We are nearing the end of the year at MusicLaunch. There are many things I could mention here and I will give a more all-encompassing report after the final class.

Today I would like to talk about something very positive! In the past few class meetings, I have finally begun to come closer to my original goals of getting students to use their ears and not rely on the page. Although this has come about in some ways that I didn’t expect, I’m so excited that I can finally report this. When I first began at MusicLaunch, my plan to help students develop their ears had to be shelved for a little bit so that I could help them develop more fundamental skills on their instruments and on playing in time.

About half way through the semester, I periodically asked them to do a simple 4/4 call and response with clapping (while stomping out the 4/4 with their feet). This originally served the purpose of helping their time, but I realize that it helps their ears as well! Also around this time, I was given the opportunity to create a melody with Solfege blocks in our large ensemble and I introduced the students to the song “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers. Finally, last week while I was in charge of running the large groups, I gave students some rhythms to clap that were a little more challenging. This lead to me writing some of these rhythms out on the board, but from there, something else happened: I had them create their own 4/4 rhythms on the board. While this is not directly ear-related, it is still a chance for them to create their own little piece of music, which is a huge win in my book!

I wasn’t immediately able to categorize this stuff as creative success or ear-training success right away, but after thinking about it for a little bit, I definitely see it that way now. Besides giving me some encouragement, this definitely gives me some great ideas for the future.

Stay tuned for a complete report about my MusicLaunch experience in the next few days! It will cover tackling music fundamentals, maximizing productivity, dealing with behavior problems, and keeping students engaged, to name a few topics. Thanks for reading!

Tyler

One of the activities that has given me the greatest satisfaction in this busy few months are the weekly classes and sing-alongs at Susan Bailis Assisted Living.  I am working with them as part of my Schweitzer Fellowship, which has spanned the last academic year. I entered the project a bit blind, having had to find a new site and reconfigure my project after the initial site fell through. I had not had experience working with seniors before and I was a little nervous about it. I soon realized that my original project plan– chorus work and individual music lessons– weren’t a good fit for the population. The choral singing was difficult because of the wide disparity in musical ability and training–people who could read music got bored, people who could barely match pitch were frustrated.  Music lessons were difficult to organize because the few interested individuals tended to cancel or forget. I came up with another plan to offer more passive activities including a weekly music appreciation discussion and a weekly “sing along.” Once a week I bring in a CD or music with some kind of theme; for example, we did a month of opera history and each week focused on one or two composers or a certain style. As a group we listen and discuss interesting characteristics of the music including form and style. On another day I bring in old songs ranging from the 20′s to the 60′s and peck away at the piano while participants read from song sheets. Some sing, some just listen, but it usually ends up to be a fun and relaxed hour.

After some setbacks I feel we finally settled into a routine with these two activities around mid-February. The same clients tend to come to each respective activity and I feel I have developed a rapport with several of them. I think one big lesson I have learned so far, and this may seem obvious, is the value of just showing up. I admit I was discouraged at one point when the project wasn’t going as planned, but I’m glad I continued to try new activities until we found something that was good for the residents. I also am constantly reminded of the value of preparation and organization. In discussions that have not gone as well I always feel that I could have prepared more thoroughly beforehand. Finally, I think I’ve realized how much I can learn as a musician in any kind of educational setting. I’ve been able to explore musical works more in depth this semester as a result of offering these classes, and in the discussions themselves clients often have an unexpected question or insight that I can learn from.

In my next post I will share some video and anecdotes about the residents with whom I’ve worked and some thoughts about my experience with the Schweitzer Fellowship.

My guided internship this semester is with Susan Bailis Assisted Living. I am working with the residents there for a year-long service project through the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship. My project involves one weekly music appreciation class and one weekly “sing-along.” The project took most of last semester to really get off the ground, but I feel this semester we found a combination of activities that seems to work well for the residents in terms of their interests and needs. The outcomes for this project are focused less on the acquisition of specific musical skills and more on improving the overall well-being and quality of life for seniors. My later blog posts will focus on the progress of the classes and sing-alongs.

Editor’s Note: This is Melody Jenkin’s third post in a series of three regarding her internship this semester. You can view follow-up posts to this one, and her internship proposal, here.

I can’t believe that the Outreach Opera performances have finally come to a close.  I’ve learned so much this semester about Music-in-Education, teaching, and working with kids.  Posted below are a couple videos of interviews with the students after they had completed my study guide, but before they viewed the performances.  I was pleased with the amount of knowledge they retained from the guides.  I noticed that the lessons where they had to do more activities were the lessons that they remembered most.

Touring Opera Student Interview

Another Student Interview

Here are some great questions they had about the performance after they had seen it:

When was your character born?

How do you sing so loud?

Were you nervous before you went on stage?

How do you feel when you are singing?

How did opera start?

Can kids sing opera?

I think that these are all great questions that the kids are asking.  Inquisition plays a large part in education.  These questions show that the students have a lot of interest in learning more about opera.  I’m glad that the workbook and the performance sparked their interest.

One of the main ideas that I wanted to get across to the kids is that anyone can participate in and enjoy music.  Sometimes the student’s initial reactions would be, “I could never do something like that,” but we try to show them that they can.  Music is a specialized field, but not any more so than math, for example.  Many have more of an aptitude for math or a talent for music, but both are worth studying and can be appreciated by anyone.

The video below shows a peak into one of our first explorations of using ‘Multiple Representations’ to teach musical concepts at the YMCA in Chinatown. The video shows intern, Pui, taking the lead in demonstrating rhythmic concepts, numeric pitch identification and solfege using Lego blocks that we found in the classroom at the YMCA. The students were surprised by this use of the Lego blocks initially, but caught on quickly.

At the beginning of the video is the initial introduction of rhythmic concepts. One sees intern MusicLaunch intern, Pui, pointing to a block and together with intern Devin Ulibarri demonstrating the desired action – in this case, clapping according to the size of the blocks. The clapping patterns were introduced separately (1,2 and 3 beats), but were combined to create an 8 beat pattern consisting of three of the smaller patterns. The students were then asked to manipulate the blocks in order to come up with their own structures. For example at 0’53” in the video, one observes Kayla’s pattern (2+1+3) and then her brother changing the pattern (2+3+1). This moment is important because it empowers the student and demonstrates that musical concepts can be mastered and manipulated – it develops their creativity.

At 4’22” into the video, one can see the culmination of the entire lesson. In this final review, Pui asks students to identify the solfege names of the notes by hinting at the numeric name. Pui asks the class what the second pitch in the scale is to which a student answers, “Re”. Pui then asks the class to answer using pitch to which the class accurately sings the intended pitches that she is identifying using her fingers (numeric name). At the end of the review, Pui tests the students mastery by asking them to skip “Re” and accurately sing “Mi” from “Do” – the students have some difficulty doing this, but this is their first time and subsequent videos will reveal their progress.

The video ends with quick demonstrations of other types of multiple representations that we have used in the break off sections of MusicLaunch. Future blog posts will keep you posted on the significance of these other forms of multiple representations and how they have helped the development of the students in MusicLaunch at the YMCA in Chinatown.

Editor’s Note: This is Melody Jenkin’s second post in a series of three regarding her internship this semester. You can view follow-up posts to this one, and her internship proposal, here.

I’ve had the privilege of working with NEC’s Touring Children’s Opera through the Community Performances and Partnerships Program. The internship involves several things: writing lesson plans for the teachers to prepare their students to see the opera, scheduling all of the performances at local elementary schools, speaking to the students about opera before the performances, documenting the work, and making surveys to send out to the schools.

I found myself facing many challenges and questions. Such as:

• Which information and exercises are the most important for the study guides?
• How can the kids take something away from just five lessons before the performance?
• What did they learn from the packet?
• What did they learn from experiencing the performance?

Although these questions aren’t completely answered, I feel that I’m on the right path. Today we performed for the schools in Rockport, MA. The students were incredibly receptive to the pre-performance talks and to the show itself, which is Bizet’s Doctor Miracle. When I asked one student what opera was she said, “That’s easy… it’s a singing and dancing play.” I thought that summed it up well! At this point, I think that any information or excitement we share about music is contagious to the kids. I heard them talking about the different characters in the opera with each other on the way out after the performance.

Editor’s Note: This post is in a series of several by undergraduate composition major Juhye Lee. Read Juhye’s previous MusicLaunch posts here. Or you can also see the whole MusicLaunch blog archive.

Today Devin and Pui tried to teach the rhythms and pitches with the blocks. They started to clap according to the blocks. For instance one block means clap once (which could be quarter note) and the longer block of the two is followed by clapping twice(which could be two eighth notes in quarter note). Singing the pitches were followed by the rhythms. Singing One-Two-Three (which is Do-Re-Mi) was added to the rhythms they were clapping. Do (in a quarter note), Do-re( in a quarter note, so there would be two divided notes of quarter notes, which are two eighth notes), Do-re-mi(Each do-re-mi is an eighth note singing in two quarter notes as (8th rest)-do-re-mi). I was curious when they sing do, do-re, (rest)-do-re-mi, The do-re and (rest)-do-re-mi has eighth notes in each, not a quarter note as the first Do. The next step would be building a harmony on Do-re-mi as singing the thrid above them(Which is mi-fa-sol). The kids will naturally learn about the sounds of thrid intervals.

In Pui’s Class, most of them were beginner and I could see that every kid’s ability (understanding, time that take them to get Pui’s teaching) was different even though they all are in the same situation.