Partner blog:
When I was reading Democracy and Education I wrote in my notes, "popular music as the curriculum." Thinking back I remember that when I was reading this part of the text, I thought it was interesting that Woodford described popular music as something that we could base our curriculum on. He emphasized the use of popular music as something that is studied, rather than treating it as an "attention grabber." I thought this idea seemed like a good one, but it also scares me because I have no idea how I would do that. In what ways can you think of basing the curriculum on popular music?
posted by Liz @ 1:07 PM
2 Comments:
That's a really interesting question. Its one that I thought about while reading "Democracy and Education" as well. In answering your question, I think that it is dangerous to base our curriculum solely on any particular type of music. I think that basing a curriculum solely on popular music is just as unacceptable and unfair to our students as basing a curriculum solely on classical music. I don't think I would advocate that in anyway. However, I think Woodford has a good point in some respects. I think focusing intensely on popular music is a great idea. In terms of HOW you could use popular music in your curriculum, I think it would require alot of research and listening on your part. We all know "classic" music that shows sonata form, ostinato, and other theoretical concepts, but we are less familiar with popular music that has these ideas in them. I think we spend so much time listening to popular music in our free time, we don't take time to critically analyze the music we hear on the radio. The suggestion I have is to sit down with our popular music collection, or songs on the radio and listen critically to them. Listen for theoretical concepts or musical ideas that we could potentially teach. I think the important issue to keep in mind is that we should not diminish the musical ideas that we would teach with classical music just because we are using popular, more accessible music. We still must keep our goals and constantly pursue the high academic potential of our students. I hope that helped!
I would agree with Caroline that basing curriculum solely on one type of music can have its serious disadvantages. However, I know that when I taught the class, "The History of Rock and Roll," in my secondary practicum, I essentially did just that. Granted that was the courses' focus, and therefore was appropriate. But i owuld agree that for a general music class, when trying to teach many different forms and styles, that solely teaching those concepts through popular music could lead to road blocks. I will say that when i taught that course that I did find myself referring to other styles of music, and other periods. Making comparisons and contrasting genres can definitely lead to a greater underdstanding of music in a broader sense. So, again, how do we teach Popular music as curriculum? Do we analyze it for what it is? Does it need to be compared in order to have value? I htink that "popular music" has a very negative stigma attached to it, (rightfully so with songs like "Fergalicious" *personal opinion. No offense to those Fergie fans out there...) and many musicians view that type of music as trash or useless, wihtout musical merit or integrity. However, I ask you to also consider the great spectrum that popular music entails. There is SO MUCH music out there that is modern and contemporary, that I would argue could be considered "popular" even if it is not necessarily mainstream. I think what popular music is, is still kind of ambiguous, and we can manipulate it to fit our needs. I feel that the more I think about this, the more I feel that an entire curriculum could be based on "popular" music. With some savvy planning and careful manipulation, I think a cutting edge music educator could pull it off.
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