Week 5 ~ Music ~ Elements of music

When Nancy asked us what the elements of music were I was struck by how I could barely remember any of them. This struck me because I studied music all through school and outside school including grades. Yet despite this I was still in the same situation as most primary education students, faced with the concern that I don’t know the content for this subject. However as (Mills, 2009) considers, generalist teachers ought to focus on what they can do rather than what they can’t. Although ability with music is desirable, there can be an over focus on skill rather than student learning. So long as the teacher can grasp the level of knowledge expected for primary level music, they can become confident music teachers without being highly skilled in music practice or theory.

Today was an example of how anyone can teach primary music. Within minutes we were already using percussion instruments to play along to simple sheet music following the note value and then we progressed to melodic instruments playing also to pitch (such as the metalophone, xylophone, etc). Picking the right music, especially those that have been especially developed for the primary music classroom helps in this process and provides great support and structure for teachers and students alike. Resources such as JozzBeat (JozzBeat Music Publishing, 2011) provide simple music pieces  catered to primary learners which can provide a sense of accomplishment.

The Concepts of Music (Gibson & Ewing, 2012)

Tone Colour- Sound source, sound production, combined and single sources of sound

Dynamics- Volume (forte, piano), changes of volume (crescendo, decrescendo), accents

Pitch- Direction of pitch, patterns (phrases, ostinatos), melody, harmony

Duration- Note value, metre, rhythm, tempo, beat

Structure- Repetition, patterns, phrase, call and response, canon, form

(Source: Leglise, N (2014)

Cowbell for first activity-Facilitating percussion for the making component of music

References

Gibson, R & Ewing, R. (2011).Transforming the curriculum through the arts. South Yarra: Palgrave Macmillan.

JozzBeat Music Publishing. (2011). JozzBeat. (05/04/2014) from: http://www.jozzbeat.com/

Mills, J. (2009). Music in primary classroom. Retrieved (05/05/2014) from:

http://www.edition-peters.com/resources/0001/stock/pdf/9780193364950.pdf