Rose, L. S., & Countryman, J. (2013). Repositioning ‘the elements’: How students talk about music. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 12(3): 45–64.
This article gave me a very fresh new interpretation of music education, and made me completely re-evaluate my own education through elementary and secondary school.
My entire music education has been built around the elements, so I had never once considered that it was not the only way to teach music. As a student who does well with picking up, understanding, and regurgitating concepts, teaching music through the elements seemed to work very well, allowing my understanding of music theory to become quite deep. However, when the article mentioned alternative methods of learning music, such as ones with a focus on how the music makes one feel, I believe I lack skills there, and it is easy to see that the elements are to blame. Seeing that the system that I had enjoyed for so many years also be the system that caused my sub-par understanding of emotional music was quite frustrating.
However, I feel that I cannot be too mad, as I believe my understanding of the elements and music theory can be used an as alternative method to understanding how music can express emotion. With it, one can objectively qualify certain emotions in a concise way. One of these tools is chord relationships, which describe how two chord evoke a certain emotional response in a simple manner. While the elements did not directly teach me what they are, it sparked my own exploration and led to me discover them. Another method for describing emotions in music with the elements is looking at which chord tone the melody plays over a given chord (e.g. the 9th or 11th over a minor chord expresses a general discomfort, almost a pain in the playing).
Seeing these work-arounds the elements offer makes me believe that the authors of the article are offering a biased opinion. While I agree that a focus on listening to music will make classes more enjoyable, understanding the elements is still very important to aspiring musicians. They let students understand why they feel certain ways from certain pieces. I believe that the authors should have factored this into their article, especially as, while less common, there are students who learn better through the elements than through the alternative methods they discuss in the article. I think that even though they are thinking about more progressive and modern teaching methods, they are still hung up on the idea that all students should learn one, instead of being split off into groups smaller than 20 to accommodate for differing learning styles.
This article gave me a very fresh new interpretation of music education, and made me completely re-evaluate my own education through elementary and secondary school.
My entire music education has been built around the elements, so I had never once considered that it was not the only way to teach music. As a student who does well with picking up, understanding, and regurgitating concepts, teaching music through the elements seemed to work very well, allowing my understanding of music theory to become quite deep. However, when the article mentioned alternative methods of learning music, such as ones with a focus on how the music makes one feel, I believe I lack skills there, and it is easy to see that the elements are to blame. Seeing that the system that I had enjoyed for so many years also be the system that caused my sub-par understanding of emotional music was quite frustrating.
However, I feel that I cannot be too mad, as I believe my understanding of the elements and music theory can be used an as alternative method to understanding how music can express emotion. With it, one can objectively qualify certain emotions in a concise way. One of these tools is chord relationships, which describe how two chord evoke a certain emotional response in a simple manner. While the elements did not directly teach me what they are, it sparked my own exploration and led to me discover them. Another method for describing emotions in music with the elements is looking at which chord tone the melody plays over a given chord (e.g. the 9th or 11th over a minor chord expresses a general discomfort, almost a pain in the playing).
Seeing these work-arounds the elements offer makes me believe that the authors of the article are offering a biased opinion. While I agree that a focus on listening to music will make classes more enjoyable, understanding the elements is still very important to aspiring musicians. They let students understand why they feel certain ways from certain pieces. I believe that the authors should have factored this into their article, especially as, while less common, there are students who learn better through the elements than through the alternative methods they discuss in the article. I think that even though they are thinking about more progressive and modern teaching methods, they are still hung up on the idea that all students should learn one, instead of being split off into groups smaller than 20 to accommodate for differing learning styles.