Season Three
Episode 78
Music Learning Theory with Dr. Kathy Liperote
Kathy's Bio:
Dr. Kathy Liperote is Assistant Professor of Music Education at the Eastman School of Music, where she teaches methods classes, observes student teachers, and supervises graduate teaching assistants. Her teaching and research focus on the music learning process, connecting aural skills to instrumental performance, and developing musicianship skills for elementary and secondary level teaching. Dr. Liperote has presented at state and regional NAfME conferences, and conducted professional development workshops most recently at Temple University, Baldwin Wallace University, and the Fort Worth Independent School District. She is also on the Instrumental Certification Faculty for the Gordon Institute for Music Learning. Prio to receiving the PhD in Music Education from the Eastman School, Dr. Liperote taught instrumental music for 15 years in the Baldwinsville and West Genesee School Districts in Central New York State. She is a graduate of the Crane School of Music and Syracuse University.
Jump Right In: The Instrumental Series
https://www.giamusic.com/products/P-jumprightininstrumental.cfm
Jessica: Kathy, thank you so much for talking.
Kathy: Oh thanks for having me, Jess.
Jessica: I'm really looking forward to it. I would love to know more about Music Learning Theory because it's something I'm not as familiar with and so I really want to start off with just really understanding what Music Learning Theory involves and if you could just kind of describe it for us.
Kathy: Sure. Music Learning Theory (MLT) is based on the research of Dr. Edwin Gordon and others. And it's a description of how children learn music when they learn music. In other words, Music Learning Theory explains the music learning process and how that process is very similar to how children learning language. And that's important to know because as educators, if we teach based on how children learn naturally, which is really not about getting them to memorize the names of the lines and spaces or rhythm values, fingerings. If we teach based on how they process, it makes sense that we're going to see higher levels of musicianship and music comprehension. So learning becomes easier. It progresses naturally.
Gordon calls music comprehension audiation. And that's the heart of MLT. So the theory (MLT) explains how children learn music and then through that process we know that for kids to learn and process music meaningfully they need to be able to audiate to the best of their ability. So that's kind of in a nutshell what is MLT.
Jessica: Can you share more about what you mean by audiation? And what that looks like?
Kathy: Absolutely. Audiation is a term coined by Gordon which defines as 'the ability to hear and comprehend music for which the sound may or may not be physically present. So when we audiate - whether we're hearing, reading, recalling music - we comprehend what's going on tonally, rhythmically, harmonically. We give meaning to music. Just as in language we comprehend what's being spoken or read based on our understanding of words. The structure of language. In that case we give meaning to the printed word. In contrast just hearing music or knowing for example that Bb major has two flats or that the whole note gets four beats in 4/4 time doesn't necessarily mean we're audiating. Audiation implies a deeper level of understanding. For example, students hear and comprehend not only what's on the page musically, but what's not on the page. For example, harmonic progression, bass lines, harmony parts. They can improvise and they can do these things with and without notation through an early focus in their music instruction on audiation. Their aural skills.
Their audiation allows them to understand tonality and meter, function, tonic, dominant, rhythm function, macro beats, micro beats. It helps them to play in tune in a consistent tempo with appropriate tone quality. They balance and blend better within the ensemble. So the power of audiation is big and it's all about helping students to think in sound. To think musically.
Jessica: So in other words audiation is the main part really of MLT. You can't understand music without understanding audiation.
Kathy: You got it. In fact Gordon also says that audiation is to music what thought is to language.
Jessica: How do you teach students to use their audiation instrument?
Kathy: Well, I can teach the physical instrument fairly easily if I know my fingerings and all the executive skills necessary to play an instrument, but I can't reach into a child's ear and make them hear something so good question. Knowing how to develop a student's audiation requires an understanding of this music learning process that we were talking about and so this is where knowing the similarities between music learning and language learning is so helpful. Consider this typical sequence for learning language. Now what I'm going to describe is probably very familiar to you and your listeners. It's very common sense, but I'll summarize and this will allow us to apply this sequence to music learning.
So very basically if we start at the beginning with babies, babies first learn language by listening to conversations going on around them. Between their parents, their siblings, their caregivers. In fact listening is all they can do and cooing for the first few months until they develop the equipment necessary to speak. And at first baby's speech is what we call baby babble, which you've heard. You've got children. This is the vocalizations, imitations that babies make when they're exploring their voices in effort to communicate. But soon babble becomes intelligible words and through continually listening and speaking practice children learn to put words together to form phrases, sentences, and eventually to carry on conversations. In music we call that improvisation, right. So conversations in language is analogous to improvisation in music. And children loop through this 'listen-speak-practice' for about four or five years before they're formally taught to read. And the first words they read are very familiar to them. Like their name. We don't teach children to read words they haven't first heard, spoken, and know the meanings of.
Then, almost concurrently with learning to read, children learn to write because reading and writing reinforce each other. So in short, listening prepares students to speak a language. Listening and speaking prepare them to read and write. It's really that simple.
Listen. Speak. Read. Write.
And we call that the four vocabularies.
And that same process applies to learning music. Listening to music - not just hearing it peripherally - prepares children to interact with, to speak music. Now that second vocabulary 'speak' in the music model means any way that we make music away from notation. Listening prepare children to sing, chant, move, play by ear, improvise, create. And again the more opportunities they have to engage in those kinds of activities through listening and speaking, the better prepared they will be to read and write music with comprehension. Not through memorization or decoding. So it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it!
Jessica: Comparing it to language makes perfect sense because exactly those stages that a child goes through from their youngest years is what we do in music. And so guiding them through those stages of listening and then babbling with it and then finally speaking familiar words they know and then taking them on to new concepts.
Kathy: And if we start with something that's unfamiliar that students can't relate to, for example a lot of instrumental books start with a whole note and a whole rest and it continues for a line. Or even if it's half notes and half rests. Because that doesn't resemble anything real. And by the way, doesn't even exist. There's no tune that goes like that. They can't associate. They can't connect. It doesn't internalize and they have no choice but to then memorize those symbols. It's like morse code. It's like an unfamiliar or foreign language. So yeah, I think it's important to remember some of those simple ways to engage students in music instruction that are about how they learn other things in life including language.
Jessica: So based on what we know about audiation, then how do we take students through this?
Kathy: And to learn it. Well. How to teach students about audiation. As obvious as this may sound, the first step - and based on what we jut talked about - the first step is to teach them tunes through rote song instruction. I mean teach them a lot of tunes and a variety of tunes. Not just those that are in major tonality and duple meter. Although that's a logical place to start. But here's why teaching a variety is important. we know that children learn by making comparisons. So for example in music, if we want them to know major tonality, again a logical place to start. Soon after teaching them major tunes teach them minor tunes or put the major tunes that you taught them in minor tonality. Similarly we want them to know duple meter. Logical place to start. Soon after teaching them duple tunes teach them triple tunes or put the duple tunes in triple meter. What ends up happening is that one sound or feeling clarifies the other because of the differences between them. Which songs are the same. Which are not the same and why. If everything always sounds the same there's nothing to compare and that actually makes learning tonality and meter (for example) a little harder for kids. I emphasize this because I want to encourage teachers to look at the books they're using. Be sure the musical content is varied. Include tonalities like dorian and mixolydian. And even include mixed meters. Not all at once of course. And if the rep isn't varied, go ahead and vary it. You may be surprised at what the kids can do. In fact for many kids, minor is no harder than major. Triple is no harder than duple. They're just different. But if we wait, they start to think that anything new is hard. Right? Kids tend to think that especially as they get older.
Jessica: Yeah, I agree with that because when I've done mixed meter pieces with students, I used to when I started out say "Okay this is hard, but you're up for a challenge." but now I find I don't tell them it's hard because to them it's not hard unless I tell them it's hard, you know. And they're capable of doing so much more than we give them credit for. So much of our language is in compound meter too or has all these anacrusis so we need to use what our language has given us.
Kathy: That's a good point getting back to the language analogy.
Jessica: And so when you're teaching these tunes, how do you present the tunes to them or how do you break them down so the students can understand them.
Kathy: Well, here's a sequence for teaching a rote song that's taken from the book Jump Right In: The Instrumental Series. This is kind of a summary. So first the teacher establishes tonality by playing a tonic and dominant chord at the piano or guitar or autoharp. Or she might sing something like 'do-mi-do-re-ti-re-do.' And this step is important because it provides context for the tune the students are about to learn. In other words, it orients their ear. And eventually they'll learn that when the resting tone is 'do,' we're in major. We might also have the students move to large and small beats - macro beats and micro beats - while we sing the song to them. We sing the song first without piano and without words so the students really use their ears to focus on the melody. And we sing using a style of articulation that's appropriate for the tune we're teaching. So for example: connected style. Like 'doo-doo-doo-doo.' In other words, we could use a connected style to teach a song like Pierrot or Simple Gifts. As in (singing on doo). Etc. And there's separated style. 'Tu-tu-tu-tu' which works well for teaching Twinkle Twinkle, Lightly Row, Mary had a Little Lamb. So the teacher sings the song through one or more times as needed so the students get a sense of it. They get familiar with it. And then she teaches it to them in phrases. So she sings a phrase and then the students echo that phrase on the very next beat. You want to try this, Jess? That might help us see how this works.
Jessica: Sure!
Kathy: Ok, I'm just going to do Mary had a Little Lamb. (sings on doo)
Jessica: (echoes)
Kathy: Sings on doo...
Jessica: (echoes)
Kathy: And this continues until the students are comfortable with those phrases and then teacher helps to put the phrases together to help form the entire tune. Accompaniment can then be added along with the words. And the words are taught with a spoken voice that's first in the rhythm of the melody. (speaks example) And later the words are sung. Now the words are important because they help to convey style, phrasing, dynamics, but because students will be more comfortable with the words because they're more comfortable with language, they tend to pay more attention to them than to the tonal and rhythm content of the tune, which is what we want them to pay attention to. So waiting to teach the words until after they're comfortable with the melody is a good idea. We'd also teach the bass line and harmony parts in the same way. And when putting the song together, if you ask the students what part they want to sing many times they choose something other than the melody. It's funny how often that happens 'cause like adults kids like parts. They like singing bass lines and harmony parts. So again, this is a general description of the process. It can unfold differently, but this approach works really well for teaching a rote song.
Jessica: Okay, once students learn a variety of the melody, bass lines, and harmony parts, where do you go?
Kathy: Of course, learning tunes is an ongoing, never ending process and that's a good thing. But this takes us to another important similarity between music learning and language learning. And that's that both have what we call a 'whole-part-whole' process. So we can go back to the language analogy one more time, remember that children learn language by first listening to conversations. We call conversations the 'whole.' When they're ready to speak (this is once they're past the babble stage), they speak words, or what we call the parts. By the way, they don't speak individual letters. You don't hear children speaking letters because they're not hearing their parents speak letter. They'll speak the words that they're hearing and encouraged to say in their environment. Names, places, objects, feelings. As they process continues, children learn to put words together to form another whole. So that's very simply our 'whole-part-whole.' That process continues indefinitely.
If we apply this to music, the whole are the tunes. The parts that make up words in the music - the equivalent to words in music - also not individual notes and rhythms. Although in traditional music instruction, students are typically taught one note and one rhythm at a time and without context. But the parts that make up music are patterns of sound. Tonal patterns and rhythm patterns. That's where pattern instruction enters into MLT. It might help if I take you through some tonal pattenrs just to have that experience. Mind if we do that right now?
Jessica: Sure! That'd be great!
Kathy: They're 2-5 notes long. Tonal patterns. And they're performed without rhythm. And that's on purpose because we're not working on that thing yet. We're not working on that part of the 'whole-part-whole.' That's later. So we're isolating here. So I'm going to establish tonality with my voice once again so that you know where we are. You know what counting we're in. And then I'll ask you to repeat after me so here I go: (singing) do-mi-do-re-ti-re-do
Can you hear that I'm in major and this is 'do?' Great. Jess, could you please repeat after me? When you see me give you a particular gesture, can you see that on your Skype? Looks like that. Okay. Here we go.
(Echoing together through several patterns)
So those were 8-three note tonic and dominant patterns and I taught them to you on a neutral syllable because my most efficient teaching happens when I teach one new concept at a time. In this case it's the sound of those patterns, which by the way would sound familiar to the students because they're based on the tunes they're learning. Eventually though I'm going to teach you the syllables, the solfege for the patterns when you're ready because that's going to help you internalize, differentiate between, and retain those patterns in your audiation. Right? On your audiation hard drive, so to speak. So can we do those same eight patterns again - same order, but this time on solfege.
(Echoing patterns using solfege)
d-m-d
r-t-r
d-s,-d
r-t-s,
s,-r-t
d-m-s
s-f-r
d-m-d
Same eight patterns. Right. Did it feel like we were in a specific meter because I didn't want it to feel like we were in a specific meter.
Jessica: I don't think so. I just kept following... I was so focused on following your hand and looking right at the screen. I was more just wanting to make sure I was doing the pattern right. (laughing)
Kathy: Spot on, my friend, spot on. So for the listener, I sing a pattern and by the time I get to the last note my hands are out in front of me like where they would be on the steering wheel of my car. There's a short space after I sing. Then I give a light tap where the students breathe and repeat the pattern like you did.
Jessica: You're not conducting a pattern at all. It's just merely giving us a breath.
Kathy: Exactly.
Jessica: So those are the tonal and then how is that done rhythmically?
Kathy: Great so let's do some of that too. So just as I established tonality with my voice to provide context for you for tonal patterns, I sang do-mi-do, re-ti-re, do. Similarly I'm going to establish meter by having you move to large beats - the macro beat - and small beats - the micro beat. So can we do that, Jess?
Jessica: Yes!
Kathy: So Jess, let's put the large beat in your feet - in your heels. I know you can't see me, but I'm about here tempo wise. Can you hear that?
Jessica: Yup.
Kathy: And we're going to put the small beat - the micro beat - on your thighs or on your desktop...your computer. Whatever's easiest for you. For the purposes of demonstration, here's our meter and our tempo. You can tell I'm in duple. Repeat after me please:
(echoes patterns in duple using bah-bah)
Right. It sounds like a lot of the tunes that the kids are learning and again, I taught them to you on a neutral syllable so that I don't overwhelm you by learning patterns and on top of that, rhythm syllables. When the kids are ready, we'll do the same patterns on rhythm syllables. Can we try this again?
(echoes patterns in duple meter using du and du-de)
You're responding to me musically, right? You're not on auto-pilot. Du-de du. This is where it helps them to become musical. They have a musical example. They tend to emulate that in their performances so that's terrific. So assuming that I'm varying the repertoire by teaching triple tunes as well as duple tunes, let's do some triple patterns. Now it's new so I'm going to go back to a neutral syllable. Move with me again please:
(echoes patterns in triple meter using bah-bah)
Good. I'm going to fast forward. You're ready for some syllables. Here we go:
(echoes patterns using du-da-di)
These are what we call function based rhythm syllables. The rhythms are labeled based on how the rhythms feel regardless of how they look in notation because we're not there yet. You may have noticed that I'm using the same rhythm syllable 'du' for both duple and triple meters and that's because 'du' functions the same. It's job is the same in both meters and that's to be the large beat so it gets the same name. Du. But what defines the meter that we're in isn't the large beat - it's the small beat. So those names need to change.
In duple: du-de, du-de.
In triple: du-da-di, du-da-di.
If I were to add a function, I would go to divisions in duple. So if we can do a few of those. Move with me please.
(Echoes patterns using bah-bah)
I could go on with many of those. And that again is reminiscent of the repertoire that they're listening to. I don't teach all these patterns in the same class or week. Obviously this is, we're looking at a trajectory here. Again we fast forward. Here are the syllables that go with divisions in duple meter. Move with me:
(Echoes patterns using du-ta-de... du-ta-de-ta...)
And I wouldn't describe divisions as being anything visual like a sixteenth note or a quarter of a quarter note or anything like that. I would define it as a rhythm that is shorter than a macro beat and a micro beat and it uses the syllable 'ta.' From then I'd go to elongations, rests, upbeats, ties, and so on.
Jessica: So how much time would you spend on these rhythmic or tonal patterns, say in a class period?
Kathy: Well, it's recommended that teachers spend just a couple of minutes at a time on tonal patterns or rhythm patterns and preferably at different times during the class. So if we keep the whole-part-whole process in mind, we start with the whole. This is the whole idea of tunes including bass lines and harmony parts, which we can do with and without notation. Inherent in those tunes will be aspects of tonal and rhythmic performances that they're working on. So we can engage them in tonal or rhythmic patterns that address those issues. Now patterns should be related to the tunes students are learning - the musical content of those tunes. For example, if students are learning minor tonality and they know a bunch of minor tunes, they'll be ready to learn minor tonal patterns starting with tonic and dominant. But again, spend just a few minutes on patterns. Then go on to something else. Maybe they're working on tunes in other tonalities and meters or other functions like subdominant or divisions or elongation. Maybe they're working on an executive skill or writing a composition or improvising. If you find students are having difficulty tonally or rhythmically during one of those activities, go ahead and pull out the patterns again. So patterns can be inserted in different parts of the class if needed, but the important thing about pattern instruction is it shouldn't go on too long. Here's what I mean...
Words and language are tonal and rhythm patterns in music. So if I just said a bunch of words over and over to you for five or ten minutes right now, you might say, 'Okay. Now what. Like put them together and say something to me.' Right? If we overdo the pattern work, the kids - they're just dying for a tune. Let's play something. Let's make this have more context and more meaning.
Jessica: Yeah, I just thought I'd ask that because since we're talking about MLT and demonstrating portions it might seem like that's all that MLT is, but there's so much more than that. It's just in order to understand the function of those patterns you have to hear what they sound like which is why I'm so glad we've echoed through those so people can get a basis for what that sounds like along with the tunes.
Kathy: Yea. You're right. It can give the impression that's all we do. Some people do think that's what Music Learning Theory is. Some people think Music Learning Theory is where you sing in instrumental music instruction or any kind of instruction, but singing has been around forever. Music Learning Theory doesn't have any claim to singing. It's what we do or should be doing.
Jessica: Yeah, I think that's just part of being a musician, isn't it? Being a music maker, you've got this voice inside of you. Use it.
Kathy: Yeah. And Gordon talks about the instrument being in your head. That's your audiation instrument. The instrument in your hand is your executive instrument. The thing that drives everything that comes out of the instrument is what's in the body and in the ears. There's no way around that. So yeah - everybody should be singing and moving in all music classes. Every single music class we should be singing and moving.
INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE
Jessica: And then there's one other aspect - well, and this may not be the only other aspect, but the other one that I know that is a big portion is the improvisation piece. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Kathy: Thanks for bringing that up. If you imagine at a certain point the students are comfortable with familiar patterns and familiar order and even am unfamiliar order, they are ready to learn what those patterns are called. There's a process in the teacher's guide that goes like this. If I reestablish tonality for you (d-m-s - f-r-t - here's my do). I would explain to you, Jess, as my student, any combination of do-mi-so is a major tonic pattern. Can you sing that with me? Major tonic pattern. Or you could just call it tonic. That's fine. But let's practice. What do you call this?
So-mi-Do - What kind of pattern is that? Major tonic pattern.
There's another Do-So-Mi - What is that? Major tonic pattern.
So-Mi-So. Major tonic pattern.
You can shorten that again to tonic. Tonic.
I'm going to sing some patterns. If you hear me sing any combination of d-m-s, sing 'tonic.' If you hear me sing anything other than that combination of d-m-s, sing 'no.' So your choices are 'tonic' / 'no.' Can you sing your choices with me? Tonic/No. There you go. So here's your first one, Jess.
(Echoes through patterns)
At the same time, I'm going to identify what that other pattern is that you've been hearing. Jess, any combination of s-f-r-t is called a Major Dominant Pattern. Can you sing that with me? Major Dominant Pattern. Let's practice a few, Jess. Here's mine:
(Echoes through patterns)
Okay. So I'm going to sing some patterns for you. If you hear me sing any combination of s-f-r-t, please sing Dominant. But if you hear me sing anything other than that, sing 'No.' So now your choices are 'Dominant' and 'No.' Can we sing those? Dominant. No.
(Echoes through patterns)
Jessica: I did the wrong pitch.
Kathy: You fixed it! I saw your eyes go up. You gave what we call the audiation stare. You knew that didn't feel right and you fixed it on your own. That's the best kind of learning. Self-correction. Here's another one, Jess.
(Echoes through patterns)
Great. Another class or sometime down the road, I'm going to ask the students to label my pattern. It's either going to be tonic or dominant. Here we go.
(Echoes through patterns)
Right. Right. But this a great preparation for them learning to improvise. Now that you know what tonic and dominant is and since major is such a great place to start, I'm going to sing a tonic pattern. You sing a different tonic pattern. Okay. Our choices are: do-mi-so. You can sing mine backwards: so-mi-do. Or you can repeat a note. For example, do-mi-mi. So I'm giving the students some options. So here's my pattern:
(Echoes through patterns)
What I see you doing is looking away and then looking to the camera. You're thinking. You are audiating. You are a perfect picture of what audiation looks like. Thinking musical sound. How would that feel if we did the same thing in dominant? I don't want to put you on the spot.
Jessica: No - go for it!
Kathy: Okay. The choices we know are so-fa-re-ti and so-ti-re-fa. So I'm just going to choose three of those.
(Echoes through patterns)
Absolutely! Good for you. Don't you feel the power of solfege when you do that, Jess? You were telling me what your musical thoughts are. That's why musical improvisations are so powerful.
Jessica: So once the students can improvise on I and V chords, do you add more chords in or where do you take them from there?
Kathy: Well, there's different things again that we can do with that. For example, I can say if I sing tonic, you sing tonic. If I sing dominant, you sing dominant. For example: do-mi-do. What might be your tonic response to that?
Jessica: Mi-so-mi.
Kathy: Re-ti-re. What's yours?
Jessica: Re-Fa-so.
Kathy: Do-so-do.
Jessica: So-mi-do.
Kathy: Absolutely. So we start to practice the musical - Jess, you are good. We start to have a musical conversation, right? And then that can expand to if I sing tonic, you sing dominant. If I sing dominant, you sing tonic. That's really fun to see them do.
Jessica: Fun. Let's do it!
Kathy: Want to?
Jessica: Sure!
Kathy: So my pattern do-mi-so.
Jessica: So-fa-re
Kathy: Re-ti-re.
Jessica: Do-mi-do
Kathy: So-mi-do
Jessica: Re-ti-so
Kathy: Yeah, I can stretch it out to I do tonic and dominant. You do tonic and dominant. I could say let's do the opposite. I do tonic and dominant - you do dominant and tonic. But the kids have a ball with this if they are listening to comprehension. And do you notice I'm separating notes a bit within patterns like: do-mi-do. That's because I want the students to separate the notes so that they commit to the notes they're intending to sing. Because if they're having trouble hearing or comprehending and singing notes connected, sometimes the notes fall between the cracks and then it's harder for the teacher to know what exactly the students are really hearing. It's harder to assess and to help. So that's why you're hearing me separate notes a bit.
What we just did are kind of the preliminary steps to developing skills for improvisation. Improvising tonally. We teach tonal patterns, but we also teach tonal functions like tonic and dominant to prepare students to improvise tonally like we just did. But melodies have rhythm so we also want to teach the kids to improvise rhythmically using rhythmic patterns and teaching rhythmic functions beginning with macro beats and micro beats. For example, the teacher might say, "I'm going to chant a macro beat micro beat pattern in duple meter. You chant a different macro beat pattern." (shares rhythmic pattern) On the very next beat, students respond with something like (another rhythmic pattern). We do the same thing in triple meter and eventually we improvise other functions in duple and triple like divisions, elongations, rests. At a certain point, we'll teach students to combine tonal and rhythm pattern improvisation and improvise a song. That's also explained in the teacher's guide.
Jessica: Okay. And like you said, you'll go maybe rhythm patterns at the beginning or at the end and then the tonal patterns at the beginning and the end. Do you always do a rhythmic and tonal pattern in the same lesson? Or do you sometimes just focus rhythmically and then just tonally?
Kathy: Well, that can depend on how much time you have, what they're working on, their skill level. In my own experience, I tried to get to both tonal and rhythm patterns at some point in the lesson and they needed them both at some point in the lesson. So again, patterns can be interspersed between whatever else is going on in the class. Learning tunes, working on executive skills, improvising, but if time is short or if the schedule doesn't allow, teachers can always work on tonal patterns in one class. Rhythm patterns in another. That's fine. And if teachers find that pattern instruction doesn't seem to be helping whatever it is they're working on with the students, they can always go back to the whole. More tunes. That is where patterns come from. Sometimes kids just need more tunes.
Jessica: So how do you connect those aural skills to performing on an instrument or to a vocal performance? Once they've done all this audiating and listening and responding back and identifying, how does that transfer to notation?
Kathy: Good question. How do we take students to reading notation based on these aural skills activities? Essentially what we're doing is teaching students to connect a new visual experience with a familiar aural experience. Now, there's a lot to the answer to this question, but I'm going to try to summarize. If we were looking at the first page of notation in Jump Right In, the first things the students are going to see are the same dominant and tonic patterns written in the same order that the teacher taught by rote. We call this familiar patterns and familiar order. The teacher reads each pattern to the students. The students point to that pattern and repeat it back to the teacher. Very similar to the way that children learn to read language. Before long, the students will be able to read those patterns to the teacher. Now they're reading as a group, which is fine to start, but it's harder for the teacher to assess student's individual reading skills when they're reading - in other words singing - at the same time. So what can she do? Ask the students to read the patterns individually. Now they do that for a while, but the students are reading patterns that are so familiar that to further check their reading skills the teacher can ask the students to read the patterns in what we call unfamiliar order.
For example, say the students are looking at eight tonal patterns. THe teacher might say, "Okay everybody place your finger on pattern #4 and read." So the students do that. They point, audiate and then sing it out loud together. Then she might say, " Okay read pattern #7. Read pattern #2." And they continue in this way. Later they read patterns in unfamiliar order individually. So depending on where we are in the process and the sequence, students read patterns together. They read them individually. They read patterns in familiar order and in unfamiliar order.
Something else that the students are seeing on the page are chord symbols written above each pattern. They learn the symbols, for example, in G do. G is tonic. D7 is dominant. With all that previous practice improvising tonic and dominant patterns singing, and hopefully playing by ear, it's easy for students to read and improvise chord changes. And the best thing is, they already know what those symbols mean. What they sound like. And at almost the same time that students learn to read patterns, they learn to write them, which strengthens their reading skills. The process I'm describing here also applies to teaching students who read and write rhythm patterns. Before long they learn to read and write tonal and rhythm patterns combined. In other words, they learn to read a tune.
40m 19s
Episode 78
Music Learning Theory with Dr. Kathy Liperote
Kathy's Bio:
Dr. Kathy Liperote is Assistant Professor of Music Education at the Eastman School of Music, where she teaches methods classes, observes student teachers, and supervises graduate teaching assistants. Her teaching and research focus on the music learning process, connecting aural skills to instrumental performance, and developing musicianship skills for elementary and secondary level teaching. Dr. Liperote has presented at state and regional NAfME conferences, and conducted professional development workshops most recently at Temple University, Baldwin Wallace University, and the Fort Worth Independent School District. She is also on the Instrumental Certification Faculty for the Gordon Institute for Music Learning. Prio to receiving the PhD in Music Education from the Eastman School, Dr. Liperote taught instrumental music for 15 years in the Baldwinsville and West Genesee School Districts in Central New York State. She is a graduate of the Crane School of Music and Syracuse University.
Kathy’s email: kliperote@esm.rochester.edu
TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW
Jessica: Kathy, thank you so much for talking.
Kathy: Oh thanks for having me, Jess.
Jessica: I'm really looking forward to it. I would love to know more about Music Learning Theory because it's something I'm not as familiar with and so I really want to start off with just really understanding what Music Learning Theory involves and if you could just kind of describe it for us.
Kathy: Sure. Music Learning Theory (MLT) is based on the research of Dr. Edwin Gordon and others. And it's a description of how children learn music when they learn music. In other words, Music Learning Theory explains the music learning process and how that process is very similar to how children learning language. And that's important to know because as educators, if we teach based on how children learn naturally, which is really not about getting them to memorize the names of the lines and spaces or rhythm values, fingerings. If we teach based on how they process, it makes sense that we're going to see higher levels of musicianship and music comprehension. So learning becomes easier. It progresses naturally.
Gordon calls music comprehension audiation. And that's the heart of MLT. So the theory (MLT) explains how children learn music and then through that process we know that for kids to learn and process music meaningfully they need to be able to audiate to the best of their ability. So that's kind of in a nutshell what is MLT.
Jessica: Can you share more about what you mean by audiation? And what that looks like?
Kathy: Absolutely. Audiation is a term coined by Gordon which defines as 'the ability to hear and comprehend music for which the sound may or may not be physically present. So when we audiate - whether we're hearing, reading, recalling music - we comprehend what's going on tonally, rhythmically, harmonically. We give meaning to music. Just as in language we comprehend what's being spoken or read based on our understanding of words. The structure of language. In that case we give meaning to the printed word. In contrast just hearing music or knowing for example that Bb major has two flats or that the whole note gets four beats in 4/4 time doesn't necessarily mean we're audiating. Audiation implies a deeper level of understanding. For example, students hear and comprehend not only what's on the page musically, but what's not on the page. For example, harmonic progression, bass lines, harmony parts. They can improvise and they can do these things with and without notation through an early focus in their music instruction on audiation. Their aural skills.
Their audiation allows them to understand tonality and meter, function, tonic, dominant, rhythm function, macro beats, micro beats. It helps them to play in tune in a consistent tempo with appropriate tone quality. They balance and blend better within the ensemble. So the power of audiation is big and it's all about helping students to think in sound. To think musically.
Jessica: So in other words audiation is the main part really of MLT. You can't understand music without understanding audiation.
Kathy: You got it. In fact Gordon also says that audiation is to music what thought is to language.
Jessica: How do you teach students to use their audiation instrument?
Kathy: Well, I can teach the physical instrument fairly easily if I know my fingerings and all the executive skills necessary to play an instrument, but I can't reach into a child's ear and make them hear something so good question. Knowing how to develop a student's audiation requires an understanding of this music learning process that we were talking about and so this is where knowing the similarities between music learning and language learning is so helpful. Consider this typical sequence for learning language. Now what I'm going to describe is probably very familiar to you and your listeners. It's very common sense, but I'll summarize and this will allow us to apply this sequence to music learning.
So very basically if we start at the beginning with babies, babies first learn language by listening to conversations going on around them. Between their parents, their siblings, their caregivers. In fact listening is all they can do and cooing for the first few months until they develop the equipment necessary to speak. And at first baby's speech is what we call baby babble, which you've heard. You've got children. This is the vocalizations, imitations that babies make when they're exploring their voices in effort to communicate. But soon babble becomes intelligible words and through continually listening and speaking practice children learn to put words together to form phrases, sentences, and eventually to carry on conversations. In music we call that improvisation, right. So conversations in language is analogous to improvisation in music. And children loop through this 'listen-speak-practice' for about four or five years before they're formally taught to read. And the first words they read are very familiar to them. Like their name. We don't teach children to read words they haven't first heard, spoken, and know the meanings of.
Then, almost concurrently with learning to read, children learn to write because reading and writing reinforce each other. So in short, listening prepares students to speak a language. Listening and speaking prepare them to read and write. It's really that simple.
Listen. Speak. Read. Write.
And we call that the four vocabularies.
And that same process applies to learning music. Listening to music - not just hearing it peripherally - prepares children to interact with, to speak music. Now that second vocabulary 'speak' in the music model means any way that we make music away from notation. Listening prepare children to sing, chant, move, play by ear, improvise, create. And again the more opportunities they have to engage in those kinds of activities through listening and speaking, the better prepared they will be to read and write music with comprehension. Not through memorization or decoding. So it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it!
Jessica: Comparing it to language makes perfect sense because exactly those stages that a child goes through from their youngest years is what we do in music. And so guiding them through those stages of listening and then babbling with it and then finally speaking familiar words they know and then taking them on to new concepts.
Kathy: And if we start with something that's unfamiliar that students can't relate to, for example a lot of instrumental books start with a whole note and a whole rest and it continues for a line. Or even if it's half notes and half rests. Because that doesn't resemble anything real. And by the way, doesn't even exist. There's no tune that goes like that. They can't associate. They can't connect. It doesn't internalize and they have no choice but to then memorize those symbols. It's like morse code. It's like an unfamiliar or foreign language. So yeah, I think it's important to remember some of those simple ways to engage students in music instruction that are about how they learn other things in life including language.
Jessica: So based on what we know about audiation, then how do we take students through this?
Kathy: And to learn it. Well. How to teach students about audiation. As obvious as this may sound, the first step - and based on what we jut talked about - the first step is to teach them tunes through rote song instruction. I mean teach them a lot of tunes and a variety of tunes. Not just those that are in major tonality and duple meter. Although that's a logical place to start. But here's why teaching a variety is important. we know that children learn by making comparisons. So for example in music, if we want them to know major tonality, again a logical place to start. Soon after teaching them major tunes teach them minor tunes or put the major tunes that you taught them in minor tonality. Similarly we want them to know duple meter. Logical place to start. Soon after teaching them duple tunes teach them triple tunes or put the duple tunes in triple meter. What ends up happening is that one sound or feeling clarifies the other because of the differences between them. Which songs are the same. Which are not the same and why. If everything always sounds the same there's nothing to compare and that actually makes learning tonality and meter (for example) a little harder for kids. I emphasize this because I want to encourage teachers to look at the books they're using. Be sure the musical content is varied. Include tonalities like dorian and mixolydian. And even include mixed meters. Not all at once of course. And if the rep isn't varied, go ahead and vary it. You may be surprised at what the kids can do. In fact for many kids, minor is no harder than major. Triple is no harder than duple. They're just different. But if we wait, they start to think that anything new is hard. Right? Kids tend to think that especially as they get older.
Jessica: Yeah, I agree with that because when I've done mixed meter pieces with students, I used to when I started out say "Okay this is hard, but you're up for a challenge." but now I find I don't tell them it's hard because to them it's not hard unless I tell them it's hard, you know. And they're capable of doing so much more than we give them credit for. So much of our language is in compound meter too or has all these anacrusis so we need to use what our language has given us.
Kathy: That's a good point getting back to the language analogy.
Jessica: And so when you're teaching these tunes, how do you present the tunes to them or how do you break them down so the students can understand them.
Kathy: Well, here's a sequence for teaching a rote song that's taken from the book Jump Right In: The Instrumental Series. This is kind of a summary. So first the teacher establishes tonality by playing a tonic and dominant chord at the piano or guitar or autoharp. Or she might sing something like 'do-mi-do-re-ti-re-do.' And this step is important because it provides context for the tune the students are about to learn. In other words, it orients their ear. And eventually they'll learn that when the resting tone is 'do,' we're in major. We might also have the students move to large and small beats - macro beats and micro beats - while we sing the song to them. We sing the song first without piano and without words so the students really use their ears to focus on the melody. And we sing using a style of articulation that's appropriate for the tune we're teaching. So for example: connected style. Like 'doo-doo-doo-doo.' In other words, we could use a connected style to teach a song like Pierrot or Simple Gifts. As in (singing on doo). Etc. And there's separated style. 'Tu-tu-tu-tu' which works well for teaching Twinkle Twinkle, Lightly Row, Mary had a Little Lamb. So the teacher sings the song through one or more times as needed so the students get a sense of it. They get familiar with it. And then she teaches it to them in phrases. So she sings a phrase and then the students echo that phrase on the very next beat. You want to try this, Jess? That might help us see how this works.
Jessica: Sure!
Kathy: Ok, I'm just going to do Mary had a Little Lamb. (sings on doo)
Jessica: (echoes)
Kathy: Sings on doo...
Jessica: (echoes)
Kathy: And this continues until the students are comfortable with those phrases and then teacher helps to put the phrases together to help form the entire tune. Accompaniment can then be added along with the words. And the words are taught with a spoken voice that's first in the rhythm of the melody. (speaks example) And later the words are sung. Now the words are important because they help to convey style, phrasing, dynamics, but because students will be more comfortable with the words because they're more comfortable with language, they tend to pay more attention to them than to the tonal and rhythm content of the tune, which is what we want them to pay attention to. So waiting to teach the words until after they're comfortable with the melody is a good idea. We'd also teach the bass line and harmony parts in the same way. And when putting the song together, if you ask the students what part they want to sing many times they choose something other than the melody. It's funny how often that happens 'cause like adults kids like parts. They like singing bass lines and harmony parts. So again, this is a general description of the process. It can unfold differently, but this approach works really well for teaching a rote song.
Jessica: Okay, once students learn a variety of the melody, bass lines, and harmony parts, where do you go?
Kathy: Of course, learning tunes is an ongoing, never ending process and that's a good thing. But this takes us to another important similarity between music learning and language learning. And that's that both have what we call a 'whole-part-whole' process. So we can go back to the language analogy one more time, remember that children learn language by first listening to conversations. We call conversations the 'whole.' When they're ready to speak (this is once they're past the babble stage), they speak words, or what we call the parts. By the way, they don't speak individual letters. You don't hear children speaking letters because they're not hearing their parents speak letter. They'll speak the words that they're hearing and encouraged to say in their environment. Names, places, objects, feelings. As they process continues, children learn to put words together to form another whole. So that's very simply our 'whole-part-whole.' That process continues indefinitely.
If we apply this to music, the whole are the tunes. The parts that make up words in the music - the equivalent to words in music - also not individual notes and rhythms. Although in traditional music instruction, students are typically taught one note and one rhythm at a time and without context. But the parts that make up music are patterns of sound. Tonal patterns and rhythm patterns. That's where pattern instruction enters into MLT. It might help if I take you through some tonal pattenrs just to have that experience. Mind if we do that right now?
Jessica: Sure! That'd be great!
Kathy: They're 2-5 notes long. Tonal patterns. And they're performed without rhythm. And that's on purpose because we're not working on that thing yet. We're not working on that part of the 'whole-part-whole.' That's later. So we're isolating here. So I'm going to establish tonality with my voice once again so that you know where we are. You know what counting we're in. And then I'll ask you to repeat after me so here I go: (singing) do-mi-do-re-ti-re-do
Can you hear that I'm in major and this is 'do?' Great. Jess, could you please repeat after me? When you see me give you a particular gesture, can you see that on your Skype? Looks like that. Okay. Here we go.
(Echoing together through several patterns)
So those were 8-three note tonic and dominant patterns and I taught them to you on a neutral syllable because my most efficient teaching happens when I teach one new concept at a time. In this case it's the sound of those patterns, which by the way would sound familiar to the students because they're based on the tunes they're learning. Eventually though I'm going to teach you the syllables, the solfege for the patterns when you're ready because that's going to help you internalize, differentiate between, and retain those patterns in your audiation. Right? On your audiation hard drive, so to speak. So can we do those same eight patterns again - same order, but this time on solfege.
(Echoing patterns using solfege)
d-m-d
r-t-r
d-s,-d
r-t-s,
s,-r-t
d-m-s
s-f-r
d-m-d
Same eight patterns. Right. Did it feel like we were in a specific meter because I didn't want it to feel like we were in a specific meter.
Jessica: I don't think so. I just kept following... I was so focused on following your hand and looking right at the screen. I was more just wanting to make sure I was doing the pattern right. (laughing)
Kathy: Spot on, my friend, spot on. So for the listener, I sing a pattern and by the time I get to the last note my hands are out in front of me like where they would be on the steering wheel of my car. There's a short space after I sing. Then I give a light tap where the students breathe and repeat the pattern like you did.
Jessica: You're not conducting a pattern at all. It's just merely giving us a breath.
Kathy: Exactly.
Jessica: So those are the tonal and then how is that done rhythmically?
Kathy: Great so let's do some of that too. So just as I established tonality with my voice to provide context for you for tonal patterns, I sang do-mi-do, re-ti-re, do. Similarly I'm going to establish meter by having you move to large beats - the macro beat - and small beats - the micro beat. So can we do that, Jess?
Jessica: Yes!
Kathy: So Jess, let's put the large beat in your feet - in your heels. I know you can't see me, but I'm about here tempo wise. Can you hear that?
Jessica: Yup.
Kathy: And we're going to put the small beat - the micro beat - on your thighs or on your desktop...your computer. Whatever's easiest for you. For the purposes of demonstration, here's our meter and our tempo. You can tell I'm in duple. Repeat after me please:
(echoes patterns in duple using bah-bah)
Right. It sounds like a lot of the tunes that the kids are learning and again, I taught them to you on a neutral syllable so that I don't overwhelm you by learning patterns and on top of that, rhythm syllables. When the kids are ready, we'll do the same patterns on rhythm syllables. Can we try this again?
(echoes patterns in duple meter using du and du-de)
You're responding to me musically, right? You're not on auto-pilot. Du-de du. This is where it helps them to become musical. They have a musical example. They tend to emulate that in their performances so that's terrific. So assuming that I'm varying the repertoire by teaching triple tunes as well as duple tunes, let's do some triple patterns. Now it's new so I'm going to go back to a neutral syllable. Move with me again please:
(echoes patterns in triple meter using bah-bah)
Good. I'm going to fast forward. You're ready for some syllables. Here we go:
(echoes patterns using du-da-di)
These are what we call function based rhythm syllables. The rhythms are labeled based on how the rhythms feel regardless of how they look in notation because we're not there yet. You may have noticed that I'm using the same rhythm syllable 'du' for both duple and triple meters and that's because 'du' functions the same. It's job is the same in both meters and that's to be the large beat so it gets the same name. Du. But what defines the meter that we're in isn't the large beat - it's the small beat. So those names need to change.
In duple: du-de, du-de.
In triple: du-da-di, du-da-di.
If I were to add a function, I would go to divisions in duple. So if we can do a few of those. Move with me please.
(Echoes patterns using bah-bah)
I could go on with many of those. And that again is reminiscent of the repertoire that they're listening to. I don't teach all these patterns in the same class or week. Obviously this is, we're looking at a trajectory here. Again we fast forward. Here are the syllables that go with divisions in duple meter. Move with me:
(Echoes patterns using du-ta-de... du-ta-de-ta...)
And I wouldn't describe divisions as being anything visual like a sixteenth note or a quarter of a quarter note or anything like that. I would define it as a rhythm that is shorter than a macro beat and a micro beat and it uses the syllable 'ta.' From then I'd go to elongations, rests, upbeats, ties, and so on.
Jessica: So how much time would you spend on these rhythmic or tonal patterns, say in a class period?
Kathy: Well, it's recommended that teachers spend just a couple of minutes at a time on tonal patterns or rhythm patterns and preferably at different times during the class. So if we keep the whole-part-whole process in mind, we start with the whole. This is the whole idea of tunes including bass lines and harmony parts, which we can do with and without notation. Inherent in those tunes will be aspects of tonal and rhythmic performances that they're working on. So we can engage them in tonal or rhythmic patterns that address those issues. Now patterns should be related to the tunes students are learning - the musical content of those tunes. For example, if students are learning minor tonality and they know a bunch of minor tunes, they'll be ready to learn minor tonal patterns starting with tonic and dominant. But again, spend just a few minutes on patterns. Then go on to something else. Maybe they're working on tunes in other tonalities and meters or other functions like subdominant or divisions or elongation. Maybe they're working on an executive skill or writing a composition or improvising. If you find students are having difficulty tonally or rhythmically during one of those activities, go ahead and pull out the patterns again. So patterns can be inserted in different parts of the class if needed, but the important thing about pattern instruction is it shouldn't go on too long. Here's what I mean...
Words and language are tonal and rhythm patterns in music. So if I just said a bunch of words over and over to you for five or ten minutes right now, you might say, 'Okay. Now what. Like put them together and say something to me.' Right? If we overdo the pattern work, the kids - they're just dying for a tune. Let's play something. Let's make this have more context and more meaning.
Jessica: Yeah, I just thought I'd ask that because since we're talking about MLT and demonstrating portions it might seem like that's all that MLT is, but there's so much more than that. It's just in order to understand the function of those patterns you have to hear what they sound like which is why I'm so glad we've echoed through those so people can get a basis for what that sounds like along with the tunes.
Kathy: Yea. You're right. It can give the impression that's all we do. Some people do think that's what Music Learning Theory is. Some people think Music Learning Theory is where you sing in instrumental music instruction or any kind of instruction, but singing has been around forever. Music Learning Theory doesn't have any claim to singing. It's what we do or should be doing.
Jessica: Yeah, I think that's just part of being a musician, isn't it? Being a music maker, you've got this voice inside of you. Use it.
Kathy: Yeah. And Gordon talks about the instrument being in your head. That's your audiation instrument. The instrument in your hand is your executive instrument. The thing that drives everything that comes out of the instrument is what's in the body and in the ears. There's no way around that. So yeah - everybody should be singing and moving in all music classes. Every single music class we should be singing and moving.
INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE
Jessica: And then there's one other aspect - well, and this may not be the only other aspect, but the other one that I know that is a big portion is the improvisation piece. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Kathy: Thanks for bringing that up. If you imagine at a certain point the students are comfortable with familiar patterns and familiar order and even am unfamiliar order, they are ready to learn what those patterns are called. There's a process in the teacher's guide that goes like this. If I reestablish tonality for you (d-m-s - f-r-t - here's my do). I would explain to you, Jess, as my student, any combination of do-mi-so is a major tonic pattern. Can you sing that with me? Major tonic pattern. Or you could just call it tonic. That's fine. But let's practice. What do you call this?
So-mi-Do - What kind of pattern is that? Major tonic pattern.
There's another Do-So-Mi - What is that? Major tonic pattern.
So-Mi-So. Major tonic pattern.
You can shorten that again to tonic. Tonic.
I'm going to sing some patterns. If you hear me sing any combination of d-m-s, sing 'tonic.' If you hear me sing anything other than that combination of d-m-s, sing 'no.' So your choices are 'tonic' / 'no.' Can you sing your choices with me? Tonic/No. There you go. So here's your first one, Jess.
(Echoes through patterns)
At the same time, I'm going to identify what that other pattern is that you've been hearing. Jess, any combination of s-f-r-t is called a Major Dominant Pattern. Can you sing that with me? Major Dominant Pattern. Let's practice a few, Jess. Here's mine:
(Echoes through patterns)
Okay. So I'm going to sing some patterns for you. If you hear me sing any combination of s-f-r-t, please sing Dominant. But if you hear me sing anything other than that, sing 'No.' So now your choices are 'Dominant' and 'No.' Can we sing those? Dominant. No.
(Echoes through patterns)
Jessica: I did the wrong pitch.
Kathy: You fixed it! I saw your eyes go up. You gave what we call the audiation stare. You knew that didn't feel right and you fixed it on your own. That's the best kind of learning. Self-correction. Here's another one, Jess.
(Echoes through patterns)
Great. Another class or sometime down the road, I'm going to ask the students to label my pattern. It's either going to be tonic or dominant. Here we go.
(Echoes through patterns)
Right. Right. But this a great preparation for them learning to improvise. Now that you know what tonic and dominant is and since major is such a great place to start, I'm going to sing a tonic pattern. You sing a different tonic pattern. Okay. Our choices are: do-mi-so. You can sing mine backwards: so-mi-do. Or you can repeat a note. For example, do-mi-mi. So I'm giving the students some options. So here's my pattern:
(Echoes through patterns)
What I see you doing is looking away and then looking to the camera. You're thinking. You are audiating. You are a perfect picture of what audiation looks like. Thinking musical sound. How would that feel if we did the same thing in dominant? I don't want to put you on the spot.
Jessica: No - go for it!
Kathy: Okay. The choices we know are so-fa-re-ti and so-ti-re-fa. So I'm just going to choose three of those.
(Echoes through patterns)
Absolutely! Good for you. Don't you feel the power of solfege when you do that, Jess? You were telling me what your musical thoughts are. That's why musical improvisations are so powerful.
Jessica: So once the students can improvise on I and V chords, do you add more chords in or where do you take them from there?
Kathy: Well, there's different things again that we can do with that. For example, I can say if I sing tonic, you sing tonic. If I sing dominant, you sing dominant. For example: do-mi-do. What might be your tonic response to that?
Jessica: Mi-so-mi.
Kathy: Re-ti-re. What's yours?
Jessica: Re-Fa-so.
Kathy: Do-so-do.
Jessica: So-mi-do.
Kathy: Absolutely. So we start to practice the musical - Jess, you are good. We start to have a musical conversation, right? And then that can expand to if I sing tonic, you sing dominant. If I sing dominant, you sing tonic. That's really fun to see them do.
Jessica: Fun. Let's do it!
Kathy: Want to?
Jessica: Sure!
Kathy: So my pattern do-mi-so.
Jessica: So-fa-re
Kathy: Re-ti-re.
Jessica: Do-mi-do
Kathy: So-mi-do
Jessica: Re-ti-so
Kathy: Yeah, I can stretch it out to I do tonic and dominant. You do tonic and dominant. I could say let's do the opposite. I do tonic and dominant - you do dominant and tonic. But the kids have a ball with this if they are listening to comprehension. And do you notice I'm separating notes a bit within patterns like: do-mi-do. That's because I want the students to separate the notes so that they commit to the notes they're intending to sing. Because if they're having trouble hearing or comprehending and singing notes connected, sometimes the notes fall between the cracks and then it's harder for the teacher to know what exactly the students are really hearing. It's harder to assess and to help. So that's why you're hearing me separate notes a bit.
What we just did are kind of the preliminary steps to developing skills for improvisation. Improvising tonally. We teach tonal patterns, but we also teach tonal functions like tonic and dominant to prepare students to improvise tonally like we just did. But melodies have rhythm so we also want to teach the kids to improvise rhythmically using rhythmic patterns and teaching rhythmic functions beginning with macro beats and micro beats. For example, the teacher might say, "I'm going to chant a macro beat micro beat pattern in duple meter. You chant a different macro beat pattern." (shares rhythmic pattern) On the very next beat, students respond with something like (another rhythmic pattern). We do the same thing in triple meter and eventually we improvise other functions in duple and triple like divisions, elongations, rests. At a certain point, we'll teach students to combine tonal and rhythm pattern improvisation and improvise a song. That's also explained in the teacher's guide.
Jessica: Okay. And like you said, you'll go maybe rhythm patterns at the beginning or at the end and then the tonal patterns at the beginning and the end. Do you always do a rhythmic and tonal pattern in the same lesson? Or do you sometimes just focus rhythmically and then just tonally?
Kathy: Well, that can depend on how much time you have, what they're working on, their skill level. In my own experience, I tried to get to both tonal and rhythm patterns at some point in the lesson and they needed them both at some point in the lesson. So again, patterns can be interspersed between whatever else is going on in the class. Learning tunes, working on executive skills, improvising, but if time is short or if the schedule doesn't allow, teachers can always work on tonal patterns in one class. Rhythm patterns in another. That's fine. And if teachers find that pattern instruction doesn't seem to be helping whatever it is they're working on with the students, they can always go back to the whole. More tunes. That is where patterns come from. Sometimes kids just need more tunes.
Jessica: So how do you connect those aural skills to performing on an instrument or to a vocal performance? Once they've done all this audiating and listening and responding back and identifying, how does that transfer to notation?
Kathy: Good question. How do we take students to reading notation based on these aural skills activities? Essentially what we're doing is teaching students to connect a new visual experience with a familiar aural experience. Now, there's a lot to the answer to this question, but I'm going to try to summarize. If we were looking at the first page of notation in Jump Right In, the first things the students are going to see are the same dominant and tonic patterns written in the same order that the teacher taught by rote. We call this familiar patterns and familiar order. The teacher reads each pattern to the students. The students point to that pattern and repeat it back to the teacher. Very similar to the way that children learn to read language. Before long, the students will be able to read those patterns to the teacher. Now they're reading as a group, which is fine to start, but it's harder for the teacher to assess student's individual reading skills when they're reading - in other words singing - at the same time. So what can she do? Ask the students to read the patterns individually. Now they do that for a while, but the students are reading patterns that are so familiar that to further check their reading skills the teacher can ask the students to read the patterns in what we call unfamiliar order.
For example, say the students are looking at eight tonal patterns. THe teacher might say, "Okay everybody place your finger on pattern #4 and read." So the students do that. They point, audiate and then sing it out loud together. Then she might say, " Okay read pattern #7. Read pattern #2." And they continue in this way. Later they read patterns in unfamiliar order individually. So depending on where we are in the process and the sequence, students read patterns together. They read them individually. They read patterns in familiar order and in unfamiliar order.
Something else that the students are seeing on the page are chord symbols written above each pattern. They learn the symbols, for example, in G do. G is tonic. D7 is dominant. With all that previous practice improvising tonic and dominant patterns singing, and hopefully playing by ear, it's easy for students to read and improvise chord changes. And the best thing is, they already know what those symbols mean. What they sound like. And at almost the same time that students learn to read patterns, they learn to write them, which strengthens their reading skills. The process I'm describing here also applies to teaching students who read and write rhythm patterns. Before long they learn to read and write tonal and rhythm patterns combined. In other words, they learn to read a tune.
40m 19s
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