Module 8 - Synthesizing

Twitter Post:

Learn music theory in an innovative way that uses your whole self: mind, soul, and body! tinyurl.com/b2b3l94

Elevator Pitch:

Are you tired of endless rote exercises to memorize things you don't even understand? Good news – there's hope! Now you can learn music theory in a more comprehensive and creative way then you ever thought possible. Begin with a playful introduction to music, through listening, coloring, and dancing. Rhythms can be learned using physical items you can manipulate, intervals can be learned by creating your own song using different intervals, learn the significance of analyzing chords and how this can effect your music, sympathize with your audience by creating a story to share within your music, and learn to play with your music through improvisation.

White Paper:

Here in the music education world, we run into a couple of major problems. First, there's the teachers who, for whatever reason, don't teach music theory to their students. Maybe they don't understand it themselves, or maybe they're tired of their students not making any progress in it. These teachers produce students that are incapable of thinking about their music and how to create their own. The result? A generation of musically-stunted individuals, with perhaps less music being written than previously in history. The other problem are the teachers that try to teach music theory, but they do it in such a way that emphasizes rote memorization rather than understanding, creating musicians who fail to see the magic and inter-connectivity of music theory. What's needed is an entirely new curriculum for music theory, one emphasizing creativity and connections.

My curriculum begins with a playful introduction to the joys and language of music. Students are given blank paper and coloring utensils, and asked to color what they think of when they hear music. This is a simple activity that can be used with any student, of any age or ability, but it helps get them thinking about music. Does it sound happy or sad? Angry or wistful? Is it fast or slow? Complex or simple? These are all questions that can be answered without them having to be asked. After we have colored to a few pieces, we then begin dancing to the music. This helps us think using our bodies, which is called embodied thinking. It gets us thinking about tempo, rhythms, and style.

Next, students are introduced to rhythm in a completely new way. Rather than being represented with marks on a paper that are either completely, or mostly, meaningless to students, rhythms will be represented with colored strips of paper. By representing rhythms physically with pieces of paper, the time each note takes is translated into physical space each note takes up. This provides a different way for my students to experience rhythms, in a way that enables deeper understanding. Through manipulating the rhythms, students can directly experience that each dotted quarter note gets as much time as three eighth notes, and that having a dotted quarter note and an eighth note is a different rhythm than having two quarter notes, though they take up the same total amount of time.

After my students have gained some more proficiency with their instruments and music, it will be time to introduce intervals. Intervals are basically very simple, but they require practice. Rather than beating the poor intervals to death, I would like to have my students study one interval at a time, and start by finding those intervals in their music. Next, they will get to compose their own piece, using mostly that interval. Other intervals will be present, but it should keep coming back to their target interval. To really drive home the point, in addition to composing a melody, they will compose a harmony that is mostly their target interval lower than the melody. It would really help them get to know each interval, how it sounds (some really don't sound great!), and it would be great practice harmonizing with a melody.

When it is time for students to start analyzing chords, rather than simply analyzing the chords, they will use what they find to help inform their own playing. They will try emphasizing the root of the chords, then the third, then the fifth, and experience how this effects their music. Students also in the studio orchestra will have the opportunity to analyze one of their orchestra pieces, and use what they find to interpret the piece in a different way, indicating to the other members of the orchestra which parts should be emphasized when.

When working on a piece, students will also use their bodies to help learn it, by dancing (or at least moving) with the music. They will be able to use their entire bodies to help them learn and understand the rhythm, style, and feeling of the piece. They will then video record themselves, and watch the recording. Video recording my playing always makes me look at it from a different perspective. When I am playing, I have an internal vision of what I think I look and sound like. By recording my playing, I am able to experience what the audience actually experiences, rather than just what I think they will. I see all of my awkward movements and facial expressions, then can work to make them better. It generally takes several tries to get a satisfactory recording, and both movements and facial expressions need to be modified. In the end, students are able to finish with a much more meaningful performance that conveys a lot more to their audience.

Students will also find photos or videos that represent what they want to portray to their audience while playing their piece, in order to emphasize the importance of going beyond the notes. I like to tell my students that the notes, rhythms, and bowings, while important, are the boring parts of music. It really gets exciting and fun when you can actually use your instrument to communicate with your audience, which is what I believe the whole point of music is. Music truly is the universal language. So, to that end, I want students to explicitly display what they are trying to communicate, by finding pictures that are similar to what they are thinking and feeling while playing.

Finding these photos requires students to explicitly define what they are thinking and feeling. Usually, when playing a piece, I have a vague idea of what is going on, emotionally. But just like trying to talk or write with only a vague idea of what you are saying, playing with only a vague idea is not nearly as productive as it could be. So in finding photos, students will be forced to really know what they are trying to tell their audience. Sort of like writing an outline before you start writing an essay.

Next, students will begin incorporating music history, as well as world history. Oftentimes, what is going on in the world around the composer has a large impact on what sort of music they write. Learning about a composer's life and motivations can help bring perspective to the process of learning a piece. With all of the complexities to be found in advanced music, it is all too easy to get lost in all of the little details and forget to take a step back, but this reminds us of the importance of doing just that. Students can use a variety of methods to explore their composer's life and world events, from timelines to pictures to books or articles to movies. Any of these media will allow them to identify key events that may play a part in their piece.

Finally, throughout a student's musical education, they will be encouraged to explore what they are learning through improvisation. Improvisation occurs when a student makes up their own song on the spot, so it is different from composition in that it is not planned. As students learn new notes, rhythms, dynamics, bowings, or keys, they will be encouraged to play with these new ideas, and connect them with old ideas, through improvisation. This final step is vitally important to a full and complete musical education. Just like you can't argue that you know a language unless you can hold a conversation in it, you can't argue that you know a musical idea until you can use it in improvisation. Students can develop any idea through improvisation, which has the added benefit of being a safe and risk free activity. If they hated what they played, there's nothing there to remind them of their perceived failure. If they loved it, then they know what sort of things they really like in their improv and can use it again.

Through creative activities designed to foster students' creativity and encourage connections between ideas, students can once again receive a meaningful education in music theory. From a basic music listening exercise that even toddlers can participate in, through a new perception of rhythms, using intervals in compositions, using chord analysis to influence their playing, playing pieces not just with their instruments but also using their bodies, empathizing with their piece and audience by finding photographs and videos that represent what they are thinking of while playing a piece, incorporating world history into their interpretation of a piece, and using improvisation to play with and develop ideas that they are learning, students will be asked to form connections and think about their music in new and meaningful ways.

Module 7 - Playing

(Representation of activity coming soon.)

Deep, meaningful playing occurs when people work with what they know in an unstructured way, producing new ideas, connections, and insights. The playful introduction I have designed is for a beginning class of music students of any age. After introducing myself at the beginning of class and chatting with the students a little bit, I hand out blank sheets of paper and crayons, colored pencils, or markers. I explain to students that we'll be listening to some music, and I want them to color on their papers, what each song reminds them of. I emphasize that there are no right or wrong answers, and I am interested in whatever they are thinking of when they hear each song. Then, I play four or five pieces that I think induce some strong emotions. Two of my favorite examples are Bach's Toccata in d minor (scary/spooky song) and Vivaldi's Spring. I do not tell the students what the name of the piece is, or what it makes me think of.

This activity is playful, in that it encourages students to have a bit of fun with their music. Often, when students are first starting, their parents have just told them how hard it's going to be, how hard they'll have to work, and they walk in to their first lesson expecting to not have any fun. If this activity is done in a school band or orchestra, students are in the mindset of “this is school, it's hard, it's not fun.” But hand out some coloring utensils, tell students there's no right or wrong answer, and I even tell them they don't have to actually draw anything, that just scribbling colors is great, and suddenly they start having fun. It's asking them to be creative, in a safe environment, which is fun.

This activity is meaningful because it asks students to connect with the music being played. An important part of performing a piece is communicating something to the audience, an idea, emotion, color, or story. This is often difficult for students to accomplish, and all too often we hear wooden performances played exactly the way it is on the page, but without any life. Giving life to music, giving it a purpose, a message, helps to distinguish the mediocre from the great. However, before students can create this message in their music, they first have to be able to hear it in others' music. This activity encourages students to hear a message in music.

I developed this activity to help get my students thinking about music. They don't have to be advanced players to do this, in fact, I will often do this with younger siblings of students; young children that have never played an instrument before. It can also be done with older and more advanced students, and it might help some of them relax. Before I let a student perform a piece, they have to come up with a story for the piece. I do explain that it can be as simple as a color or emotion, but they have to come up with something for it. While I might ask for clarifying details, I never criticize or correct a student's story. What they hear in the music is unique to them, and is theirs to share. So I developed this activity to help get my students started in thinking about music as a communication tool, rather than just another chore or skill.

Module 6 - Dimensional Thinking

Video:

(Please note that I designed this video and the write-up to be looked at together.)

The cognitive tool of modeling is when you are able to take something, and represent it on a different scale or dimension. The dimension I will be examining is that of time. To this end, I will be looking at rhythms, phrases, forms, as well as music history, starting with Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. My video begins with a single phrase in this piece. This phrase is one which I identify as a main theme of the piece; it comes back a total of four times throughout the movement. Then, we back up to look at the entire section this phrase occurs in, the introduction. The introduction of a piece is when a composer introduces their main ideas, a lot like an introduction in an essay. This phrase also occurs in the recapitulation, which restates the main theme again, bringing the piece full circle. Also a lot like writing an essay (this would be the conclusion), the recapitulation often has more development than the introduction. Next, we back up to look at the entire piece. Following the introduction is the development, when the composer takes their initial main ideas and turns them on end, twists them around, inside out, transposes them to new keys, and overall makes them much more complex. The development would be the main body of an essay.

Next, my video backs up to look at the entire concerto. A concerto typically has three movements, a fast movement, a slow movement, and then another fast movement. The Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is no exception. The phrase we initially began with lies in the second, slow movement. This concerto is in D Major, but the second movement is actually in d minor with two flats instead of two sharps. Changing keys like this is relatively common in classical music.

Next, we back up to take a look at Tchaikovsky's life. He composed his violin concerto at age 38, after marrying and leaving his wife after only two and a half months in 1877 (just 6 months before he wrote the concerto), and receiving an allowance from a wealthy widow who insisted they never meet. Tchaikovsky had traveled abroad extensively, and actually wrote this concerto while in Switzerland with a friend.

Stepping back to take a look at the rest of the world in 1878, we can see that Russia was in the process of concluding a war with the Ottoman empire in Turkey, with Russia very much coming out on top. As a nationalist composer, we can use this knowledge to color our interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. Stepping further back, and looking at more of musical history, we see that Tchaikovsky was a romantic composer, born just a few years after Brahms and Bizet, fellow romantic composers. However, Tchaikovsky was heavily influenced by Mozart (classical), Rossini (classical), Bellini (borderline classical/romantic), and Donizetti (romantic). With the exception of Mozart who was German, they were all Italian. It wasn't until later in his twenties that he had a lot of contact with other Russian composers, including Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The major periods of music are Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20^th Century, and 21^st Century. Medieval music is characterized by Gregorian chants – simple melodies with harmonies moving with the melodies, in perfect fifths. Renaissance music developed greater complexity with polyphony (multiple voices moving at different times, as opposed to the Gregorian chants of the medieval period). Baroque music is notable for its extreme ornateness; Bach is a great example. Classical music is actually simplified, with Mozart being an excellent example. Mozart's music, while difficult, is often simple and transparent, and follows all the rules of composition. Romantic music has composers adding more complexity again, and far more lyricism. Modern music (20^th and 21^st centuries) is often characterized by serialized music, minimalist music, 12-tone music, and other attempts to “do something different” with music.

Finally, we fast-forward, zooming in farther and farther, until we are back at our original phrase. Here, we slow back down, and zoom in farther to a particular measure. This measure is the same each time the violin solo has it, however, the accompaniment part in the orchestra is always different. The first time it comes around, the cornet, violins, and violas all have a half note in the last two beats of the measure. Rhythmically, Tchaikovsky keeps this first exposure very simple. The second time we hear this measure, the first violins and violas have four eighth notes and a quarter note. This makes the rhythm much more complex. The third time we hear this measure is the most complex. Clarinets start with a sixteenth rest, three sixteenth notes, an eighth note, quarter, and one more eighth note. Violins and viola have a quarter rest followed by two quarter notes, while the cello and bass have a quarter note, quarter rest, and another quarter note. Even without the solo added, this is quite complex rhythmically. The last time we get this measure, violins and violas have a half note followed by a quarter note, cello and bass have another quarter note, quarter rest, and quarter note, while the clarinets have a sixteenth rest followed by 7 sixteenth notes and a quarter rest. The clarinet definitely adds more complexity in this section, by rhythmically it is simpler than the previous measure. The reason is because syncopation (when the clarinet had an eighth note, quarter note, and eighth note, putting the beat halfway through the quarter note) is far more difficult than sixteenth notes. Sixteenth notes are all equal, and the beat falls on the first one of the group of four notes. Syncopation puts the beat in the middle of a note, so adds more difficulty.

I wanted to examine the dimension of time, because there is a lot that musicians need to know when they study an advanced piece like the Tchaikovsky. They need to get the big picture of the form of the piece, the even larger picture of the times and what else is going on in the world and a composer's life, as well as the nitty-gritty of particular rhythmic encounters. It is very easy to keep the focus small, and spend all your time on each rhythm. Rhythm is important, but so are the bigger pictures. I need to remember to teach the bigger picture to my students, too. There's so much detail in how different rhythms interact that it's easy to get lost in it. If we remember to take a step back occasionally, we can add some much-needed perspective to the situation. Learning that Tchaikovsky wrote this piece shortly after a failed marriage and when he was supported by a wealthy widow, adds a lot to the piece I never thought about before. I also have a student who is working on the second movement of this concerto, and I will be having her look into Tchaikovsky's life, too.

Module 5 - Embodied Thinking

Embodied thinking occurs when we use our bodies to think, whether this is processing information, thinking of new ideas, or having moments of insight. This also encompasses using empathy to think, wherein we imagine ourselves in another's position. Because music is already so intrinsically embodied, I chose to portray two aspects of embodiment with my project: movement while I am playing (if I could dance, I would), and photos of what I am thinking of while playing the piece. So I am embodying the music through moving with it, as well as empathizing with it, by thinking of what the music reminds me of.

I chose to show my body's movement while playing the piece because I feel that dance is a very integral part of appreciating and understanding music. So while I have no ability, training, or knowledge of dance (I intend to learn how after I finish my degree), I wanted to portray this importance the best that I could. Moving while playing is a great way to get into the music and really feel it. If done properly, it will not only enhance your understanding of the piece, but will also enhance your performance of it.

I chose to show pictures of what I am thinking about while playing, to emphasize the importance of going beyond the notes. I like to tell my students that the notes, rhythms, and bowings, while important, are the boring parts of music. It really gets exciting and fun when you can actually use your instrument to communicate with your audience, which is what I believe the whole point of music is. Music truly is the universal language. So, to that end, I wanted to explicitly display what I am trying to communicate, by finding pictures  that are similar to what I am thinking and feeling while playing.

Video recording my playing always makes me look at it from a different perspective. When I am playing, I have an internal vision of what I think I look and sound like. By recording my playing, I am able to experience what the audience actually experiences, rather than just what I think they will. I see all of my awkward movements and facial expressions, then can work to make them better. It actually took several tries to get a recording I could be satisfied with, and I modified both movements and facial expressions. In the end, I was able to finish with a much more meaningful performance that conveyed a lot more to my audience.

Finding photos  to use in the other half of the screen was exceptionally challenging. It required me to explicitly define what I was thinking and feeling. Usually, when playing a piece, I have a vague idea of what is going on, emotionally. But just like trying to talk or write with only a vague idea of what you are saying, playing with only a vague idea is not nearly as productive as it could be. So in finding these, I was forcing myself to really know what I was trying to tell my audience. Sort of like writing an outline before you start writing.

After completing these activities myself, I am even more convinced that I need to work with my students to complete these activities with them. Not all the time, with every piece, or at every lesson, but definitely with major pieces that they are planning to perform. Seeing my performance, modifying my performance until I was happy with it, and clearly articulating what I was thinking and feeling while playing, really helped to make my performance work.

(If that doesn't work, here's the link to it on youtube.)

Module 4 - Abstracting

Abstracting is when you take a subject and boil it down to simplicity; representations are abstractions. For this module, I chose to examine a piece I am teaching to my students, “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” (yes, I know, it's way early, but we learn a lot of Christmas music and this works). There are actually several abstractions that take place with what I did. First of all, written sheet music is an abstraction of the actual music, as it is only a representation. Without the understanding that the different marks mean something, the sheet music itself is meaningless.

I chose to further abstract this piece (as sheet music is not as much of an abstraction for me anymore, as every mark on music has meaning for me) by analyzing the chord structure. Most pieces in Western music are built around chords, which generally have three or four notes, in a 1-3-5 arrangement. For example, for a G chord, it will have G (the first note of the scale), B (the third note of the scale), and D (the fifth note). Within these chords, only the first and the third are vitally necessary. The first determines what chord it is, and the third determines whether the chord is major or minor (sounds happy or sad).

Pieces often make frequent use of I, IV, and V or V7 chords. A I chord in the key of G Major is a G Major chord (G, B, and D), a IV chord is a C Major chord of C, E, and G, as C is the fourth note of the G Major scale, and a V chord is a D Major chord of D, F#, and A, with a C (the 7 in a V7) optional. However, there are other chords. There are minor chords, like the ii, iii, vi, and vii°. In the key of G, these are the a, b, e, and f#°, respectively. Major chords and keys are always written with an upper case letter or roman numeral, while minor chords and keys are always written lower case.

In order to analyze “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful,” I wrote out both the letter and roman numeral for each chord under the music. I also circled the root (the “1”) of each chord, and put a box around each third, as these are the two most important notes in each chord. This was my physical representation of my abstraction. For an audio representation, I played the piece as it was written, played only the root, and then mixed the two together to over-emphasize the root of each chord.

Closely analyzing the chord structure of a piece helps me understand what is going on within the piece. With music, you can use your gut feelings to make decisions about how things should be played, but you can also mentally analyze a piece to help you make those decisions. Often, you will come up with slightly different interpretations, but that is the beauty of music. Analyzing the chord structure gives me another way to look at it. I could emphasize either the root or the third, or only play the melody with the root and the third, I could emphasize the melody, emphasize the lower cello part, or any other individual part, emphasize the second violin part (the harmony), or do any other of a number of things. But analyzing the chord structure helps me to make this decision in an informed manner.

Module 3 - Patterning

Patterns are all throughout music, in the rhythms, the notes, even the “form,” or the order of the notes. Patterns are also all throughout life, so being able to discern and create patterns is important. Patterning is the ability to not only find patterns, but also to interpret them, make sense of them, use them, and then to create new patterns that are also useful.

Most music that most people are familiar with is written based on triads. That is, the music is based on the interval of a third. An interval is the space between two notes (counting both notes), so a third has one note in between the two. For example, A to C skips one note, B, so is a third. Of course, this isn't always the case. In the middle ages, when music was brand new, it was first used by the church, and all the music was written in fifths (for example, A and E). These are called Gregorian chants. In more recent times, composers have attempted to do new things with music, resulting in some very odd things indeed. Webern was one of the first minimalists. In minimalist music, an instrument may literally have only one or perhaps two notes at a time, with a fair amount of rests in between. The overall combination is music of a sort, but not any like we are used to. Another relatively recent development, in the last hundred years, has been the development of twelve-tone music and serial music. These composers believed that all the combinations of notes using the old patterns (the thirds) had been used. In these types, composers will put apparently random notes on the page, but they cannot use a note a second time until all the notes have been used once. The result is that no one note is played more than any other.

To create a new pattern, I didn't want to go so out on a limb like the minimalists, serialists, or composers writing twelve-tone music. However, I wanted to write something a little different, but still working with intervals. So I wrote a short piece based on the interval of a fourth. A fourth is not so unusual in music (“Here Comes the Bride” starts with a fourth), but you don't often have music based on fourths. My result is a bit different-sounding compared with what we are used to, but not completely strange.

Intervals are a topic that some students struggle with initially, but that is very helpful for musicians to know. Any musician that wants to get at all serious about their music must become very familiar with all intervals and how they interact. By composing a piece based on fourths, it really drove home to me just how dependent I am on thirds. It was actually rather difficult to keep it to fourths; I kept drifting to using thirds. This exercise would be useful to use with my students, to compose songs based on each different interval (seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, sevenths). It would really help them get to know each interval, how it sounds (some really don't sound great!), and it would be great practice harmonizing with a melody.

 I'm having a difficult time representing my composition on blogger, but so far the best I have is a link to the file that I uploaded to google documents.  I'm working on getting a recording of it, as it does sound a bit different, but not too different.  So here's what it at least looks like.

Module 2 - Perceiving

For this assignment, I will be looking at rhythm for a song towards the beginning of my students' violin education, "May Song."  "May Song" is a difficult song rhythmically, as it is the first song to have a dotted quarter note, and students have had relatively little experience with eighth notes, which this song also has.  To learn this song, my students traditionally listen to the CD and have the sheet music.  Here is a photograph of the sheet music:

Here is what the first line of the piano part looks like:

This offers some information about how the dotted quarter note is played, but not enough.  Even if I showed this to my students, they likely would not gain much from it.

So, to look at it in a different way, I used colored construction paper to create "notes."  Each measure was 18" long, each half note was 9", quarter notes were 4.5", and eighth notes were 2.25".  Dotted quarter notes were 6.75".  I laid out the pieces, with the top row showing the measures, the next row showing the rhythms the students had to play, the third row was half notes, the fourth row was quarter notes, and the bottom row was made from eighth notes:

 

Measure 1:
















Measure 2:

Measure 3:















Measure 4:

(Since the rhythm in the piece during the fourth measure is half notes, I did not include a second row of half notes.)








Using these pieces, students will really be able to experience how a dotted quarter note is equal to 3 eighth notes, and a quarter note is equal to 2.

Reflection:
 

Perception is how you use the five senses to experience the world, and how you process that experience. When I originally perceived the rhythms of “May Song,” I mostly used the senses of sight and hearing. I saw the music, the rhythms, and each of those rhythms means something different to me. Dotted quarter note, eighth note, quarter note, and half note, all mean something different. I also heard the song; heard how long each note is held, and felt the rhythms.

To re-imagine the rhythms of “May Song,” I wanted to provide my students with a way to experience rhythms in a different way. My experience and perception of rhythms is colored by my long experience and association with them. I've been playing for 19 years, so every note has a different meaning to me, amassed over those 19 years. My students don't have that long background experience that I do, but I want to enable a similar experience for them. I used colored strips of paper to represent each note, allowing students to manipulate and work with the rhythms in a physical manner.

By representing rhythms physically with pieces of paper, the time each note takes is translated into physical space each note takes up. This provides a different way for my students to experience rhythms, in a way that enables deeper understanding. Through manipulating the rhythms, students can directly experience that each dotted quarter note gets as much time as three eighth notes, and that having a dotted quarter note and an eighth note is a different rhythm than having two quarter notes, though they take up the same total amount of time.

While I have told my students this many times, they will not internalize it until they discover it for themselves.  By using these sheets of paper to work with the different notes, they should be able to discover this on their own, without me having to tell them.