Before the video began, Michael and professor Larry Scripp asked a question of the class: “To what extent does studying music increase understanding of poetics, and vice versa, to what extend does studying music increase understanding of music?” Professor Scripp also reminded students to use Triple Entry Journals while they viewed the video. These three column journals are tools for learning and note-taking: the first column is reserved for objective information in the form of quotations, observations, etc. The second column is reserved for a subjective or personal response, and the third column is used to draw meaningful implications to Music-in-Education.

As the current documentation specialist for this class, I am most interested in researching how class participants are encouraged and inspired to use the key topics in class in their own learning and exploration of MIE. I feel that this presentation by Michael Glicksman was designed, at least partly to encourage students to inquire and to use the five learning processes (Listen, Question, Create, Perform, Reflect) of Music plus Music Integration. Inquiry, the question presented before the video, created a context for an educational activity. The use of triple entry journals provided structure for engagement in that inquiry.

An example of my own use of triple entry journals for Lyle Davidson’s Music, Brain Development, and Learning. I went through a process of finding a good way to organize my thoughts and research. The first column is objective information from a reading, the second contains connections to other readings and personal experience, and the third is my reflection on implications for a research paper and MIE in general.

It took me a while to look at triple entry notes critically. The idea was first presented to me a year ago, when I took Intro to MIE solely as a student. Since then, I’ve been involved in MIE in a number of ways, and triple entry journals have become vital to my learning. I find that, especially when I get overwhelmed with concepts, ideas, or just too much information, creating an inquiry question (setting context) and setting that MIE context in the third column of a triple entry journal focuses my attention completely on the task at hand. Suddenly, I’m able efficiently engage myself in a learning experience in which I’m always setting goals (converting objective experience in the other two columns) and getting feedback about my work.

I think Michael’s presentation, while a great opportunity for Michael to explore his own teaching and get feedback, became, at least for me, an opportunity to explore key MIE ideas about learning.

Please use the following links to view a clip of Michael’s inquiry question and part of a class discussion after Michael’s presentation:

Michael’s Inquiry

Class Discussion

Professor Larry Scripp introduced a number of concepts this week in his class, “Introduction to Music-in-Education.” He began the lesson by drawing a matrix (as shown below) on the class blackboard and playing a recording of a piece by Bobby McFerrin. Professor Scripp, through nonverbal suggestion, portrayed the function of the matrix in the rhythm of the song, and added x’s in single cells to notate clapping or emphasis. Soon, the class was engaged in an activity in which we clapped along rhythmically to the piece in a unified perception of the function of the chart drawn on the board. Professor Scripp gradually added complexity to the exercise by using symbols to imply rhythmic groupings, words to apply to rhythms (antelope for a group of three, salamander for a group of four), and rhythmic solfege for the same.

The basic form of the matrix used in class to show the basic form and rhythm of the song.

After the exercise and a discussion of what we did, students were asked to compile a list of mental processes that had to be integrated to take part in the exercise. Among many conclusions, students realized that processes of permutation, symbol association, cycle recognition, and grouping and parsing were needed to actively participate. We found that these concepts and brain processes that we used can be applied to a number of different subject areas. This led Professor Scripp to make the following comment: “If music is a fundamental medium and model for teaching and learning, from the point of view of integration, you could say that it is a fundamental medium and model for integrating.” Because of the subtle complexity involved in the activity, Prof. Scripp was able to keep the entire class (perhaps completely subconsciously had we not been conservatory music students) in a state of Flow (as shown in the chart below) during which we were all listening, questioning, creating, performing, and reflecting. Through this lesson, we as students were able to experience some of the cornerstones of the MIE program first hand: shared teaching and learning concepts, and teaching and learning processes. The integration of all of the learning processes exhibited during this exercise can help students create and strengthen connections necessary for all kinds of education. The subtle complexity of this exercise and any number of exercises like it that integrate music and other curriculum can create and strengthen connections in the minds of any student. Complexity in learning and comprehension can lead to any number of paths for a learner of any age. This lesson pushed me to do two things: 1.    I worked on a new unit plan for my internship teaching brass players at a local upper school that incorporated the use of a matrix to teach solfege. The initial lesson went incredibly well, with students learning how to create their own symbols to notate rhythm and melody. I hope to incorporate the following aspects into the unit curriculum for integration: a.    MATH: unit, sequence, fractions, special learning b.    LANGUAGE ARTS: symbols, syntax/structure c.    SCIENCE: measurement, documentation, inquiry d.    HISTORY: timelines, maps, contextual history e.    ARTS: creation, spatial learning 2.    I decided to focus on flow theory and brain processes/anatomy for a research paper for another MIE class at NEC, “Learning, Brain Development, and Music,” taught by Lyle Davidson.

The agenda I set forth for my teaching was based on an assignment Larry wanted me to give to the class: to get his students familiarized with the CMIE NewsBlog, as readers and potential writers. I worked backwards from his assignment to plan what basic learning outcomes I hoped my students would achieve—an understanding for what makes NewsBlog writers’ postings different from the “rants” that are commonly associated with blogging; a rationale for organizing the kinds of ideas and documentation that get shared on the NewsBlog; and a sense of direction—where, beyond the NewsBlog or MIE program, does this kind of documentation and writing have use and purpose?

Where’s the Video Documentation?

Although I am not able to post my video of teaching here, due to length and filesize, any readers of the NewsBlog who are interested should read the transcription file (posted as a PDF here). In fact, anyone who reads the transcription file will notice that parts of it are highlighted and color-coded; this is a technique for analysis that we encourage MIE students to undertake.

Transcribing, Coding, and Analysis

The process I have engaged myself in—of videotaping my teaching, watching it, transcribing it, coding it for objectivity, and finally analyzing and reflecting on it is one that I have observed as being useful for emerging and experienced teachers alike. It is a method that we showcased and published in the Journal for Music-In-Education (Scripp, Keppel, Wong, eds.), and that we encourage throughout the MIE department. Its value lies in the fact that words do not lie, and it is often easier to quickly see the ‘big picture’ when scanning transcripts than from sitting and watching a videotape. The benefits of watching the videotape, and doing one’s own transcription from that tape, are obvious: Body language, tone of voice, eye contact, movement, and other physicalities of teaching are easily recognizable. From watching my own tape, I was surprised to learn that my teaching voice was not as loud or enunciable as I thought it had been. I suppose that is something to continue to work on. I didn’t do an ‘exact word’ transcript here, but what I learned from the tape is that there were multiple times that I had to re-phrase questions, transitions, and other verbiage. I already knew from past experiences that off-the-cuff presentation is not my strong suit; the introductory Ten-Minute Presentation we did at the beginning of Teaching Music History is testament to that (I scripted that presentation and practically read it). Because of the limited amount of time I had to prepare this teaching session, scripting nor rehearsing were barely possible, but I did have to time to make a short Powerpoint presentation that I used as an outline of sorts.

Connection to MHST 537 course

Although the class session I taught is not a Music History course, I believe that many of the same principles that we have been studying in Anne Hallmark’s MHST 537 Teaching Music History course still apply. The past several weeks have seen discussions in class based on readings that articulate how college classrooms are run; the pitfalls and mistakes of ‘wet behind the ears’ teachers; ways to engage students in discussion; and organizational tips for lecturers, among other things. These readings are balanced with seminar-style class sessions moderated by Hallmark, which in and of themselves serve as models for successful teaching in a graduate setting.

As is evident in my coded transcription, I tried to incorporate some of the techniques that Hallmark and others are suggesting as worthwhile ways to engage students in discussion and classroom learning. Granted, there was less discussion than I would have liked, and the majority of communication was responsorial, but I think a good effort was made.

The teaching session was also an opportunity for me to go into a situation not as well rehearsed or prepared as I usually would be. There is, as Warren Senders or Larry might say, a certain amount of improvisation that that is a part of any teaching experience, and that a seasoned teacher would need to be comfortable with; things hardly ever go ‘as planned.’

Finally, I did make it to the end-point Larry projected for me: A MIE NewsBlog blogging assignment that students would need to complete, and connect, to the knowledge they’ve so far acquired on documentation, for inclusion in their process portfolios.

Download PDF:

• Outside Teaching Transcription, Coding, and Analysis by Randy Wong.

My perceived initial question: How can students use a ruler to understand rhythm and to create interesting rhythmic patterns?

A Rhythm Ruler is a representation of a conventional ruler that students can use, not to measure distance or length, but to observe divisions of the beat in a measure. Rhythm Rulers are a great tool for composition and rhythmic analysis which can encourage students to create complex and interesting rhythmic compositions before ever looking at a sixteenth note. For our class activity, Professor Scripp provided us with Rhythm Rulers made out of construction paper. Instead of a standard ruler which would begin at 0, the Rhythm Rulers began with 1, so as to represent an eight bar phrase. Each unit (ex. 1 to 2,  2 to 3) was divided into quarters, with a larger hash mark at the half as a conventional or metric ruler may have.

Blank rhythm ruler

Before I continue, I would like to point out how difficult it is to give a description of the rhythm ruler without using too much musical terminology. While Rhythm Rulers provide an excellent lesson in quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes etc., Professor Scripp made it a point to steer our discussion of our rhythm patterns away from standard rhythmic vocabulary.

Partner work: In groups of two, we composed eight-bar rhythmic compositions, notating the pattern with X markings on the Rhythm Ruler. Professor Scripp encouraged us to be creative with our rhythms and to consider dividing the rhythmic pattern into two four-bar phrases, or to have a sort of question and answer feeling to the phrase. After ten minutes of partner work, we were to demonstrate our rhythms to the class.

Group 1: Samuel and Leslie – Hatikva

Inspired by the first eight measures of Hatikva, the Israeli national anthem, Samuel and Leslie composed a very thorough rhythm. As a class, we listened to Hatikva, and then Samuel and Leslie demonstrated their rhythm to us.

Click here to see Sam and Leslie’s composition based on Hatikva

Several interesting points and questions arose from this composition based on fairly straight forward anthem:

• How does “Hatikva” fit the rhythm ruler?
• How can one best divide up the ruler to fit the anthem in the best way? (ex. on the full beat, the half, or the quarter)
• Does the beat emphasis affect the sound of the anthem?
• What characteristics define an anthem?
• Does the success of clapping this rhythm depend on a previous knowledge of the national anthem?

To address the last question, Professor Scripp had Sam and Leslie perform a “retrograde-inversion” of their rhythm–(*Hint* turn the ruler upside down). Did they exhibit true mastery of their rhythm?

Watch Hatikva…backwards…Rhythmic Ruler masters!

Group 2: Justin and Sarah – Rhythmic Ruler grooving jam session

Unlike Sam and Leslie, Justin and I did not have a specific theme or idea in mind for our composition. We composed very much from off the top of our head and ended up with some fun, off-the-beat elements that were syncopated, but also felt very natural.

An interesting phenomenon that happened while we improvised was the unintentional pitch that we added to our rhythms. Personally, I found that while I sang our rhythm, I had more success in clapping it. Watch the videos below as Justin explains our use of pitch and our performance of the rhythm.

MIE’s Behind the Music – The Rhythmic Ruler Jam Session

Jam Session – Part the Second

Thankfully, Professor Scripp did not express an interest in hearing the retrograde-inversion of the Rhythm Ruler Jam Session,  but he did ask for a performance at double time and half time. When asking that of us, I found that I had to go less on “feeling” and had to rely much more on the ruler.

As I watch our group’s videos again, a few other questions (inspired from those presented in Group 1) have come to mind:

• Although we composed our rhythm without a specific melodic theme in mind, did we continue to rely on our unintentional pitch rhythm for succesful performance?
• How would another group, who had not heard our performance, perform our piece?
• What would happen if students composed on the Rhythm Ruler not for their own performance, but for the other students in the class to perform?
• If we were to have tried clapping this piece fully realized with notes and rests, would we have had as much success as with the rhythm ruler?

Group 3: Michael and Hao Bing: Silence and the reverse of silence

Watch below as Michael and Hao Bing describe the “raison d’etre” behind their composition. In this excerpt, you will see how the musician side of Michael and Hao Bing comes out and how Professor Scripp encourages them to rely more on the Rhythm Ruler and less on counting “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and…”

“What’s our inspiration?”

Let the Rhythm Ruler do its job

We found as a group that their composition was deceptively tricky given its emphasis on empty space. Michael and Hao Bing tried an experiment in which instead of singing or clapping their rhythm, they performed the space between the X’s–they performed the silence.

The sounds of silence

Teamwork: After a completely unscripted, yet genius (…just kidding) comment that I made about the difficulty of Michael and Hao Bing’s piece and how it may be a helpful exercise for playing an excerpted orchestral part, Professor Scripp segued brilliantly and placed our Rhythm Rulers one on top of one other into a “score.” Here we perform our individual compositions together as an ensemble.

Playing off of the Rhythm Ruler score

And then we added drums…

For me, this was the most gratifying component to this exercise. I was quite surprised at how great our individual rhythms sounded as an ensemble piece. If I had not participated in this activity and had simply come upon this video, I could not have imagined that each line was painstakingly realized and individual in its own nature…the piece was very enjoyable as a whole!

Reflection: Rhythm Rulers provide an infinite amount of opportunities for music and music integration. Here are a few follow up questions that could be considered for integration in other subjects.

• What makes a national anthem, and how does it relate to a nation’s identity?
• To what extent does rhythm determine pitch–AND–to what extent does pitch determine rhythm?
• How do units of measure relate to divisions of the beat?
• What fractions are discussed in this exercise?

While watching our videos and thinking back on our comments and discoveries, I am thinking of a myriad of possible variations on this exercise and I am surprised at the possibilities that exist for creativity and improvisation in a construction paper ruler.

Difficult and syncopated rhythms can be made very accessible with Rhythm Rulers. While clapping Justin’s and my rhythm, I was brought back to Freshman year ear-training and trying to clap out impossible rhythms from Hindemith’s Elementary training for musicians. Perhaps if I had had a Rhythm Ruler, I would have been able to see the divisions of the beat more precisely than with “1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a-3-e-and-a…” Maybe instead of one “inch” being equal to one beat, four inches could be equal to one beat, and I could successfully clap out 32nd and 64th notes! Could the Rhythm Ruler conquer even Hindemith?

Even more than understanding and mastery of rhythmic patterns, I found that Rhythm Rulers present a beautiful lesson in how individuality can exist within a group, and how each person’s contribution is an important part of group creativity and success. Within our final composition, it is difficult to hear each of the three group’s lines (even Hatikva, which we were all humming for the remainder of class!), but the end result is truly a remarkable piece of music, and any number of variables would have brought about a completely different final piece. Everyone’s voice is special and unique,  and when blended together, even the simplest offering can contribute to a masterpiece.

What began as an initial interest in K-5 music education has quickly become an exciting research project as I have taken on the role of Documentation Specialist for MIE 501 – Introduction to Music-in-Education. In addition to providing the NewsBlog with video and photos of our own activities and discussions from MIE 501, I hope to also be posting my documentation of my observations from the music classes taught by Michael Glicksman at the Atrium School in Watertown, MA. I am currently in the process of obtaining permission from the Atrium School administration to post videos from the classroom.

What goes on in MIE 501?

In our weekly, 2 hour class, my classmates and I cover a myriad of topics under the direction of Professor Larry Scripp. At the beginning of the semester, Prof. Scripp introduced us to the double or triple entry journal and how that format may lead us to organize our research and to answer the question “What is music’s essential role in education?”.

Each week, our class strives to answer “the big question” through guided classroom activity examples, readings provided by Prof. Scripp, and general discussion of our own experiences in music and music education. Since each student in the class brings his or her own experiences, strengths, weaknesses, and interests to this question, it is safe to say that our individual answers to “the big question” may differ a bit. Through my documentation of this class, I hope to provide the MIEatNEC community with examples of my and my colleagues’ quest to discover how music contributes to education. In a small class and an equally small amount of time, we have all begun to focus our attention on our personal interests in music-in-education such as music in speech therapy, music and adult education, and Leonard Bernstein’s Young people’s concerts.

My goals

During the remainder of the Fall 2008 semester, and throughout the Spring 2009 semester, I aspire to accomplish the following goals:

1. To provide multi-media documentation of the activities covered and topics discussed in NEC’s Introduction to Music-in-Education (MIE 501) and in Music-in-Education seminar (MIE 511)

2. To provide multi-media documentation of the music lessons taught by Michael Glicksman at the Atrium School and how they relate to our class experiences and discussions in MIE 501/511

3. and to develop the official framework for formal documentation of the music curriculum at the Atrium School to be used by teachers, interns, administrators, and families to meet the educational needs of their students as outlined in the Atrium School philosophy.

An inspiration

In addition to MIE 501, I am also enrolled in Professor Warren Senders’ class Cross-cultural approaches to MIE (MIE 547). After a particular class in which we explored ratios and harmonics with the use of a monochord, I was struck by the infinite ways which music can be utilized in education and learning. By the end of this two hour class, we had covered topics not just related to music, but to arithmetic, geometry, algebra, physics, and many other mathematical concepts to which I tend to have a strong aversion. If I, Sarah Rogevich, “not-a-math-person” can become inspired to read more about Pythagoras after one music class, how many other students can benefit from music in learning?

After pondering this question, I formulated the following three inquiries that I hope to explore through my work as Documentation Specialist and as a student in NEC’s MIE program:

• What axioms exist in music education and how do these compare to those in other subjects?
• Considering those axioms, could students benefit from a music-centered curriculum?
• In a music-centered curriculum, how would all subjects be addressed and how could this inter-curricular model enhance a student’s total education and love for learning?

Within the existing framework of the music program at the Atrium School in addition to class discussions in MIE 501, I hope to explore music and it’s influence in elementary education. These are the inquiries that I will use to attempt to answer “the big question,” but as Documentation Specialist, I look forward to bringing you insight from my classmates’ diverse perspectives. Stay tuned for videos and posts from my classmates in the near future!

But then, Larry went on a related tangent in our MIE Intro class of 11/7. Paraphrasing, he said that if you can improvise in the context or style of a piece of music you will have a greater knowledge of that piece. If not, perhaps you have only a didactic understanding, such that any performance is either right or wrong, follows the rules or doesn’t. But instead, consider other pathways of inquiry that can give dimension to a performance. And indeed, in Solfege we recently improvised in the style of Palestrina, finding that it actually made singing Palestrina easier. How fascinating, that changing something and intentionally performing it wrong, altering the decisions the composer made, could make the written piece easier!

And in fact, we spent the entirety of today’s Intro to MIE class proving that point. One of our recent assignments was to learn Steve Reich’s “Clapping Music.” (Score excerpted here.) We were charged with recording it twice, once as written and once with a different technique. Some people played the piece on pitched water glasses, other people sang the parts with two voices sounding a third apart, and so on. These multiple representations of the same piece colored our understanding of the piece. Today we broke it down even farther, performing it with two drum circles and solo gong. One circle played only beat 1 of each grouping, the other circle played beat 2, and the gong player intoned the only beat 3 in the measure. It was really difficult to stay together, especially then when one group or the other moved to the second measure and the parts were no longer in sync. But this greater understanding of the piece made it easier then when the drum circles played the parts as written, moving forward measure by measure and switching parts within each measure on command. Each new representation of the piece, each variation gave the class a greater understanding of the piece, such that our performance and our interpretation were much more convincing and informed.

I asked Larry after class about how this all relates to my Peter Maxwell Davies piece, and his comment was that we need to make our unplayable pieces playable quickly to begin working on them. Whatever route takes you to that point is a good one. So whether it be an exercise to make an unplayable piece easier so that some day I might perform it as written, or to make a tricky piece harder in practice so the performance is improved, consider this path of education in your own music. What we do can have so much more life than right or wrong.

-Kristen

Kristen Dirmeier is a graduate horn performance major. She has served as a  Teaching Assistant for Larry Scripp’s “Introduction to Music-in-Education” course, and currently works in the MIE Research Center as a Documentation Specialist and Portfolio Archivst-Analyst.