comprehensive musicianship through performance
Connecting the Two Worlds Patty Schlafer, CMP Committee Member
In 2001 I found my- self looking for a masters thesis topic that would change my classroom prac- tice. As I look back, I realize the question I wanted answered was essentially the same one we are ex-
ploring in this issue of the magazine. What music teacher hasn’t faced the very real dilemma of bridging the gap between the commercial world of music our students live in and the world of music we provide at school?
My journey through the challenges of music selection for adolescent learners has always included a respectful deference to
the natural tastes and distinctions young kids make about the music they like. How their tastes are formed is a topic too big for this article – however, how we deal with student taste and distinction is relevant to improving classroom pedagogy.
Back then I noted that a student had never asked for a recording of the music we played in band to add to their collection of CDs and tapes. (Go figure!) My thesis predated the digital availability of band music online, so essentially, my students never heard the music we played anywhere other than in the band room. This is what I wrote in 2001:
I have always been curious about student perception. I am a music teacher and much of the work that
goes on in my classroom involves preference and taste. As I move fur- ther away from adolescence in both age and experience, I feel the need to immerse myself in my middle school students’ musical tastes and desires. As I entered my third decade of band directing, I began to wonder why great numbers of students continued to consume band instruction while having no real desire to incorporate the music we play into their own preferred listening.
I constantly ask my students what they know, what they can do, and how they think or feel. Simply put, I wondered whether the students’ expe- rience in band connects to any other aspect of their musical lives. I felt a need to know more about student taste in order to gain a greater un- derstanding of the ways my students perceive and rationalize the music they experience in my classroom with the music they experience outside of it.
My hypothesis, that a disconnect ex- ists between the musical preferences of my students and the music we perform in band, proved to be quite true. Although these students enjoy the band experience, it is safe to say they primarily enjoy the active ele- ment of playing their instrument, and only that element.
So here I am in 2016 knowing my stu- dents still perceive the music they play in band as being not the same as the music they hear everywhere else. Not that they don’t like it – it just serves a different (yet equally valid) purpose in their young mu- sical lives. What has changed as a result of my research is my decision to consciously include some popular music examples in the beginning years of instruction.
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April 2016
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