We’ve got creativity on the brain at The Music Studio this week! In fact, we’ve come to think of creativity as a core principle of both music teaching and learning. The kind of music teaching that combines conceptual and technical information with the opportunity to experiment with your own personal music making and to listen to and talk about a variety of different kinds of music with your music teacher is just not common enough as far as we’re concerned.
Maybe it’s time music education took a page out of our arts colleagues’ book. Think about how an art teacher works with children drawing or painting – from the beginning, students studying art learn about art techniques by actually making art. Drawing, painting, and working with clay are very personal experiences while you also learn. Drama instructors tend to work in a similar fashion, helping young performers work out their dramatic roles. Those who teach poetry usually ask their students to create their own poetic structures while learning about others’ poetry. What’s more, parents of young art, drama, and poetry students get to see almost immediate results with their children’s work making it to the hallways of their school, or the refrigerator door at home.
Children studying music, on the other hand, might go months or even years before they get the opportunity to perform music they have created themselves. Of course, the goal of any good music program is to provide students with a solid technical and conceptual understanding for playing and singing, but this is only a part of the overall musical experience. As an example, when a young trumpet player is learning the most basic sounds their instrument can make, there should also be encouragement to try improvisation and early compositional work. From the very beginning, a creative exploration of musical listening aught to be a big part of the work the student does, and should include a wide range of musical styles.
Think, for a moment, how this might have an impact on the student’s motivation. With a lot of opportunities to create music comes the desire to learn more about technique. Practice time is not just something that is demanded by a teacher with technical goals put forth by the teacher. Instead, there’s the student’s added personal investment to improve. Listening to their own recorded performances focuses their attention on the need to improve their sound. Students who are asked to analyze their own performances, and maybe even their own music, become more engaged and ready to improve.
Think about the impact there would be on the world of musical education! Parents would have the opportunity to not only hear their children perform the music of others, but their own music too! Students could learn from each other much earlier in their education, and could even form their own ensembles. More musical styles could be explored, and more non-traditional ensembles could be formed, ready to make more non-traditional music!
What’s more, adding a bit of creativity to the music classroom might also help with the study of music theory and music history. For example, the study of music theory intricately intertwined with personal composition and improvisation might lead to a more thorough and in depth understanding of the theory. A creative approach to listening might help to add new dimensions to music history as well – there are more tools out there to make historical information more engaging. This in turn might lead to more interesting thoughts and actions where performance, theory, and music history all meet.
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that school music programs in many K-12 schools, and into post-secondary institutions, have not fundamentally changed all that much in one hundred years. Of course, technological advancements have changed how teachers operate some programs, as well as record and reproduce music, but the kind of music taught, and most programs’ “top-down” approach to instruction of music remains basically unchanged.
Bands, orchestras, choirs, and all manner of music programs teach their students to perform tonal Western concert music, which is important, but it should be mixed with more formal attention to other styles, most specifically, popular, folk, and world music. Classroom music instruction for younger students can, and should, continue to be defined by singing and movement, but there is an opportunity to add in some attention to early composition, improvisation, and creative listening. For many music schools, this may also mean rethinking their classes to include more attention to technology.
Learning and performing Western concert music is something that should be celebrated, and should and must continue. However, with the wide variety of music available to us today, and the large number and diversity of students and parents, there is a price to be payed if this old style of teaching and learning is not blended with other ways of making music, reflection, and creative thinking.
That price is music being seen as “elitist” – nice for the talented few, but too much of an expense for more school programs, and not a core element of most schools. Music is often seen as vocational training, or even simply entertainment, and not a central pillar of all students’ development of personal expression, creativity, and aesthetic understanding. This means music teachers have to resort to arguments outside of music to defend music as helping student concentration, independence, and math scores – instead of as a fundamental way of knowing what the arts provide.
But this can all be avoided with the injection of a little creativity and fun!
Looking to fill your life with a little more musical creativity? Experience the joy of making music with other students in one of The Music Studio’s exciting ensembles. Joining an ensemble is a great way to further develop your musical skills and confidence in a relaxed learning environment while making new friends.
The Music Studio’s ensembles are designed for children and adults who are comfortable with at least the basics of their instrument, and are intended to complement a student’s private lessons. Students are organized according to musical interests, skill level and age.
Classes are held in The Music Studio’s well-equipped Ensemble Room which features professional mics, amps, keyboards and drums. Get all the details here!
