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
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/
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