World Music Pedagogy, Volume III: Secondary School Innovations

Karen Howard, Jamey Kelley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138041127
• eBook ISBN: 9781351704465
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

World Music Pedagogy, Volume III: Secondary School Innovations provides a rationale and a resource for the implementation of World Music Pedagogy in middle and high school music classes, grades 7–12 (ages 13–18). Such classes include secondary general music, piano, guitar, songwriting, composition/improvisation, popular music, world music, music technology, music production, music history, and music theory courses. This book is not a depository of ready-made lesson plans but rather a tool to help middle and high school teachers to think globally in the music classroom.

Strategies and techniques of World Music Pedagogy are promoted by discussions of a multicultural music education, descriptive vignettes of realistic teaching environments, conversations with culture-bearers/pedagogues, and prompts for self-reflection. This volume approaches important issues of multicultural education and social justice that are often neglected in music education texts—proving to be a valuable resource for both nascent music educators and veteran practitioners alike.

1
Teaching and Learning in Context

Music of the world’s cultures can be a captivating musical adventure—and the many fine musical expressions of our world are accessible with just a few clicks of the mouse or taps on a screen. With an Internet connection, one can travel to the other side of the globe in a matter of seconds and experience the rich musical heritage of geographically distant cultures. This is an unprecedented time in human history, where communication with culture-bearers and artist-musicians is literally at one’s fingertips. In mere seconds, one can be transported to the East African country of Tanzania where ululations ring out as Wagogo women sing, move, and play hand drums, building sonic layers atop each other. On this virtual journey, one can witness artistic collaboration as world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma plays Saint-Saens’ “The Swan” right alongside the improvised movement of Lil Buck, a dancer who specializes in an African American street-style form known as “jookin’ ”—a compelling experience to watch for (and listen to) in the deeply expressive dance reflection of the music’s melody, rhythm, phrasing, articulation, and dynamics. A listener can experience the Yoshida Brothers playing “Kodo” on the traditional Japanese shamisen, a three-stringed instrument, with lightning speed and accuracy. The musical world of secondary school students can also be explored at a glance via a Minneapolis-based group of children performing their own rap lyrics about their favorite snacks, Hot Cheetos and Takis. Similarly, the strident tones and dissonant chord clusters of a Bulgarian women’s choir are ready for the listening ear. There are infinite possibilities for learning musical concepts and skills as they are expressed around the world within the secondary school music classroom, needing a music teacher who is brave enough to embark on the journey.

The purpose of this book is to enable the understanding by secondary school students, under the tutelage and facilitation by music teachers, of people of a diversity of cultures through experiences with their music. This book is meant to serve as a resource for the implementation of World Music Pedagogy (WMP) by teachers within secondary school music classes of various innovative performance, creative, and academic emphases, and to suggest ways in which social justice is put into play through a musical education that encompasses the expressive knowledge and values of diverse cultures and pursues an equity agenda. The descriptor “secondary school music” as used here refers to grade levels 6 through 12 (approximately ages 12–18) as conceived by the U.S. education system, with attention to students (and their teachers) in schools referred to as “high school” and “middle school.” The book is subtitled “Secondary School Music Innovations” to suggest the focus of this volume is on music teachers and their students in secondary school music courses other than the long-standing instrumental and choral ensembles (which are the targeted topics of Volumes IV and V). This volume centers on the distinct music experiences of secondary students in diverse settings, such as class piano, guitar, music theory, and those courses growing in popularity like digital music production, songwriting, mariachi, composition, popular music ensembles, and world percussion ensembles.

Of note is our attempt to consider how non-standard music courses may fill the needs and meet the interests of an extensive population of secondary school students who are not drawn to standard music study but are keen to know music, to play it, sing it, listen to it, create it, and move it into their lives beyond school. The insertion of a broad set of musical experiences from local and global cultures can tune students into their family cultures, the cultures of their friends, and the world of cultures into which they will one day graduate.

The following chapters are not intended as a depository of ready-made lesson plans, although there are exemplar descriptions and illustrations of pedagogical components throughout the chapters. Rather, they are meant to function as a tool to aid music teachers in thinking globally, culturally, and socioculturally as they design music courses in middle and high schools in urban, suburban, rural, and small-town settings. The material contained within this book is cued to WMP strategies and techniques through discussions of the essence of multicultural education and ethnomusicological considerations in and through music, depictions of WMP in action through descriptive vignettes of realistic secondary school teaching environments, and conversations with culture-bearers, artist-musicians, and master teachers.

The content of this book is organized by the five dimensions of WMP as designed by Patricia Shehan Campbell (2004) as they pertain to the learning and development of secondary school music students. Each chapter focuses on essential experiences that encourage musical development and cultural understandings, from deep listening through to composing in the style of particular world music cultures. In this chapter, secondary school music innovations will be explored as a suitable and necessary environ for the implementation of WMP. After examining types of secondary school music as well as the students within them, critical issues and philosophies related to WMP will be proffered for consideration.

Secondary School Music Innovations

Ms. Harmon is starting her fourth year as a music teacher at Morrison Middle School. She is a graduate, with honors, from a local university and well-versed in the methods of instrumental and choral ensemble instruction. Despite her conventional training in a music education teacher program, her job responsibilities do not include large traditional performance ensembles. Her teaching schedule includes one section of piano class, two sections of guitar, a survey class of world music traditions, and a new addition to the course catalog, the World Rhythms Percussion Ensemble. This elective course is open to all students enrolled at Morrison and features a different world music culture every eight weeks.

In addition to providing quality musical experiences within her classroom, Ms. Harmon strives to facilitate meaningful interactions between her students and the community that highlight the social and cultural connections created by music-making. Working with the cultural commission at Morrison Middle School, an organization of parents and school faculty, an annual fundraiser supports the hiring of culture-bearers and artist-musicians to work with students in the development of a performance assembly for the school. This year, a New York– based group specializing in the performance of traditional Japanese percussion music known as Taiko will soon be in residence. Ms. Harmon makes it a point each year to connect the resident music culture with the lesson content in one or more of her classes.

As the artist-in-residence group for the coming term features taiko drumming, shakuhachi (Japanese flute), and folk dance, she decides that her World Rhythms Percussion Ensemble is the appropriate course in which to integrate lessons about Japanese musical traditions. While she also briefly prepares the students in her other courses and ensembles for the upcoming music residency, she wants to create plans for her percussion ensemble that will take the students deep into the music culture via meaningful listening experiences. Two months before the guest musicians arrive, Ms. Harmon e-mails the director of the Japanese music group. She explains her intention to work with her percussion ensemble students on taiko rhythms and asks for guidance in appropriate materials. The director is excited to speak with a music teacher so keen on sharing his music culture. He sends her some brochures that he has prepared for his own students that indicate basic taiko rhythm drills. He also includes suggestions for reading material, audio clips, and online videos that he feels are of high quality for repeated attentive listening and beginning attempts at engaging with the new sounds. Ms. Harmon readily implements the materials in her class, guiding students through listening and opening the ear to the sounds of Japanese taiko. She also presents information about how these new musical sounds they are exploring function within contemporary Japanese culture.

Because she does not have actual taiko drums, Ms. Harmon decides that the school’s supply of congas and djembes can be substituted for the Japanese drums. She practices diligently on her own leading up to the lessons with her percussion ensemble so that she will feel comfortable teaching the rhythms to her ensemble. On the day of the first lesson in taiko with her percussion ensemble, the students enter the music room to a recording of a taiko group from Japan. The virtuosic flow of pitches from the fue (bamboo flute), the bachi (drumsticks) striking the tile floor, the dry cracking sound of the drums, and the players’ shouts of encouragement fill the room. The students’ eyes go wide with excitement as they find their way to a drum.

Ms. Harmon exemplifies a secondary school music teacher looking for paths into teaching world music cultures. She collaborated with a culture-bearer to develop meaningful lessons that reflect important features of the music culture. She understood the reality of learning circumstances in a classroom setting rather than within a specialized program of taiko study in Japan, and she readily adapted her teaching by using the instruments available to her. She also demonstrated an understanding of the time she needed to put in with her own research into the music culture, practicing the music that was new to her, and thinking of effective teaching and learning experiences for her percussion ensemble students to listen and respond to the music.

Over the past 50 years, secondary music programs have extended the learning opportunities open to students by offering classes beyond the familiar ensemble experiences found in band, choir, orchestra, and even jazz band. Many secondary music programs now offer courses in guitar, keyboard, beginning and advanced theory, popular music, songwriting, digital music production, and an array of globally oriented courses that may reflect the musical activity of the local community, student interests, the expertise of the music teacher, or a particular music culture or genre. Progressive music programs have insisted on providing music experiences that are more relevant to the students’ lives and that emphasize the development of skills in individuals, rather than group performance in high-stakes concerts. Freed from performance and festival schedules, students can experience music deeply, through intentional listening episodes, participatory music-making, as well as studying music as culture, in knowing its context and purpose.

We use the term Secondary School Music Innovations in an inclusive manner to reflect unique teaching and learning scenarios that feature the phases of WMP. Secondary school music offerings, including a wide array of courses offering varied musical experiences to adolescent learners, are also included. These course suggestions are meant to open the circle of curricular offerings to a fuller, more comprehensive, and more democratically expansive representation of musical potentials and student interests. Throughout this book, teaching and learning examples as well as descriptive vignettes will be used to illustrate how WMP can be employed in a panoply of secondary music classrooms.

In many secondary schools, especially those at the middle school level, music classes outside of the realm of performing ensembles have been designated as “general music.” With about 40 years of use in some regions, the label of “secondary general music” is variously defined, is sometimes inclusive and sometimes not, and comes with assumptions or misconceptions. Often, “secondary general music” teachers are given very little guidance as to what should be included within a so-called general music curriculum. This lack of direction may lead to course offerings that consist of a hodge-podge of music experiences. Some teachers use rotations to structure their courses, such as exploring ukuleles, piano, steel band, and composition, each for a quarter of the school year. Other music teachers conceptualize secondary general music as an extension of the type of experiences students have had in elementary music classes: a variety of activities in singing, note-reading, and playing instruments. Such a description of secondary school music does not encapsulate the diverse music course offerings that are possible in secondary schools, nor does it suggest learning experiences tuned to adolescent student interests and needs. Courses classified as secondary school music may share some of the same intended goals of those courses grouped within the label of “secondary general music,” but they are markedly different in organization, content, and execution with an aim toward equity in a broad representation of people, music, and cultures. Secondary school music is already pressing toward a broader array of possibilities for musical study, all of them angled to allow students to have participatory experiences in making music of their own and others.

Even though the course description of “general music” is used within course catalogs or master schedules in secondary schools, it will not be used here due to the lack of specificity in the label. For clarity, teaching settings will be described in specific terms, such as a “songwriting class” or a “world percussion ensemble,” so as to leave no doubt of the curricular intentions of the class. While teaching episodes or examples will be presented for specific course types, savvy music teachers can easily adapt any of the exemplar scenarios to their own secondary school music settings.

Growing numbers of secondary schools are offering classes that may be referred to as “multicultural music,” of which there are two varieties. The first type of class in this category is a survey course, sometimes called “survey of world music traditions” or “global music.” This type of class does not focus on one world music culture but affords ample opportunities for listening, performing, and connecting to diverse musical styles from around the world. The curriculum for this type of course covers the similarities and differences in global music cultures and their musicians, while celebrating the immense diversity of sounds to be found.

The second type of multicultural or global music class gives students the opportunity to learn the performance tradition of a specific music culture. Examples of this type of class may include mariachi, gospel choir, Indonesian gamelan, Zimbabwean marimba (sometimes called “Zimarimbas”), Caribbean steel band, bluegrass band, or West African drumming. At times, the facilitators of these classes are culture-bearers themselves, whether they are faculty members of a school or artist-musicians who are brought in for particular experiences. At other times, it is music teachers who are learning new instruments, repertoires, and ways in after-school, weekend, summer workshops, graduate study, and community work. In addition to the valuable skill-building that happens in these classes, secondary music students learn the important cultural meaning these musical traditions have for the musicians who maintain them. The celebrations, struggles, and traditions of the music cultures start to become clear to secondary students through lessons developed with WMP considerations in mind. Students can develop and grow in empathy for their school, local, and larger global community through these teaching and learning experiences.

Many middle and high schools offer courses that allow students to become skilled on a particular instrument in a setting outside of the conventional band or orchestra. In many cases, students will progress at their own pace through the prescribed musical material. Group guitar and piano are the most frequently offered classes of this type. In more recent years, rock band and popular music classes have been introduced during the school day. Emerging popular music studies are promoting musical learning through listening and imitation rather than reliance on music notation. Songwriting is occasionally offered in secondary school settings, which may or may not require guitar, piano, or theory as a prerequisite; this class allows students to refine their lyric writing and chord progression skills, while providing a forum to perform for peers. Popular music classes, songwriting, guitar, and piano are becoming more prevalent within secondary school music programs as an alternative or addition to traditional large performance ensembles. These alternatives are often viewed by secondary students as more relevant to their lives, as well as building contemporary skills that they believe they can continue to develop beyond graduation.

With technological advances, music classes are developing with a focus on composing, recording, and producing. These classes could be called Music Technology, Music Composition, or Music Production. In some music programs, these offerings have been specifically designed to attract music students who may be uninterested in participating in band, orchestra, or choir, or who are unable to do so due to lack of instrument instruction in their younger years. Most of these classes are held in computer labs and use software packages that aid in music notation or help students create the sonic output. Content within these classes can include multimedia development, learning electronic musical instruments, or live sound reinforcement. With the advent of these types of classes, secondary students are given the opportunity to learn musical skills that may have been previously off-limits to them; before the development of music software like Garageband, secondary students could not elect to take a composition course without fluent understanding of music notation. These technology courses, as well as many of the innovative secondary music classes already discussed, provide more access to music education for all secondary students, not only those who have had previous experiences with performing ensembles.

Many secondary school music programs offer music theory to develop musicianship keyed to notation and literacy concepts found in Western art music as well as to prepare students for collegiate music study. These courses often feature fundamentals and basic musicianship at the entry level while upper levels may introduce part-writing and aural skills. While these courses focus on reading notation and traditional aural skill acquisition, creative teachers can introduce activities that incorporate performing, composing, and improvising as well as the concept of music as culture, rather than solely a collection of sonic stimuli to be categorized and analyzed.

It should be noted that music theory, especially Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate versions of music theory, may marginalize various forms of musical learning as well as music genres. Just as university courses in theory teach Western art music with little acknowledgment of the world’s musical cultures, so, too, do secondary school theory courses exclude music beyond the Western art styles. Just as Western art music study requires notational literacy, so, too, should secondary school theory courses require practice of the oral-aural means of music learning. High school theory classes often examine music as a written form, to be analyzed and dissected, but not to be experienced in an embodied way. While theory courses may incl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Episodes
• Chapter 1 Teaching and Learning in Context
• Chapter 2 Attentive Listening for Cultural Awakenings
• Chapter 3 Participatory Musicking
• Chapter 4 Performing World Music
• Chapter 5 Creating World Music
• Chapter 6 Integrating World Music
• Chapter 7 Surmountable Challenges and Worthy Outcomes
• Appendix 1: Learning Pathways
• Appendix 2: List of Audio/Video Recordings
• Index