“Music is a moral Law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness and life to everything.” –Plato
In our first music workshop we discussed the importance of Music in education. We discussed how music can enhance childrens learning in a variety of ways such as helping to develop their brains facilitating academic achievement and developing creative capacities for life long success.
As someone who has had a passion for music from a young age I completely agree with this. I took trumpet, piano and guitar lessons from the age of 7 and was in bands, orchestras and vocal ensembles the whole way through my school life.Music has taught me many lessons, such as the importance of team work. Playing as part of a group teaches you about the importance of listening to each other and not just focusing on yourself. Hallam states that music “helps individuals learn to support each other, maintain commitment and bond together for group goals” (Hallam, 2010, p279)
Music has taught me resilience and how to pushing through a hard situation, often when learning an instrument you come up against challenges in the music which can make you want to give up and quit, but this then drives you to keep going because the satisfaction of completing something you thought you couldn’t do is so much better.
“Success in music can enhance overall feelings of confidence and self-esteem, increasing motivation for study more generally” (Hallam, 2010 p278). Music has given me much more confidence. I used to be someone who would have been petrified to get up in front of an audience and do a presentation, but I often got made to perform solos at school concerts. The more I got used to performing in front of people, the easier it became to present my self without hiding behind an instrument. These are just a few of the many things I have gained from being involved in music.
Part of the workshop was to listen to different excerpts of music and discuss how they made us feel and how easy it is for music to alter our mood. Then we listened to a piano concerto by Shostakovich, which had various different sections to it and in groups we had to create a storyboard that went along with each section of the music.
My group came up with a circus story and drew a different part of the show to go with each different section of the music, e.g the lions being tamed and the loud music diminuendos, the gymnasts swinging from trapezes as the music accelerates etc. We then presented our stories to the rest of the class and I found it very interesting to see how different each groups story was, one group had a story about pirates, another group had a story about a cat and mouse chase. This just shows how each individual can have such different creative ideas from the same stimulus.
I thought this would be a great task to use with children as it not only gets them engaged in the music, but it is also a a great task to integrate music, literacy and art together. Some children can struggle to come up with ideas for a story or a drawing, so I thought this idea of using music as a stimulus to think creatively about literacy and art was a great idea.
This task also meets the expressive arts outcomes:
“I have listened to a range of music and can respond by discussing my thoughts and feelings. I can give and accept constructive comment on my own and others’ work.” EXA 1-19a / EXA 2-19a
“Inspired by a range of stimuli, and working on my own and/or with others, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through musical activities.” EXA 0-18a / EXA 1-18a / EXA 2-18a
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the session and I think this is a lesson I would definitely consider using in the future.
References:
Hallam, S. (2010) The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. International Journal of Music Education. [Online] Vol. 28(3), pp. 269–289 Available: http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/715660/mod_resource/content/2/International%20Journal%20of%20Music%20Education-2010-Hallam-269-89.pdf [Accessed 20 December 2016]
Shostakovich – Piano concerto No.2 [Online] Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFanayBhyeA&feature=youtu.be [Accessed 20 December 2016]
Watson, D. (1991) Wordsworth Dictionary of musical quotations. Compiled by Derek Watson, Ware, Hertsfordshire, Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
