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Grade School Music

AlaskaBushPilot

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Joined
Nov 6, 2010
Messages
4,341
We're just making our own decisions with music like everything else, but we monitor what the public school is doing, almost nothing, and download various grade level expectations from schools that publish them online.

Our school has a teacher that rotates in from time to time, no music teacher on staff. No budget for it, and we're entering a fiscal crisis so that is probably going to end altogether.

I read through all these grade level expectations and it has both the taste and feel of chewing cardboard. Talk about uninspiring, just the tone of it.

students will...
students will...
students will...

We figure just learn to play something. But start from day 1 with music theory. Piano is pretty good to start with because even with really small hands you can play the full-sized instrument.

So our school standard is to learn music theory and play an instrument. There isn't some level they have to perform at, just that you begin as if you were an adult. What I see is a lot of dumbing-down like calling "fast" notes a "ti" and slow notes a "ta". Just one example of many I see where the concept of whole note, half note, quarter note isn't taught from the beginning. Despite typical kindergartners being capable of it.

If kids can learn the alphabet, then they can learn the staff, clefs, notes, etc. Just another set of symbols. But start there, and just keep at it. No set of expectations by grade level, just do music.
 
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RocketGirl is learning piano with the Simply Music method. She's at book three and they haven't even introduced musical notation yet. Students learn piano by playing the piano. The creator compares teaching piano by traditional methods equivalent to teaching a language by typing "f j f j f j " on a typewriter. I think he overvalues his own method (as well he should - we should all be our own loudest cheerleader) but it works. She's learning to play by ear, learning to remember musical phrases and play them without sheet music, learning basics of composition and music theory without even realizing it.

Rhythm and sheet music staff paper is introduced in book 3 with students transcribing a rhythm clapped by the teacher.

RocketGirl is 10 but very small children can be taught with the method.

It isn't for every student (or parent) but I'd recommend looking into it.
 
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What are these 'half notes' and 'quarter notes' of which you speak? If you don't use the proper names for these things, you miss out on the joy of saying "hemidemisemiquavers".
 
These are the notes from the treble clef. E G B D F .. E G B D F
Treble spaces are so easy. F A C E .. F A C E

That's what I learned in early elementary school (1970's). We did the ta ta ti ti ta stuff too. They had the quarter and eighth notes written above them.
 
Well, I'm out of my league with music.

So we have a coach. His teacher, but I consider him Moses carrying the Ten Commandments down from God himself.

So we do what he says. He says music theory, so I am learning it too.

However, on MY time we establish a solid background in every branch of music worth knowing: Gospel - > Blues -> Rock and Roll.

Yea Woolgatherer Every Good Boy Does Fine. lol.
 
She's learning to play by ear, learning to remember musical phrases and play them without sheet music, learning basics of composition and music theory without even realizing it.

Yeah, that's the spirit. Just play the god damned thing. :thumbsup:


We'll do this theory, this guy is from the New England Conservatory, one of the best pianists in the country. So we can't exactly tell him "oh yeah, well you just go pound sand you Boston city slicker". lol.
 
What are these 'half notes' and 'quarter notes' of which you speak? If you don't use the proper names for these things, you miss out on the joy of saying "hemidemisemiquavers".
Dude. No-one uses hemidemisemiquavers any more. You can get the same effect just by doubling the time signature.
 
Dude. No-one uses hemidemisemiquavers any more. You can get the same effect just by doubling the time signature.
If you're writing music, perhaps. If you are discussing existing music, you still need to know the names. Besides, if I double the time signature, I might have to reintroduce breves, and no one uses them anymore.
 
We have a different opinion on "fun". It is more closely aligned with this article:

http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/blog/should-learning-be-fun-or-do-we-mean-enjoyable/

The problem with that “fun” approach, I’d say, is that it starts from the assumption that learning is inherently disagreeable, and requires the addition of a layer of happy-flavoured jam.

and

the enjoyment comes, not from the instant gratification of a poke from Ken Dodd’s tickling stick, but from the much deeper sense that’s best expressed simply as: “This is bloody hard, but you know what? I can do it.”

He's got a choice between reading, writing, math, piano, and MMA. All of them are school and not what we would call "fun".

A Zombie movie with Mom is "fun". But there is zero joy in it from any sense of achievement.

Coach says to let him play whatever he wants. So the first thing he did was compose his own arrangement of Happy Birthday. He invented his own notation to compose it.

Well if he's going to invent his own system of music notation he might as well learn the one everyone else is using. In order, he learned

Happy Birthday
ABC Song
Wheels on the Bus
You are so Beautiful

Those are his favorite songs. He can't reach an octave yet so I composed an arrangement off Billy Preston's original sheet music that has a 7 note span maximum.

This song is in Ab, a difficult scale for this level, and has a lot of minors and 7ths. He wanted to learn page 4 first, so he memorized that and then we started on page 1.

So if we want to use "fun" loosely in the sense he is playing what he most enjoys, then yes. But if you look that piece over there's four flats and a lot of minors, 7ths, 9ths - much more complicated than typical first year music books.

The only book our coach assigned to us was Alfred's Music Theory.

So what the theory is already enabling him to do is take on his favorite songs even though they're pretty complicated.

Edit: I forgot that before we got this coach, he learned a version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that I arranged. It's a pretty complicated version, and he learned it without sheet music. I just showed him how to do it. I have never considered myself a musician but I've written several dozen songs and produced a couple of albums.
 
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