Musicing

I just finished entering final grades for the semester. This completes my first year as a college music professor. All in all it was an enjoyable experience. The students were great; they participated in discussions, took projects seriously, attended class regularly, were polite and cheerful, and were generally interested in learning. That’s not to say there weren’t some difficult issues with students and with the music teacher education curriculum. I have become very interested in music teacher education as a result of my experience this year. I want my students here to find joy in teaching music and I want their students to experience the joys of musicing. So, it is important that enjoyable musicing be modeled in my classes. I wonder how effective I have been in this regard . . .

 In elementary music methods we played guitar, recorder, and a bunch of singing games. That seemed pretty fun although it’s difficult for college students to really let loose in class. (I understand that they let down their inhibitions when they’re drinking, but of course that wouldn’t be appropriate in class.) But, once they get used to the idea of playing children’s games, for example, they seem pretty willing to let go of some of their inhibitions. I think its also a bit startling at first to have a course that does not involve lectures, text books, or taking copious notes. And, I doubt many of them have held hands and danced with their professor before. In fact, the only class that I had as an undergraduate that was this informal was my elementary music methods class. Sister Kenney (everyone was called brother or sister at BYU) was (and is) an awesome teacher and her class was loads of fun. In fact, it was somewhat of an antidote to the strict/traditional/teacher-centered ensembles and theory and lit classes. (I imagine that elementary majors probably get that type of experience in their art and P. E. methods courses as well.)

One day the power went out during music appreciation class. I had planned to use some CD’s and DVD’s, but that was impossible. Rather than just let everyone go early, however, I ran down to my office and got my accordian and had them all dance the patty-cake polka. There are 50 students in the class, so we had to make two big circles. They seemed to have fun dancing (although some of the boys wouldn’t hold hands with each other) and THEN I let them go early. In retrospect, it was kind of a corn ball thing to do, but I really don’t care about that. I’m sure it was memorable at any rate.

We had our first family instrumental combo today. Our 7-year-old son, Landon, was on harmonica; he had just learned to play Hot Cross Buns (I wrote out the tablature for him). Our 5-year-old son, William, played the same tune on the piano and I played chords on the piano. We played it through about 3 times and then William said, “Let’s play it again.” That, in my book, means it was a successful experience. I wrote out 3 songs for Landon: Hot Cross Buns, Skip to My Lou, and Mary Had a Little Lamb. It took me back to when I first learned to play some simple tunes on harmonica. I was about his age . . .

That’s really what music education is about–making music with others. Too often, as general music teachers, we get caught up in “activities” based on “covering” parts of the curriculum at the expense of authentic music making.

When I told my music appreciation class about playing the ocarina for the cows, they thought it was pretty funny. A couple of the farmers, however, thought I was nuts and said that all you have to do is go out and stand by the fence and the cows will come because they think you are going to give them some corn. I grew up on ranches in Utah and Nevada and our cows never just came up to the fence like that (but then we never brought them buckets of corn either). Anyway, the other morning on the way to school I stopped to test whether the cows would come with me just standing there. That’s right–they came just as they had previously when I played ocarina. I don’t think they enjoyed it quite as much though . . .

I was watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s weekly Music and the Spoken Word (http://www.musicandthespokenword.com) broadcast on BYU-TV this morning. They sang a John Rutter arrangement of Sourwood Mountain which included some whistling. This is the second time in two weeks that I have heard the choir whistle. It has increased my interest in developing my own skills in this area and I have added a couple of links that I found. I wonder what applications there are for whistling in music education. In my elementary methods course we were singing Don’t Worry Be Happy while playing guitar and some of the students whistled the chorus and a few of them were pretty good at it; they kicked MY butt anyway! I wonder, too, what related pitched instruments there are out there that can be played intuitively–without learning fingerings or notes (African nose flute? musical bow?). Just some thoughts . . .

I walked over to my office this evening to catch up on a few things and stopped on the way to play my ocarina for the cows. I pass by the pasture on my way and I just happened to have my recently acquired ocarina with me. But, why would I play it for the cows? Well, why not? Actually, one of my college students recently took issue with David Elliott’s book Music Matters; she complained that it is focused on human well-being and proposed that music might be satisfying for animals as well. So, I stopped and walked over to the fence and began to play from my somewhat limited ocarina repertoire, Barbra Allen. The cows, about 10 or so, were sitting out in the middle of the pasture. They looked my way immediately and then, one-by-one, they stood, hesitantly. I wondered if they were getting ready to bolt. I finished Barbra Allen and moved on to O Susanna. The cows walked over to the fence directly in front of me and watched and listened intently as I played Amazing Grace and then Barbra Allen again, then Simple Gifts. Strange, I thought. I wondered what kind of experience they were having. Aesthetic? Could they have recognized in my music the underlying forms of bovine feelingfulness? I was out of tunes so I said good-night and went on my way into the night. The cows ran along the fence after me for a time and then dispersed. True story…

I’m trying to teach my own children to play the piano without forcing them to practice. I’m calling their lessons “music time” instead of something more formal and I’m trying to make the entire process fun. For part of the time I play accompaniments and let them improvise on either black keys or white keys (Eb blues for black keys and I, vi, ii, V7 on white keys). They like that. Then we play tunes that I teach by rote (copy what I do) or I have them figure it out on their own. Our oldest son is 7 and can play quite a few tunes this way. Our second son is 5 and he can play Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had a Little Lamb. Our daughter is 2 and she likes to play along while I play and sing some of her favorite songs like “You Are My Sunshine” or “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” The idea is to socialize them to play the piano–that by seeing me, their mom, and older siblings playing, they will develop the desire to play. Then, when we sit down for a lesson, we make it informal and kind of like we are just making music together. I have come to believe that learning to make music should be joyful at every level; I don’t think that enjoyment comes only after much difficulty. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on how the piano lessons are going.

How could I have a PhD in music education and not have known about the harp guitar? I really like it! Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvar4ZsqsEo I think it would be fun to play. I picked up my ocarina, found some notes that fit, and improvised along with the recording and that was delightful. I’m going to share this clip with my music appreciation class…

I am just now completing my first semester as a university professor here in America’s Heartland, Missouri. I thought I would give it a try; if I end up not liking it I can return to a K-12 job in a little town somewhere in the Great Basin (and I’ll get a pay raise!). However, so far things are going well. My students seem to like my courses and nobody is “looking over my shoulder”–yet. This semester I taught two music appreciation courses with the usual elitist, Euro-centric text (Kamien’s music “appreciation”). I have been able to keep those students entertained, but I will need to do something different next term to really get them to think critically about music.

I also teach two music courses for elementary education majors. It’s a fun class. I have taught them a number of singing games, folk dances, and integrated “activities”. We are also playing some guitar. Interestingly, they seem to value the guitar element the most.
I took my Shoshone drum to my sons pre-school class and taught them the Canoe Song. The kids seemed to like singing and dancing with the drum and the teacher was very appreciative. On the way home, however, my son who just turned five said it was “lame”. They sure grow up fast, don’t they?

Charles Keil and Patricia Shehan Campbell, in their ebook on their Born To Groove website, talk about dandling–basically holding a child on your lap and singing songs, making rhythms, playing finger games, etc. I had my one-year-old daughter on my lap this evening and we were singing songs as we often do. We played “eensy, weensy spider” 15 times in a row. After each repetition she would say “again”. I switched to a different song, but she would probably have sung that one quite a few more times. I really enjoy those moments because I can see the joy in her face. I agree with Keil and Campbell that this sort of action is vitally important to children (and adults as the “dandlers”) and that with TV and other media and “busy” parents it is becoming a lost art.  One other point: I am realizing the importance of being responsive to the needs and wants of my kids, really attempting empathy. They don’t view the world at all like I do and, therefore, parenting is less prescriptive and more interactive than I might have thought at one time. As a music teacher I think that this sort of give-and-take relationship should continue throughout schooling.

I chose to adopt “musicing” as the title for this blog because, in my opinion, it reflects the human and active elements of music and making music. It took a few years for me to accept this term introduced and popularized in music education circles by Christopher Small and David Elliott. I thought “music making” would suffice, but now realize that there remains a distinction between music making and music listening, composing, producing, etc. Also, music making still objectifies music; it is a thing to be heard, managed, studied, honored, directed, and even obeyed. “Musicing”, to me, means any and all human action related to music. Now, I’m not going to get into what I think music is (its nature and value and all that); that’s a topic for another day. Basically, I don’t think music has an inherent or singular nature or value. It is human action and it can be whatever we want it to be.

One of my earliest memories of musicing might help illustrate what I mean: When I was a child we lived 100 miles from the nearest town in the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada. We had no electricity, indoor plumbing, TV or other conveniences (intrusions?), but we had a piano and my parents procured a harmonica for each of their, at that time, seven children. I remember playing my harmonica (by ear and from harmonica tablature) amongst the trees down by the creek. I wasn’t performing for anyone and noone was telling me what to do; it was just something I did for fun. Joyful play, I think, is integral to musicing.

I like Nel Nodding’s book, Happiness in Education; her ideas fit my own view that school should contribute to a joyful life now and long-term. In my 14 years of teaching music in the public schools I have noticed a real disconnect between music in life and music in school. In life outside of school music is “musicing”; people engage in musicing because it is personally fulfilling–because it might lead to increased happiness and fulfillment. In school students engage in music for the same reasons, but also because their friends are participating, because it’s an easy credit, because it’s the least objectionable option, because they like the teacher, because their parents where in the same musical groups, because they will get a cool looking musical instrument, because it will look good on a college application, and, yes, because they have to. That school music making and music listening are not as fun or personally fulifilling as real life musicing is illustrated, I think, by the fact that few students continue engaging in the musical actions they did in school.

This blog will explore how music in school can become joyful and personally fulfilling musicing. It corresponds with my ecolumn “teaching praxis” on the Mayday Group’s website (www.maydaygroup.org).