Let’s Be Creative
April 4th, 2006 by Ted
There is an interesting comment on Melissa’s post regarding sharing student popular music online. Mallory writes “I really wish that all schools had the ability and time to look into children’s music. It was give the children a chance to express themselves individually, and then maybe more students would enjoy music, and the programs in high school would increase.” I found Mallory’s optimism refreshing. I too hope that we can create spaces for students to engage music in a way that creates authentic musical experiences. I agree that attention needs to be paid to creativity. Can we find new ways of engaging music creatively with our students? Evan and I have discussed ways in which technology might play a role in facilitating the creative process. However, each time I work with students in composition projects (I work with 6th graders after-school) I find myself with a lack of viable pedagogies. I’d love to hear of your successes in student composition projects! Has anyone tried incorporating compositional processes into instrumental programs or large ensembles?
I just read an interesting book by Lucy Green titled “How Popular Musicians Learn” in which she describes how Music Education might learn from coming to understand the popular music culture and its “informal” learning practices. Is anyone doing these sort of things in your classrooms? How can we avoid subsuming popular music into the existing structures, but create spaces for these “informal” practices? To fulfill Mallory’s wish I wonder what abilities we should develop as music educators and where those of us involved in these student composition projects find the time.
Green’s research has been a challenge to music educators here in the UK. It has made us reconsider not just the content of the music curriculum but how it is delivered. Green’s final chapter outlines the implications of her study of ‘informal’ learning practices for the ‘formal’ pedagogies found within classrooms. From my experience, there definitions are often blurred in the work of skillful teachers in the classroom. But, as a general principle, this chapter is worth reading carefully and contains many excellent starting points for teachers as they reconsider their teaching practices. Many of Green’s ideas are underpinning a large piece of music education research funded by Paul Hamlyn. See http://www.musicalfutures.org.uk/ for futher details.