Connecting
Classroom and Instrumental Music Instruction: The First Lesson
by Bruce Gleason, Ph.D.
In
the last issue of Kjos Band News, I mentioned that dialogue between
classroom music teachers and instrumental music teachers is crucial for
streamlined K-12 music programs. Too often, however, the “us against
them” frame of mind gets in the way of true dialogue, with classroom
music teachers wishing that “instrumental teachers would build on
what we’ve taught and put in place,” and instrumental teachers
thinking that “it doesn’t matter what students have been taught;
we’ll have to start at the beginning with them no matter what.”
Hopefully, the following suggestions will help provide a foundational
dialogue across the music curriculum.
Some school systems have district-wide curricula
for K-12 music. If you are part of one of these districts, congratulations!
But you probably aren’t in the majority. With current interest in
the National Standards, now is one of the easiest times to implement such
a curriculum. Building and expanding on the suggestions as outlined in
the National Standards can attain continuity across all of the grades.
The first of the National Standards Content
Standards is “Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire
of music.” In other words, the National Standards are advocating
that the music curriculum for grades K-12 has singing as its basis.
The reason for this is that a human
voice is the best place to start with music instruction because it has
the closest connection to the inner musical process, and that with strong
progressive development, combining music reading initially with singing
instruction will lead to musical literacy. Further, because the voice
has no valves or keys to operate, it is also the most readily available
vehicle for developing early artistic expression.
Several years ago I had the opportunity
to take a two-week Kodaly Level One course. Although I have taught a fair
share of classroom and vocal/choral music, I typically think of myself
as an instrumental teacher, a minority in a Kodaly class. What I learned
in that brief course, however, in terms of inner hearing, or “audiating,”
significantly changed my ideas about music literacy and learning. I quickly
echoed the opinions of my classmates who wished that they had been taught
to audiate, to truly hear intervals, rhythms, and patterns before seeing
them on a staff, in undergraduate ear training and sightsinging courses.
If your students are coming to you with
some solfège training, build on it rather than ignore it. If they
haven’t had solfège experience, you can easily implement it
in your instrumental classes.
Forget about the music staff of five lines
and four spaces for awhile. Teach students to develop their ears apart
from their eyes. After students have learned the first three notes (mi,
re, do) from Standard of Excellence,
to develop their audiation skills and the application of them to their
instruments, do the following:
- Sing a simple (do, re, mi)
solfège pattern and have students echo you with their voices.
Then have them echo your singing on their instruments.
- Sing a pattern, using the
pitches do, re, mi, on a neutral syllable, and have students echo using
solfège syllables. Next, have them play that pattern on their
instruments. With a large group, have some students sing while others
play.
- Have students improvise
vocally, first using small tone sets (do, re, mi) with given rhythms
or over given numbers of beats. Let them take turns singing first and
then playing. Have students echo on their instruments what others sing
and vice versa.
- Write do, re, mi, (or d,
r, m) in various combinations on the chalkboard in two ways, first with
all tones written on the same visual plane: do, re, mi; mi, re, do;
etc. (by beginning with tones written on the same visual plane, students
learn to hear intervals between pitches without visual aids) and later
with the tones written in proximity to how they sound:
After students have an understanding of pitch and duration, begin using solfège with their lesson books and with exercises you have written out.
- With students’ books
closed, you sing Exercise #1 from Standard
of Excellence. To teach rhythm and to develop students’
sense of “rhythmic flow” (steady beat), clap the rhythm of
Exercise #1 while singing the solfège syllable mi. Whole notes
are executed by pulsing each beat with the palms together. Whole rests
are executed by pulsing each beat with the hands apart. Next, have students
play on their instruments what they have just sung. Now, have students
open their lesson books and relate what they have been playing to the
written notes. Play Exercise #1 again, but this time students should
read the music from their books. This is the time to teach pitch and
note names.
- When new notes or rhythms are introduced in their lesson books, repeat the aforementioned process using the expanded pitch and rhythm sets.
Remember
that solfège is most effective when it isn’t initially attached
to a staff. Don’t introduce solfège by showing students a
staff with pitches written on it and pointing to three pitches and telling
your students that these are called do, re, mi. That’s like pointing
to the word spelled “d-o-g” and telling a person who doesn’t
speak English and who has never seen a dog that this word is “dog.”
With more advanced students who have a wider
command of their instruments (high school students included), go back
to the beginning of an early lesson book. Then have them play exercises
in different keys by changing where do is. Students will connect the transposed
exercises more readily if they can hear in their minds (audiate) the solfège
pattern, rather than thinking “I have to play everything up two pitches.”
The key to effective solfège use
is to sing patterns before playing them. Continually bringing students
back to the first National Standards Content Standard of singing will
give cohesion to the broad K-12 music curricula, and will help students
build on previous learning.
Many of you have plenty of experiences in
connecting classroom music with instrumental instruction. In addition
to my comments and ideas, we would like to gather information from you
for future issues of Kjos Band News.
Send comments to:
Kjos Band News
Neil A. Kjos Music Company
P.O. Box 178270
San Diego, CA 92177-8270
email@kjos.com
Dr. Bruce Gleason is an
assistant professor of graduate music education at the University of St.
Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota where he teaches courses in music education
and advises graduate research. His current research areas include comprehensive
musicianship and band history.
Copyright © 2000
Neil A. Kjos Music Company. All rights reserved.