How music classes can be

Technology, in my opinion, should be integrated into the classroom, you cannot get away from it, and it is part of today’s young people’s lives. However, technology is taking over people’s lives, a real problem of our modern society; almost all of our free time is spent in front of screens .

Technology provides a level of learning never seen before and can bring incredible experiences for the student. How to integrate it into the classroom so that not only the content but also the human experience is meaningful?

I will report one of my experiences. In September last year I took a course called Candomblé Ketu rythms for classical guitar, where the professor advised us to use the Soundcorset Tuner, Metronome & Recorder mobile app where we would place the claves of the instrument called gã (traditional name, but it’s better known as agogô ) of studied rhythms and we would practice the rhythms adapted for classical guitar along with the rhythm clave. A simple use, but it made the process more practical as you didn’t need to have someone play percussion to practice.

When I went to play one of the rhythms studied (Ijexá) in a band I felt a big difference. I had only practiced the rhythm with a machine, never with one person. The adaptation was easy, but I felt a great need to practice the other rhythms studied (six in t0tal) with humans. The human element gives the music a lot more flavor and I had a much better understanding of the rhythm by practicing it with a percussionist. No machine can replace a human being in these cases.

After this experience, and with the knowledge gained in this MOOC, what can I extract to bring to my classroom? How can I make music class meaningful to each one of my students?

I truly believe that we must always affirm our culture, our ancestry. As I am Brazilian, I think it is essential that our world famous music is valued and studied by our young people, after all music is very strongly related to identity (I recommend MOOC The Importance and Power of Music in our Society for more details) . It makes us feel part of a group, the identity of a nation is fundamental for the development of a society.

Young people’s lack of interest in more traditional music can be converted into interest if we know how to bring elements from the young world such as the music they listen to and the electronic gadgets they use. For example, this song below was very successful in Brazil.

The song above is clearly influenced by the rhythm called “baião”. Compare with the tradicional song below.

Similarities? Predominant use of I-IV-V and very similar rhythms. One naturally has a more modern aesthetic and nontraditional instruments of its kind. But we already have similarities in two fundamental aspects, harmony and rhythm.

I can propose, for example, that the student play the modern music in a more traditional way and play the most traditional music in modern way, encouraging him to create his own arrangements using music that is part of his (modern) universe and tradicional songs.

Continuing to develop this idea I can teach the mixolidian and mixolidian b7 modes, traditional modes of the “baião” genre, and encourage students to improvise on a vamp of a dominant chord. Or use the scale to compose a melody more focused on the traditional side of the genre.

Having the knowledge of the instruments used, the rhythms and knowing how to relate traditional to modern music is possible to do this with any genre of music. Another example

The traditional and religious touch called “Congo”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=Xm1HwpQ_sS4

And The brazilian funk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDFvT7pxhzk

Notice in this case how the two songs use the same rhythmic clave.

In this last example we go to music that originated in Africa and came to Brazil through enslaved people. Why not talk about history? Why not create a PBL (Project based learning) about the history of slavery in the country and relate the (drastic) moment that the country lives with its past and also show the history of our music through the rhythms that are reinvented over time?

The possibilities are many, but as we have seen we can study rhythms, harmony and scales valuing our culture without denying the present. That said, where does technology come in? After all, this is the second point to attract students to our tradition … ancestry.

A good idea, in the case of Brazilian rhythms, is to use the app Beat! Percussion fever that has rhythms ready, one click away from the student. It serves as the basis for the student who will play percussion play along, the student who will comp play with the application’s percussion as a backing track and for the singers (or whoever plays the melody) to practice getting more in the pocket with the genre.

Another interesting use is for students to use DAW as Reaper which is free for them to record the versions / compositions made. For each to record in the comfort of their home they can use a storage service like google drive to share the tracks, and a group of students is responsible for mixing and another for mastering.

It is important to stress here that the teacher should stimulate student interaction at all times, encourage them to play together, search together, exchange information and not just stay in their searches in front of screens and playing along with machines, because this way you lose one of the most important elements of this whole project, human interaction.

Finally, I finish the MOOC The Place of Music in 21st Century Education with this text. Happy with all proposed reflections and proposed activities. The blog does not stop here, I believe this MOOC was the beginning of many reflections.

See ya!

Questions from a MOOC

Let’s look at the questions and reflections placed this week at MOOC The Place of Music in 21st Century.

1. You were introduced to the DAW (or sequencer), the step sequencer, and a range of notation software. Do you feel you would like to explore any of these technologies further?

As for DAW (Digital Audio Workstations) I need to take time to study them and thus increase my work horizon. I want to study Ableton Live.

The DAW I currently use for recording is Reaper. It’s free and has amazing features.

As for Step Sequencer, I don’t have much contact but I use an App called Soundcorset Tuner, Metronome & Recorder where I programmed Afro-Bahian rhythm Claves in the step sequencer this App has.

I have been using notation software for a long time. In my case I use Finale.

2. Have you been persuaded that the DJ-producer does have an awful lot of sophisticated musical skills?

Yes, but I thought that way before the course. It is very clear that today’s DJ-producers study much more music than in the past and musicians who have had formal education in the field are also entering this DJ’s universe, thus raising the bar for this kind of production.

However …. There are still many DJ’s who know nothing about music. But with the competitive market as we see the tendency of these is to disappear.

3. Do you agree with David Price that learning has gone “OPEN”?

Yes!! I mentioned this in another post HERE.

Open Education is significantly cheaper than traditional courses and you can do at your home. In short, it saves time, money and there is no need to leave home to be done. Eventually in some cases you have to take a few classes, usually on weekends, a few times during the course.

4. What were the best examples of OPEN learning that you found either in the course content, in your own searching, or the work of your peers?

The ones I discovered are these:

Bradesco Foundation (Portuguese Only)

Focused on the general job market.

EdX

Edx has a wide range of courses in several languages. I recommend looking at the course Artistic Research in Music – an Introduction

Future Learn

Site also with a wide range of courses in several languages. I recommend Becoming a Better Music Teacher from ABRSM

This Below was a colleague here from the course you indicated.

Open Learn

I found two good music courses to do when I have free time: Assessment in secondary music and Teaching secondary music

5. What does Project Based Learning (or the other BLs) have to offer Music Education? And what does Music Education have to offer Project Based Learning, and all learning, in the 21st Century

PBL’s help integrate areas of knowledge. For example: Nowadays there is a great demand for the musician’s career self-management, career self-disclosure, social networking etc … A good PBL involving digital communication and administration with students composing music and spreading music in social networks and managing costs of advertising, production and other elements.

Music can be an aggregating element of various elements of a BL. When students study various subjects and with the acquired knowledge they can make a composition and put Lyrics based on the studied subject, adding artistic value and practicing creativity.

There are instances of teachers who make music to help students learn topics of certain subjects.

Check it out this chemistry teacher who did some Brazilian Funk’s about the electrochemistry of batteries (portuguese)

See ya

How much technology?

The question asked this week at The Place of Music in 21st Century Education MOOC was “How much should we integrate technology into our teaching?”

This is a delicate and fundamental question. We have to keep in mind that technology can provide incredible things. View this talk by Sugata Mitra

I know the video is long but I will point out two key points of this talk.

  • Mitra has done several experiments in which he makes computers available to children in India without them knowing English or having had any contact with computers before. He noted that not only did they learn to use the computer but that they could learn, with almost no assistance, almost any content that was offered to them on the same level as students from high-end schools with qualified assistance.

Check it out

  • He proposes an innovative school model that he calls “School on the Clouds”. This idea revolves around Self-Organized Learning. Quoting Mitra:

“My wish is to help design a future of learning by supporting children all over the world to tap into their wonder and their ability to work together. Help me build this school. It will be called the School in the Cloud. It will be a school where children go on these intellectual adventures driven by the big questions which their mediators put in”

Content would be available in the clouds and students would be guided by mentors to answer big questions. Furthermore, it would be possible at a low cost to provide education for people around the world, even those in poverty.

Ideally, with this idea from Mitra we envision an excellent learning opportunity using modern technological resources.

This model of education amazes me. However, we have some questions to answer.

In this talk below

Dimitri Christakis shows how important it is to keep children as young as 3 years old away from digital media. Studies seem to point out that traditional education is beneficial for children of this age.

Taking this to the field of music I will quote a Brazilian compatriot Luciano Luan Gomes Paiva.

“In the area of ​​music, it is possible to perceive aspects such as: the low ability to focus on the same activity for a longer time, the longing for immediate responses; the difficulty to maintain a focused attention, among other aspects. All these points happen not only by the use of digital technologies, as they are related especially with their overuse. “

Here Paiva addresses issues by use and overuse of technology in learning.

Given these arguments (positive and negative), it is clear that technology can be innovative in education as long as it is introduced at the right time in life and without its overuse.

Now a little provocation. Does technology have more negative or positive impacts?

I believe it has more positive impacts and it is inevitable that schools will modernize and adopt methods that use and abuse technological resources. Why do I say inevitable? Because this is already a reality and I don’t see a forecast of stopping in the evolution of technology.

As we have seen, the idea of ​​Mitra can bring quality education using technology resources around the world, even in extremely poor places using existing technologies.

Another positive point, central in my opinion, presented in an article in the Brazilian Association of Musical Education (ABEM) magazine Gerson Leme and Claudia Bellochio state that:

“The sooner the music teacher gets in touch and thinks about technological alternatives as mediators in music education, inserting them in their daily educational practices, the smaller the gap in technological knowledge he has in relation to the technological context that his students have. Experience, which can be positive, given that this can provide the narrowing of the teacher-student relationship in pursuit of common goals related to music education. ”

In short, technology brings teachers closer to students. And I believe that even in teaching without technology this approach is a constant pursuit of education.

In addition to these aspects, we can mention several others … but let’s stay here.

Another central element is that today’s young people are immersed in a world full of technological resources and music teachers should not stand still watching the world around them change without interacting with the changes that are happening and their student’s most likely follow.

The choice of technologies to use and when to use them depends on the teacher’s technical ability and creativity. Technology without critical use makes the class simply “computerized” and negative (based on the ideas of Bellochio and Leme).

The use of technology is inevitable but its overuse and misuse are harmful in education. So how to answer the question of the first paragraph? For me, at the moment it’s impossible. And to be honest I found no definitive answer. But…

The central point to me becomes …. How to integrate technology into music teaching and focus on the positive points it brings?

That is the question…

Popular Music Education

One of the things that surprised me most when I entered the popular music college was the colleagues who played very well were professional musicians in search of deeper theoretical knowledge. Their quest was to understand musical structures in a more … structured way.

When I saw the video classroom music is an alien in The Place of Music course in 21st Century Education MOOC, I immediately remembered these colleagues. Especially when Hein says: “And I feel like, the way the pop musicians and the way that I learned, you learn actual songs and then only much later than you decompose them into their smallest constituent parts. Because it takes some sophistication to be able to do that.”

In this same MOOC the reading of this video is suggested. Check it out.

Lucy Green proposed a simple method, in theory, in which “The approach involves the pupil listening to a recording and attempting to play it by ear”. Method based on the way that popular musicians learn until today. More details on Lucy Green method can be seen here

Although music education is evolving to adapt to the new types of music that emerge we can not forget that traditional music teaching has existed for centuries, and if it lasts for so long there are certainly good reasons for that.

An interesting interview with João Camarero that talks about Brazilian music and how the popular universe merges with the traditional.

I believe that it is up to the teacher to know how to get the best of both worlds and adapt their lectures to each class / student. It is up to each one to think and see what his objectives are in teaching and to use the most appropriate method, whether it comes from the popular or traditional school.

Reflections on technology, education and the future.

About 12, 13 years ago I read a story in which the someone said that the most important thing in the future would be “learning to learn.” Unfortunately I did not find the magazine in which I read this, I only remember having found it fascinating.

This idea, as Stephen Heppell shows here, is not new (he published on his blog in 2013 and brings reports from 2011,2012). Information is increasingly available and the means of production increasingly accessible. Here is a reflection on the relationship of music, music education with these facts.

Just remember how much audio production cost 15-20 years ago. How expensive were the equipment needed for this kind of production. Today there are very cheap equipment and they deliver a professional quality.

Look at the the examples of Northern Beaches Christian Scholl and Hilltop Road Public School, both in Australia, given in the MOOC course The Place of Music in 21st Century Education, would it be possible to use such advanced technologies if the cost of having such equipment was the same as 10, 15 years ago? However, for a satisfactory result, our knowledge of how to operate each of these elements of this chain comes into play.

The lowest input cost is only one element of this equation. The knowledge widely available nowadays to operate these equipment’s, software’s and platforms are fundamental. The professional of the future has to retain knowledge of several areas to stay active in the market today. Basically, nowadays, a person assumes the role of several people in productions of the past.

It is there, I believe, that the role of technology enters into learning. Technology as Teo Chee Hean, quoted in Heppell’s text, “is more rapid than the typical timeline for educational research studies,” therefore one must think of an education in which people have access to the means of production that they should use in the future, which will certainly involve a lot of technology, and train those people to be able to quickly embrace change. After all, the world is changing faster and faster. Autonomy in this constant adaptation is an important tool for people these days, in the future will be key.

I believe that a full basic education, which includes music, is another important factor in this super complicated equation. The development of talents involving creativity and cooperation, fundamental elements of music, are fundamental. As Heppell said in his text: “In a world awash with content, much of it free, markets turned out to be about memberships and mutuality, whilst ingenuity and creativity were scarce and valued.”  

Learn how to learn is the key to the future, and music is the way.

The Place of Music in 21st Century Education

In recent times, I have been increasingly attracted to online courses. I can easily fit them into my schedule, (for obvious reasons), they are significantly cheaper than traditional courses and saving me a lot of time, since I do not have to spend time (and money) to get around.

The future of education is intrinsically linked to technology. It makes the cost much lower, classes are better planned (since classes are usually recorded in short to medium length videos) and it is much easier for the student to work and study at the same time, since in these courses I can watch the class when it is convenient.

Not to mention the facilities and possibilities that technology provides…. So nothing better than studying these new paradigms in my area: Music education. Recently I found this course: The Place of Music in 21st Century Education

Check it out.

Sounds good? You can find more information and enroll in this course here. It´s free!

I’m still in the first week of the course and the little I saw made me very excited. By the way … making this Blog is the first lesson of the course. Cool huh?

See ya

Rafael Lázaro.