Noteflight Exploration - Bicycle Built for Two

I copied an arrangement of "Bicycle Built for Two" using www.noteflight.com

http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/b53166773fae43aaf50cf8c09b38ce98e9711f9e

Using Noteflight was fun and very accessible.  I found that it was very easy to understand once I got going with the composition.  I believe Noteflight could be a very valuable tool in the classroom.  I do not have ready access to multiple desktop or laptop computers at this time, but we have an iPad cart that would be more accessible to my students.  I have played with the website just a little on my iPad, but from what i can see, the students would need keyboard knowledge in order to input notes.  Note input on the desktop or laptop computer allows for clicking on the staff.  Noteflight would be a wonderful tool for students to use in homework as well.  Since they can share and edit through the site, they could work collaboratively and turn it into the teacher via email or a blog.  The class can listen and evaluate one another's compositions.

Creativity - The Perception and the Process

Although I am a musician, I had never really seen myself as a creative person.   I had always been adept at reading and performing music.  When it came to an improvisation requirement for my music education degree, I was nervous.  How could I improvise, especially as a vocalist?  Isn’t that limited to jazz scat performers like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and the like?  Music arranging threw me for a loop as well.  I could play piano proficiently enough to play four voices (e.g. a choral score) and I had studied flute in junior high and part of high school.  I couldn’t hear the parts in my head to find creative ways to arrange scores for orchestra and band.   Hmm…I must not be creative.  

In Music Learning Today, Dr. Bauer (2014) states, “Some people believe that creativity is a rare gift, with only a chosen few being born with creative talents” (p. 48).  So often, we hear people say, “I’m not creative.”  This perception is usually due to a lack of opportunity to be exercise their creativity.  Bauer (2014) reminds us that creativity is a process, not a magical quality or product.  Those that we view as creative – authors, composers, artists, choreographers – all work through a process. 

With our students, we need to instill in them the creative process.  There is trial and error.  There will be failure before success.  In today’s culture, children are often sheltered from failure.  Parents (and sometimes teachers) are taking risk away from their children in the idea of protecting their children.  This leads into an entirely different branch of conversation.  Tim Elmore (2013) has written several books about this issue.  Improvisation and composition are two ways we, as music teachers, can teach the process of learning through exploration.   I love the quote Bauer (2014) included from cartoonist Scott Adams, “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which ones to keep” (p. 54). 

As an elementary music teacher, I try to include improvisation in lesson plans frequently.  This comes in many different forms – drumming, using rhythm sticks, barred instruments, recorders, and voices.  With my youngest students, our first experiments with improvisation are vocalized, a term Dr. John Feierabend (n.d.) calls Arioso.  For example, I have a frog puppet named Charlie.  I ask my kindergarten students to tell me about Charlie, but they have to sing it.  They sing little phrases, “Charlie is green.  He has big eyes.  He eats flies.”  I don’t tell them how to sing it, but they often use the building blocks they have learned such as Mi-Re-Do or Sol-Mi patterns.  This is the important part of building confidence in improvisation.  Just as Bauer (2014) describes Graham Wallas’s stages of the creative process, preparation is the first step.  Students need to be prepared and equipped to use what is in their music “toolbox” in order to create new ideas.  For example, my fourth grade students understand phrasing, multiple pieces of rhythm, and the pentatonic scale.  They also understand the “home base” of major and minor scales.  They experience improvisation using these tools.  Of course, some students are more comfortable with it than others. 

Recently, I had my third, fourth, and fifth graders create 16-beat compositions.  I did it in a way that took them one step at a time through the creative process.  Their first assignment was to create a 16-beat rhythm composition.  I gave them a “rhythm bank” using appropriate rhythmic values for each grade level.  The other parameter was that they use elemental phrases.  We had been identifying elemental phrase structure for most of the year, so they were comfortable and excited to incorporate this tool.  When they could say and clap their rhythmic composition correctly, I allowed them to add melody.  My third graders were limited to using B, A, and G on their recorders.  The older students could write for recorders or barred instruments using a pentatonic scale.  It was an amazing experiment.  Students came to me asking if they could change their phrases slightly to create primes (using correct music vocabulary!), add a bass part, add non-pitched percussion.  I was so proud of what they created.  They were excited to perform for one another.  They were successful because they were able to break down the process, make changes, and use their skills.  It turned out to be a wonderful assessment tool as well.  I was able to assess them on their skills and they evaluated each other.  It was exciting to hear a student say, “Oh!  You ended on E because you are in minor.  We ended on G because we are in major.”  Illumination!

The process described above was done with pencil and paper.  It would be interesting in the future to use a tech tool like Noteflight in the writing process.  I have easier access to iPads in my school.  I am interested in researching more simple composition tools for iPad.

I am happy to say that I have become much more comfortable with composition and improvisation since my undergrad experience.  My training in Orff Schulwerk helped me significantly.  The more we practice skills, the more confident and proficient we become.  We become better models for our students. 

Bauer, W. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding   to music.   New York, NY: Oxford.

Feierabend, J. (n.d.) First steps in music for preschool and beyond. Retrieved from

http://www.feierabendmusic.org/first-steps-in-music-for-preschool-and-beyond/

Elmore, T. ( 2013, Feb 15).  Three huge mistakes we make leading kids…and how to correct them.     [Blog post].  Retrieved from http://growingleaders.com/blog/3-mistakes-we-make-leading-kids/

Diagram of TPACK http://tpack.org/

What's in your TPACK?

TPACK – technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge.   Teachers today strive to find the balance and intersection of these three areas.  The way we teach has changed in many ways in very little time.  When I began my teaching career in 1998, I remember carting my personal Compaq computer into my office.  One of the secretaries said something to the effect of, “Why do you need that thing?”  I was one of the first in my school to have a computer and recognize its value to my work.  It wasn’t long after that when all teachers and staff received desktop computers.  We began using email to communicate with one another, and then to communicate with the parents of our students. 

Fast forward to today.  I communicate almost daily with parents through emails or electronic newsletters.  I post pictures and videos of my students on our school’s Facebook page and website.  Students in our middle school have gone to 1:1 iPads.  Most of their homework is turned in electronically.  Teachers enter grades electronically and parents can monitor their child’s progress. 

In the midst of all this technology, teachers must maintain a strong foundation of pedagogy and content knowledge.  The teacher must know their “stuff.”  “In music, this means that teachers need to have a general background in music theory and music history, as well as have well-developed aural and performance skills” (Bauer, 2014, p. 13).  A good teacher not only knows their content area, but knows how to translate that knowledge to others while creating a classroom atmosphere that is safe, challenging, and exciting.  Effective teachers find ways to integrate technology so that it works with their content and pedagogy.  The outcome and use of tools will be different for every teacher (Bauer, 2014). 

As I reflect on my own teaching, I find that many of the ways I use technology have indeed become transparent as Dr. Bauer (2014) described.  They have become so commonplace, I take them for granted.  On a day the projector is not working or the power source to the computer breaks down, I realize just how dependent I have become on technology.  Now in my everyday teaching, I use a Smartboard along with Smart Notebook.   They are amazing tools that help me to organize the material I teach while taking away a lot of paper clutter and storage around my classroom and office.  It takes time to create innovative slides for lesson plans, but the outcome in student response is worth the time and effort.  Most curriculum texts now come with CDs that include Smart Notebook slides or other PDFs.   Instead of wheeling the TV cart down to my room, I use my desktop computer to play DVDs or online videos using my Smartboard and projector.  I have a large collection of CDs for the music I use in class.  I have slowly started the process of transferring the most-used tracks to iTunes.  With my classroom iPad, I am able to access the music I need and organize it into specific playlists. 

I believe that I am only using the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to technology.  That thought is both exciting and a little overwhelming.  I look forward to learning more technology integration strategies and finding ways to implement them in my teaching.  I am also reassured by Dr. Bauer’s (2014) idea that “technological approaches shouldn’t be used for technology’s sake.  They should only be incorporated when there is a clear benefit to learning” (p. 10).  Teachers must use their expertise in content and pedagogy to make decisions about how to best incorporate technology.  At the same time, teachers must continue to expand their knowledge in all three areas to best support themselves and their students.

Bauer, W. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music.       New York, NY: Oxford.