Music Zettel Ep. 7 - Teaching like a musician
"Music is Life"
The one thing that stood out to me in this podcast is the capacity that educators have to enable students to feel at ease in an ever-changing classroom environment. For example, in one of Brad Fuller's seminars in the unit KAME (Key Approaches in Music Education) - a first year subject, Brad began the class by playing a groove on the drums and without speaking, placed chords for vamping on the board. The outcome was initially unexpected as students began working out the chords but weren't necessarily playing in time with the drum groove. It is an interesting notion, especially in a formal Conservatorium context, to feel the need for formal instruction and permission to only begin making music once the lecturer has given a verbal set of guidelines.
However, in teaching like a musician, a pivotal aspect is to begin with music making! I feel that it would be great fun to take this updated KAME unit where music making is front and centre!!
In this podcast, James and Brad pointed out that when students joined in on the groove established by James on the drums and Brad on the bass, it made a huge difference to turn down the volume on the Roland V Drums. The benefits of this was that acoustic instruments could be used (saving set up time) and student improvisations could be heard more clearly. This enabled me to reflect on my tech project and the advantages it offers in the music classroom. Firstly, being able to control the volume more easily when using an electric drum kit as opposed to an acoustic kit means that the educator doesn't need to spend time managing the dynamic levels of the drums while my project enables more than one drummer to play at a time (as they are very compact and don't drown out the entire classroom).