Christina Fackler MUSE 258 Sound Connections: A Comprehensive Approach to Teaching Music Literacy 2010 Chapter 2: From Theory

and Research to Practice Don P. Ester General Learning Theories Behavioral o Association learning Cognitive o Impact of human development and individual perception Piagetian theory o Four Stages 1: Sensorimotor stage: Senses Age 0-2 2: Preoperational stage: beginning of symbolic learning Age 2-7 3: Concrete operation stage-ability to classify and observe 4: Formal operations where abstract thinking begins Gange o Encoding New information should be transformed into a from that is meaningful and retrievable o Learning is complex Music Learning Theory of Edwin Gordon Audiation is both hearing and understanding in ones mind a sound that does not exist Rote learning is progressive and goes through various stages o Pattern learning provides the skills needed to improvise The musical potential of students is malleable until age 9 Research on Music Learning Readiness o Emphasis on activity-based learning o Conservation: ability to coordinate several different aspects of perception Allows for the ability to recognize a melody is the same even if sung at different pitch level Is the gateway into musical learning Aural skills are extremely important Children are ready for music literacy by school age based on research Role of Memory o Three components Sensory register

Working memory Long-term memory

Music Perception and Cognition To begin, tonal and rhythm should be taught separately To perform a musical task using more than two sub-modules would mean the brain has to understand how to coordinate them into bigger modules Beginning music instruction at a young age allows for increased brain activation and better connections Beat is the most crucial beginning topic Children can comprehend both beat and division of the beat o As they gain experience, they can also distinguish beat groupings Meter o Unchanging vs. changing beat (constant-beat vs. changing beat) Patterns or instruction should be between 5-9 notes Context is extremely important o Meter is context for rhythm o Tonality is context for pitch Western musical ideas are easy to remember o Tonic triad then diatonic pitches Instruction o Triad should be the bass o Children learn best from a female voice without vibrato o Sequencing Guided music making, listening, and activities related to tonality and meter Small chunks Match syllables with patterns Match known syllables and patterns to the correlating symbols Begin to create melodic patterns Sound Connections Approach Learning triangle Developing vocabulary before symbol association This chapter talked a lot about the research behind how children learn best. As a future music educator, this is a topic I need to be well versed in. Knowing how our brain processes information gives us the knowledge to teach in the most effective manner. This chapter really lays it all out there. It was a lot of information, but will definitely be a great resource now, and in the future.