I love alliteration and old expressions. So, if someone is said to have “sailed the Seven Seas,” well, they’ve been around a bit. They know a lot about a lot. In my class, I want students to know a lot about a lot, not just the aural sense of sound.
I put some graphics up on the classroom wall with images for the following words, which describe many of the activities and observations I think are important to understanding music AND life. In each class several of these should be at work in the individual or group dynamic. At the bottom of this page I’ve included a graphic for each of these which you can print or alter to use as you like. All are verbs except concept. I thought better than to use “conceptualize” in my class which was just too unfamiliar to ask my primary students to acquire.
Critique, Concept, Concentrate, Coordinate,
Create, Composure, Cooperate, Correlate
Don’t be put off by critique. I mean it in the way of comparing and contrasting ideas, what-if’s and the yin and yang of life, not to be critical of others. That should be part of students’ understanding. Important concepts include many more than just musical ones, e.g. ‘sharing’ is a beginning concept for pre-K and some of us older ones need to understand sharing is not about setting a timer so everyone’s turn is equal in length. It’s a bit more than that. The arts are a great place to explore that because we aren’t cookie cutter performers, everyone has a different role on the stage we share.
Another way to describe the ability to concentrate is to maintain a high level of focus. Developing this attribute is a critically missing skill today. We can focus on our phones, but not as well on sounds and people around us, and not nearly as well on our inner self and the mental discipline necessary in building essential skills.
It is apparent to most that instrument playing takes coordination, but vocal coordination is much more difficult to see and recognize. Did I mention doing both at the same time, plus the mental coordination needed for any musical task? Then there is the interpersonal coordination of group performance and rehearsal management to become adept at.
So much is being written now on the importance of creativity, but don’t forget even the smallest choice can be a baby step toward a great composition. Allow space for it in every experience. One of the most common thanks I received from students and parents was for ‘making them’ get up in front of a crowd and perform even when they were scared to death. That sense of composure and trusting they can “go on” is built by little tasks everyday that ensure that peers and adults will respect their efforts. Butterflies may never go away, but terror and fear should abate with safety and competence in every task.
Cooperation is such a complicated dynamic. So easy for those who grow up around it, and so challenging for those who have not experienced working with others. The graphic I use is simply an arrow that points in one direction. That is contrary to the experience of some kids who struggle every day, pulling away from the chaos of their many family issues. They’ll even say how they feel pulled in all directions. They don’t easily go along with the group for fear they’ll lose their ability to hang on to this survival tactic. I wish trust started with a C. Compassion is a start.
Probably the most invigorating C for me is the idea that everything is interrelated. Finding the correlation and connections to every possible subject from the simplest of children’s songs to the most complex symphony is a never-ending search. All things human is the subject matter for a music teacher’s class. Begin anywhere and there is a path to music and back.
Each of these C words has so many nuances to explore, from concrete, overt behaviors to subtle, neurological gymnastics and psychological displays of personality and emotion. The more people in the learning experience, the more wide open the ocean, but the richer the journey. Sail on!
RecapitulationSong 