In the Jones article, he discusses the differences that are present between the way the country approaches middle school music education and high school music education. Elementary music classes still focus on building basic musicianship skills and individual creativity. When students enter middle school and become members of larger ensembles, the development of these skills seems to get pushed aside. How can we restructure or approach middle school music education in a different way so that we can continue to teach skills? How can we realistically prevent this shift from happening so dramatically?
posted by Andrea @ 9:44 PM
2 Comments:
I thought that this was a very important point in Jone's article. I think that there needs to be more of a cohesive music education through out the schools and ages. The elementary schools seem to start out with a good foundation of musicianship, however, I don't know if being involved in ensembles in middle school and high school is enough to build more musicianship upon that foundation. Ideally it would be great if we could have "general music" classes from kindergarten through high school, classes that are not just cycles or required for one semester. But, because I don't think that will happen anytime soon, it is our job as choir (maybe band) directors to include these basic musicianship skill in our rehearsals.
This morning in pedagogy of theory Dr. Phillips discussed his belief that band directors should have their band members sing their parts on solfege before playing. He explain singing, playing piano, and conducting, to some degree, integral to being a musician. I think that there is a lot of truth to that. Even if choir directors start incorperating singt-singing and conducting in rehearsal more, I feel that musicianship of students will be that much more enriched.
I agree that having general music classes continuing to run alongside ensemble classes would be a big help. The ensemble experience is critical for many reasons and should not be diminished in anyway, and certainly the development of individual musicianship enhances that experience. Also, the encouragement of private lessons, which does happen from what I gather, is great.
In my school experience, choir, band and orchestra were never classes, they were always volunteer, but musicianship classes were given at all stages. Private instruction classes were subsidized by the school and offered to whoever was interested in taking them. Having these in existence bolstered invidual musicianship, and there was never a problem with having students for the ensembles because these students wanted an outlet for what they were learning in the other classes.
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