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MUS654

Encouraging learning: A graph with perspective

At uni my teaching students follow along with the topics of open music class #MUS654 as a stimulus for learning about designing a curriculum. One of my aims is that students connect outwardly and begin to form wider networks of inquiry with teachers and musicians. Although this year I haven’t succeeded in convincing people to make blogs and post outwardly, the students occasionally allow me to share their ideas. This post is about a task I gave students to create a representation of their 1-year curriculum to present in our class session, with strict instructions not to use powerpoint. I wanted some creative representation, and that is exactly what I got.

Brady made a graph and a graphical representation, and gave me permission to share his ideas with you. It is also fitting that he made a graph, as in another course (where I’m the student), #el30, the task this week was to make a graph. Lovely when strands of life cross paths, isn’t it?Read More »Encouraging learning: A graph with perspective

Shuffle the deck: Scales becoming tunes #MUS654

Listening, and thinking on the way music creeps under your skin to make you move… I spent this week thinking on scales and their relationships as part of – of notes to notes, and yes, the relationships of the notes to people. Context can be everything and it can change so much. The way things are ordered, presented, and the way we look at them is important for how people attribute meaning.

For each type of musician, there are different physical parameters that influence the mechanical logistics of how we paint our sounds. Let me explain… in my last post I talked about how singers don’t use ‘fingerings’ for their notes. They have intense links between the conceptual understanding of what needs to be done to achieve a certain pitch and then they make the sound. There is no looking (down the throat!) to check they have the right positioning. Yes there are physical aspects of singing that can be seen – like mouth shape and torso placement/use, but there are unseen aspects and somehow there is a strong connection between the mind and the outcome.

Likewise for other instruments the mind is very important, but there is this pesky other bit that cannot be ignored… As a cellist, I work with my hands Read More »Shuffle the deck: Scales becoming tunes #MUS654

Scaling it up: More than a ladder?

Talking with a number of different instrumentalist:

An ukulele player, bassist, violinist, clarinettist, and a singer about topic of Scales and the Relationships of Notes.

Discussing how scales are specifically used and understood within and across different instrument specialisms opened some eyes and gave us food for thought.

We started with big quesitons:

What actually are scales for? When do we play them? When do we learn them?

It seems perspectives shift with experience as well as with instrument. There is a basic awareness that scales mean notes and the relationships of notes. This equates to building a geographical knowledge on some instruments. The physicality of the instrument was accessed through scales, in effect adding steps to the ladder. Beyond understanding this geography, some people said the usefulness of scales was simply as an exercise in dexterity – and that students ‘do’ scales because they have to.  (Image CC-BY by Naveen P.M.)

Ouch. That sounds unpleasant, complex, and maybe unnecessary?…

But then the singers piped up.Read More »Scaling it up: More than a ladder?