Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series documenting the Atrium School M+MI Program’s Violin Project. Documentation efforts, including this post, are being led by NewsBlog moderator Randy Wong.

In addition to learning the basics of being a violinist (like knowing what the parts are called on a violin, and how to hold the thing), a key component of the Atrium School violin project comes in the integration of the students’ regular music curricula with violin instruction.

For the past two years, Atrium students have received innovative ‘music plus music integration’ (“M+MI”) curricula designed by the Music-In-Education National Consortium, and implemented by a Music Learning Leadership team consisting of music teachers, teaching artists, and guided interns trained by the Center for Music-In-Education. Understanding symbol and coordinate systems are among other music literacy skills the Atrium M+MI curricula stresses; it is through the use of music-math matrices that said skills are taught.

Therefore, integrating and adapting music-math matrices for the violin program is a total no-brainer! In the video below, students are taking the first steps towards adapting their knowledge of music-math matrices to violin playing. Their violin teachers (Beatrice Affron and Helen Liu) chose simple matrix operations (e.g. identifying and singing pitches “Re” and “La”) to match with their new motor skills (i.e. plucking the open D and open A strings, respectively) on their instruments. The video below shows this in action, and also acts as a reference for Atrium parents who may be helping their children practice.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series documenting the Atrium School M+MI Program’s Violin Project. Documentation efforts, including this post are being led by NewsBlog moderator Randy Wong.

Students at the Atrium School (Watertown, MA) are the newest cohort to pilot the MIENC’s ‘Music Plus Music Integration” Program Violin Project. (Last summer, students from across Mankato, MN received M+MI violin instruction for ten weeks). The videos below show a glimpse of what the first day of instruction looked like.

I found it exhilarating to experience how excited the students were when they received their instruments for the first time. The buzz in the air was definitely electric.

Yet for all the energy in the room, the students were able to contain and focus it on learning. Among the first activities was learning how to stand in Rest Position.

Also: How to hold the violin securely with one’s chin.

Students also learned the “body parts” of the violin, thanks to a song that Helen made up in which each part of the violin corresponds to a scale degree. The first lyric, “This is the scroll” begins at the bottom of the scale. As the scale ascends, the students learn each successive part of the violin; for example, “These are the tuning pegs” is sung on scale degree 2. While I was confused at first why Helen started at with the scroll—I always visualized the scroll as the “top” of the instrument—after thinking about it, I realized her rationale has to do with the pitch range of the strings! “Open” strings (meaning: unfingered) have the lowest pitches on the instrument. As one lays fingers down on the finger board, the pitches get higher. Thus, even from what-could-be a simple song, she’s laying down the framework for teaching students about pitch and intonation. Very clever.

Hello MIE Blog community! I am doing an internship this semester (along with fellow intern Joanna Mattrey) as a participant and documentation specialist for a class titled “The Percussive Parent”. The class is held at the Gentle Dragon Preschool in Medford, Massachusetts under the direction of Warren Senders, a current MIE instructor at NEC. Twelve adults and their children are enrolled in the course which meets every Wednesday afternoon for ten weeks. The class involves, among many things, counting and number games, handclapping activities, instrument-making, the use of found objects converted into instruments, producing music with drums and percussion, simple movement activities, along with methods and techniques for parents to incorporate what they have learned into the time they spend with their children outside of class. Warren’s goal is that, by the end of the ten week period, “group members will be able to direct multigenerational rhythm groups on their own, using traditional, self-made and spontaneously created instruments.” He explains that the course is not for children and their parents, but rather for parents and their children so that the children can learn (if they want to) from their active parents while the parents learn musical methods for teaching their children.

For my guided internship this semester, I plan on using Warren Senders’ class “The Percussive Parent” as a way of investigating the ways in which children learn from and imitate their parents, the experience and growth of a child in a creative musical environment, and also how to develop and organize a community course directed towards a specific audience in a free-thinking learning environment. Through this, I will be able to document and experience the organization hands-on while also playing a role in the teaching and learning process of building instruments, experiencing and applying rhythmic games and tools, and utilizing mundane or found objects to create a musical learning experience.

This internship will serve as an application of previous work that I have done with Warren Senders. In addition to completing his two MIE courses (Cross Cultural Approaches to MIE and Improvisation in General Music), I completed an internship as a documentation specialist for his Cross Cultural Approaches to MIE course last semester. In this course, and through my internship, we investigated, among many things, different cultural methods of education, specifics and speculation on the nature of memory, instrument building, intrinsic knowledge, music in education, and more. This internship will follow on the heels of the previous as a hands-on application of techniques and topics discussed with Warren Senders throughout his courses.

An interesting hypothesis that Warren shared before the start of the course, was that “our kids will be much more likely to make music together if they see us making music together. We will be modeling music-making behavior for our kids…and, of course, making music ourselves.” It is an exciting and fascinating premise, that by being an active learner as a parent and teacher, our children and students will most frequently follow our example through imitation and/or a desire to be like their adult role model. I will continue to investigate and document such patterns throughout the course of the class, and share insights with you as we go along. Joanna and I will also be collaborating on information and musings in order to give you a wider ranging perspective on the progress made throughout the ten weeks of the course.

A few weeks ago, I completed the second major assignment for MHST 537 (Teaching Music History): Substitute teach (or “guest lecture”) for another professor at NEC; videotape your teaching and analyze it. I had the good fortune to substitute for Larry Scripp; he had to travel out of town for the latter half of his MIE 501 (Intro to MIE), so I stepped in.

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.

Many of us can remember having to take the SAT. Since 1934 when James Conant, the president of Harvard at the time began administering the test to scholarship applicants, taking the test has become increasingly standard procedure for a person moving from high school to college. But what does the Scholastic Aptitude Test really measure?

We discussed this question in class and came up with the following: LANGUAGE AND NUMBERS.

Effective? Comprehensive? Fair? We didn’t think so either. All the test tells me is that if I score between a certain range I can balance my checkbook correctly and read a newspaper article really quickly. Lyle Davidson shared that it’s really nothing more than a test to see who will pass their first year of college. I sure wish it had been presented as such instead of a test to see “who’s smartest.” I would’ve spent a lot less time worrying.

Unfortunately, because the SAT is still the standard measuring tool we are led to believe that the educators who have the last word must believe that the wisdom of priests and rabbis, the intuition of psychologists and the sheer genius of Mozart are not examples of intelligence.

In the 1980s a man by the name of Howard Gardner came forward with some new ideas on what “intelligence” really is. He presented the concept of “Multiple Intelligences,” saying that different areas of the brain support different types of expression, cultural differences and necessary awareness. For example, different cultures require individual and acute behavioral skills to survive in a specific location and environment.

We brainstormed what these “multiple intelligences” might be.

Here is the list we came up with:

• Language and Numbers (not only to be fair, but because they are important, too.)
• Spatial intelligence (2D and 3D awareness)
• Musical
• Kinesthetic
• Interpersonal/Intrapersonal
• Naturalistic

We decided that the list could be titled “Spatial Intelligences”.

As can be expected when you have a group of future educators talking about education there were many unsatisfied voices. Their statements could be passed off as hopeless complaints, but I think that would be a huge mistake. In the simplest of terms, it’s important that more of the focus in education be placed on spatial intelligences. NEC has already made the change to not requiring applicants to submit an SAT score. In my opinion, that was a smart move.

I’ll leave you with this:

Because we are individuals whose intelligences are clearly made up of more than just languages and numbers, should we not be approached as such by our educators?

Two weeks ago, we were given an assignment for MHST 537 (Teaching Music History) class: Find a reading outside the syllabus that is connected to prejudice in the classroom, and introduce that reading to the class.

The reading I chose—Strangers From A Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Ronald Takaki)—is one that was part of the syllabus for a course (“Asian Americans and Education”) I took while at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. That course, the reason I took it, and what I got out of it are posts for perhaps another time. I remembered this Takaki reading because of one particular section titled “The Myth of the ‘Model Minority’” that resonated with post-grad school experiences I’d had. Takaki writes:

Today Asian Americans are celebrated as America’s “model minority.” In 1986, NBC Nightly News and the McNeil/Lehrer Report aired special news segments on Asian Americans and their success, and a year later, CBS’s 60 Minutes presented a glowing report on their stunning achievements in the academy. “Why are Asian Americans doing so exceptionally well in school?” Mike Wallace asked, and quickly added, “They must be doing something right. Let’s bottle it.

[A] Pattern of Asian absence from the higher levels of administration is characterized as “a glass ceiling”—a barrier through which top management positions can only be seen, but not reached, by Asian Americans. . . . Asian Americans complain that they are often stereotyped as passive and told they lack the aggressiveness required in administration. . . . Asian American ‘success’ has emerged as the new stereotype for this ethnic minority. While this image has led many teachers and employers to view Asians as intelligent and hardworking and has opened some opportunities, it has also been harmful. (Takaki, 474-477).

I grew up in a society predominantly Asian and Polynesian, so I was largely insulated from the “model minority” views that Takaki relays. However, while studying for an additional degree beyond my Harvard one, I did encounter some of the reverse racism that Takaki might suggest would come about as a result: That because Asian Americans are perceived as success stories, it becomes acceptable by others to taunt, berate, and bring up Asian ethnicity as a means of “leveling the playing field” for those of other racial or ethnic backgrounds.

Here are a few short anecdotes that I feel relay my experiences:

• At one point, when I was taking a historical survey course (and was doing rather well in it, because of a lot of effort I’d put into studying the material), the instructor insinuated that my success was ethnically based rather than on my skill set.
• Another teacher commonly made analogies that somehow connected musical scores with Chinese menus and Oriental massage.
• I also had new acquaintances remark, “You’re the first Asian friend I’ve had—the others are so nerdy” and “Why are you damn Asians so good at everything?”

Though I wanted to take those experiences and remarks in good faith, I found it increasingly difficult to tolerate and stomach them. While the easiest way to interpret some of these experiences may be as harassment (racial and sexual), I see them as being related to the “Model Minority” syndrome. At no time during these occurrences did I observe members of other minorities or ethnic/racial groups receive similar treatment.

Significantly, Asian-American “success” has been accompanied by the rise of a new wave of anti-Asian sentiment. On college campuses, racial slurs have surfaced in conversations on the quad: ‘Look out forthe Asian Invasion.’ ‘M.I.T. means made in Taiwan.’ ‘U.C.L.A. stands for University of Caucasians Living Among Asians’. ‘Stop the Chinese before they flunk you out.’ (Takaki, 479).

Implications for Classroom Teaching

Clearly, one lesson that I can draw from reflecting on my own experiences is that teachers must strive to be pro-active and conscientious individuals who value objectivity equal to their own interpretation and analysis. Another is that we must always consider what misunderstandings could result from the ambiguities of language and metaphor. I would also argue that organizing coursework and work products in a way that students’ learning processes are most evident can help to counteract any perceived obstacles for students that will come from a variety of cultural, ethnic, racial backgrounds.

Learning through Oral History and Morphogenetic Family Fields

In one of our first classes, Warren taught us the first verse of a traditional Indian song. He began the class with a drone and had us repeat vocal warm-ups in order to acquaint ourselves with the intervals in the scale. These fragments were then, piece by piece, combined to form a small melody. At this point, he broke away from the melody to have us repeat 5 or 6 spoken syllables. He then sang the completed piece with the full text and had us sing along when we heard the syllables that we had just learned. Now we had a somewhat ‘fleshy’ skeleton of the piece that we were able to fill out with the missing syllables. After about 10 or 15 minutes the class had successfully learned the verse.)

In our session this week, three of us recollected the song to Krishna that we had learned a few weeks ago while the other five members tried to learn it. This time, though, it only took about 4 or 5 minutes for the class to be able to recite it (as opposed to the 10 or 15 minutes the time before).

This reminded me of Rupert Sheldrake’s studies with morphogenetic family fields. Stated in a question to anthropologist Terence McKenna, a morphogenetic field is “a non-material organizing collective memory field that affects all biological systems. The field can be envisioned as a hyper-spatial information reservoir that brims and spills over into a much larger region of influence when critical mass is reached – a point referred to as morphic resonance.” Basically, one can understand it as a collective memory bank where a species, through adaptation and evolution, stores knowledge that is passed on through future generations of that species. Sheldrake elaborates that

each individual both draws upon and contributes to the collective memory of the species. This means that new patterns of behaviour can spread more rapidly than would otherwise be possible. For example, if rats of a particular breed learn a new trick in Harvard, then rats of that same breed should be able to learn the same trick faster all over the world, say in Edinburgh and Melbourne. There is already evidence from laboratory experiments that this actually happens.

In this case, knowledge is not limited to growth by future generations, but in fact is immediate.

This seems to be evident in our classroom. It took half the time for the class to learn the song when there were members present who had already learned it than it did when none of us knew it. In relation to this, Sheldrake determines that “animals inherit the successful habits of their species as instincts. We inherit bodily, emotional, mental and cultural habits, including the habits of our languages.” This could also go to explaining the pattern of oral history and tradition that makes our species unique. Warren mentioned in class that oral tradition was learning based upon the human love of imitation. I agree with this, but I also believe that, on a similar scale, oral tradition exists because of our innate capability of memory. Sheldrake in fact proposes that memory is inherent in nature. In this way I see oral learning and history as divided into these two factors; imitation and remembrance.

I watched a series of video clips this week on YouTube of Warren and his teacher, S. G. Devasthali, in a lesson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4qibmXtTN0). The way in which he learned the ragas was similar to the way in which he taught pieces to our class. There was a call and response throughout the lesson, where his teacher would sing a fragment of the melody which Warren would repeat. The fragments were eventually compiled and through this repetition, he remembered them. This is the basis of oral tradition; imitation and memory. Repetition may also be listed as a component of oral tradition, perhaps as a subset of imitation.

It is interesting that, while he worked with our class, the song was essentially shattered in numerous fragments (phrases, pitches, syllables, physical expressions of the mouth, etc.) which we pieced together in a variety of different ways. I could almost envision a matrix of possible combinations, which after a number of these combinations had been tested, an image of the piece as a whole became more clear. It seems to me that this method is effective in that a deeper understanding of the material is achieved, where one not only learns the song front to back, but now knows its inner workings and could perhaps sing it back to front, or even from middle outwards. This also relates to a matrix, lets say in 12 tone music, where all possible combinations are visible at once (all of the inversions, retrogrades, and retrograde inversions for each transposition of the prime series).

Later in the class, we began to learn the second part of the Krishna lullaby. I was reminded of a piece by Milton Babbitt for soprano and piano (or tape) where, in addition to his systems of 12 tone and duration rows, he devised a system where each pitch was assigned a syllable. In this way, the text of the piece emerged from the music or from the system, rather than the music emerging from a set text. For me, this was similar in that learning this Indian song (where my knowledge of the language is next to none), each pitch or melodic fragment was assigned a syllable or, in a sense, a syllabic motif. It is interesting that in this case, in both pieces, there is a supreme unity to the sound. One piece (the one from class) the music emerged from the text, and the other (the Babbitt piece) the text emerged from the music. Either way, both utilizing a language unintelligible to my ears, both pieces felt solid and complete.

-Chris