Week 6 Reflection

    Some of us remember having mix tapes. Mix tapes were made by a person that recorded their favorite songs off the radio using a cassette player. I made mix tapes for myself in high school, and once the technology advanced enough I burned CDs of my favorite songs. When listening to a song, it was in conjunction with other activities (Bauer, 2014). The activities range from traveling, lounging in my room, or cleaning. Most of the music I was listening to was common to what was on the radio. The only intuitive listening I was doing not deemed popular music was Jazz. I played in a jazz band in high school and college. Hearing jazz music was formal listening but later became intuitive listening because the style of music became a part of me.

    Aside from playing in a jazz band, I would have never gravitated towards jazz as I did. As an elementary general music teacher, I am given a tremendous opportunity to expose my students to different genres of music that they would not necessarily choose from on their own. Younger children exhibit more open-earedness than older children (Bauer, 2014). My primary students have been more eager to listen to and sing music from different genres of cultural backgrounds than my preteen students. Nevertheless, it is important to give a representation of different genres of music because it may positively impact students’ reaction to them later in life (p.109).

    My students will continue to listen to music all of their lives, but the goal of a music educator should be to develop lifelong music listeners. Instructors need to develop students’ ability to respond emotionally to the expressive properties of sound (p.108). These properties include the timbre, phrasing, and themes. With elementary students, it is best to use short excerpts of songs. As these songs are being, played instructors should have students attempt to put in words the sounds they are hearing.

    This school year I made it a priority to expose my students to music from different time periods. I choose “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt Suite. With this particular theme, I was able to expose students to different musical terms such as tempo and dynamics. With my older students, I was able to explain the idea of a motif and relate it to music they hear when they watch a movie. Most importantly students were encouraged more to describe the music they hear in class. I don’t expect my students to gravitate to every genre of music they hear in my classroom. I do want them to be expose to different styles of music and make connections with it.

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