The Use of Writing as a Tool to Teach Music: the Benefits of an Interdisciplinary Curriculum

This work is from 2001, but remains pertainent and so I re-publish it here now

Introduction

As music educators, how often have we come into contact with other members of our school faculties from disciplines other than our own, and felt like alien entities in the same institution? We share many similar philosophies of education with our colleagues, and certainly the same students, but the appreciation we develop for each other’s subject matter is often too limited. This separatist view, which has its roots in many areas of our modern educational system can be detrimental to students who might otherwise benefit from the interdisciplinary collaborations of their teachers. This article is designed to provide some practical classroom applications for the music educator in connection with other work students are doing in their elementary, junior high, senior high school, or even college freshman English or writing classes. Of equal importance I provide some of the learning theories guiding the planning of my interdisciplinary approach to teaching music (and writing) in order to show how I have created my curriculum. My hope is to spark the imagination of music educators and writing instructors to continue this process of creating imaginative work for students. This work could have just as easily been titled "Music as a Tool to Teach Writing" with very little theoretical re-conceptualization.

There are constructs within a successful written text (essay, article, review, etc.) analogous in many ways to a well-crafted music composition. Stepping out of one’s principle discipline, as teacher, and examining some of the fundamental assumptions and practices we hold as we approach our daily teaching and academic activity, whether composing, writing, researching, editing, or practicing, can be an exciting way to grow and develop as scholars. Particularly when the sequence of study in one field may be useful to incorporate into another. For example, if I am teaching a college writing class to read in a way which will help them understand not just what the text means, but how it means; in other words, how it was conceptualized and formulated. Similarly, I can use a music composition to show how one can hear beyond simply what it is expressing, but more deeply understand how it was constructed to express it. The understanding of that "construction," whether of written text or music composition is essential for students to begin forming their own voices as composers or authors.

Theoretical Basis for my Work

Jerome Bruner’s constructivist theory of learning specifies a method of teaching taking into account the past and current knowledge of the student and developing it into new, more complex levels of knowledge through active encounters with the material. The teacher enters into a Socratic "question/answer" mode of engaging the students aimed at triggering their imaginations and curiosity; the student is then moving forward because he or she wants to satisfy answers to questions the teacher has raised. The process of moving forward is conceptualized in a theory of spiral learning. This is the act of visiting certain areas of knowledge, and then re-visiting them at more complex levels after the student has mastered simple tasks. For example, teaching the concept of the major scale and the names of the notes at one point on the spiral, and then later on teaching the major scale and the relationships of the scale degrees to one another; tonic, dominant, subdominant, etc. One of the key ideas here is "engagement." This is important because students don’t think as much when they are being lectured to; at least not most students. Especially when it comes to music and writing, active engagement is essential before learning can happen.

Patricia Campbell in her "Lessons from the World," discusses imitation and its use in music education in the various cultures throughout the world. It is implausible that a beginning piano student could learn to play a complicated piece of repertory simple by witnessing a teacher play, say, a Chopin Mazurka. There would need to be adequate preparation at a much more rudimentary level. A group of pre-school children, on the other hand, are easily able to listen to and imitate their teacher who sings them a simple, diatonic melody with predictable rhythmic and melodic patterns. Activities we, as teachers, expect out students to imitate must be observable. This is particularly important as we use writing in the music classroom. It is essential that we write for our students in ways they can observe and imitate.

Practical Applications for the Music Classroom

Specifically within my own class plan I visit the material at increasingly complex levels, as the student is ready. For example, I might start with mood. I would delineate some of the outward characteristics of a piece via a class examination and discussion using writing as a key element. Then, as the lesson progresses, I begin to discuss some of the features of the construction of the piece such as mode. Making sure that all the students are able to identify the character of a listening example is important. By asking them to write about the music, it is possible to generate a class consensus about whether the piece is joyful, melancholy, dark, or light-hearted. Once this is established, the class is then ready to begin exploring how the composer achieved what is being communicated in the music. Did he use the minor mode? Is there an ostinato bass? What effect do the tempo indications have on the mood we as a class have identified? As a starting point, writing is used as a tool to deepen our understanding of the music.

I have included here a lesson plan for a 3rd to 6th grade music class to exemplify work designed to lead the student to an understanding of the structural components of music, which communicate mood, emotions, and feeling. My objective is to get the students thinking about how the composition may have been planned by the composer to communicate "things" or "messages" to the listener in ways related solely to the language of the music itself, apart from sung vocal or choral texts. I engage the students in this process through writing. Collaboration with the school English teacher to plan a larger writing composition assignment will assist the students to deepen their understanding of the next step after this lesson which is to approach the material from a music theory perspective. Many of the activities typically used in a writing workshop are very helpful in the music classroom. Such workshopping activities include dividing the students into small groups to read their writing for each other, presenting their writing to the larger group for critique or exchanging papers with a partner for input and reactions. Here is how the class activity is designed:





I. Introduce the Work of the Day.

Be brief with the introduction, but be clear. Talk about the kinds of class work we will be doing- listening, writing, speaking, and sharing ideas. Be sure to tell the students when they will be expected to share their writing, and when it is private writing not to be shared. Remember that establishing a sense of community and trust is very important before students will feel free enough to write in ways which are expressive of feelings which can make them vulnerable before their peers.

II. Establish a Prompt

Use a prompt to begin to formulate a class vocabulary for talking about music. This will require some careful guidance; hold the students accountable for their words, making clear that if they use "boring" they will have to explain why. A beginning prompt might be: "what words can you think of to use to talk about music?" You might ask them to call to mind a recent experience in which they heard a piece of music, which caused them to feel a certain way. Put all of these terms on the board or overhead projector.

III. Listening

Play Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Minor or any Mozart piano sonata you wish. Listen without writing, but ask them to think of the vocabulary established by the class as the music plays.

IV. Writing

Now listen again while writing. Ask the students to write at least three sentences about the piece using both the vocabulary established on the board as well as their own personal language. Begin to encourage answers with supporting evidence. Writings making unsupported statements should be discouraged.

V. Sharing

Ask the student to share the thoughts they have written with the class. This is a time when you can divide the class into small groups of three or four and ask them to read their sentences for each other. Grouping the students according to creativity and ability can lead to a more fruitful discussion within each group. After ten minutes, ask them to return to the large group and share their work publicly. Here are some examples of the work my third grade class came up with:

"When I listened to the Mozart it made me feel happy. It made me want to dance. It was very beautiful. It was a song that made me want to listen to it again. It gave me many emotions. I think Mozart did a good job."

"The song went from happy in the beginning to sad, and then to happy again. When it was happy the music sounded like drops of rain. When it was sad, it was very graceful."

"The song was very soothing and I felt like I was waiting for the Italian ice man."

It is important to look carefully at the work the students produce to see what it may tell you about your teaching and their learning. If the student is not understanding the work of the class, back up and repeat the section of the activity .

This work is an introduction to a series of lessons beginning an in-depth look at the components of Mozart’s Sonata from the perspective of music theory. It is just a beginning. The next steps in the following classes can lead to activities both in music analysis and in expository writing, both lead individually by the music teacher and writing teacher, but planned collaboratively to draw connective elements from both disciplines.



WORKS CITED

Bruner, Jerome S. Toward a Theory of Instruction. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1966.

Campbell, Patricia Shehan. Lessons from the World: A Cross-Cultural Guide to Music Teaching and Learning. New York: Schirmer Books, 1991.