies. I look forward to seeing its application in the weeks ahead.

References

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York City: Oxford University Press.

Inaugural Post

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