I believe that music education should be based on the simple structure:
Whole – Part – Whole.
Music concepts must be introduced broadly, analyzed and discussed in detail, and then revisited in relation to the standard repertoire or current practice. With younger students, I approach teaching melodies by rote in a similar fashion; beginning by performing a song in its entirety, reducing it down into “digestible chunks,” and gradually combining fragments into larger melodic phrases. From there, larger topics such as phrasing, inflection and harmonic motion may be addressed within their relation to the original example. In my experience, this method is as effective with 1st graders as it is with college students.
Language learners will agree that the ability to comprehend, speak, write, and read are all integral components of language acquisition. Similarly, the ability to read music, improvise, compose, and perform on their instrument combine to define the consummate musician. I believe that a music student will have fully learned a musical concept when they can execute these skills in the context of appropriate repertoire.
In 2018-2019, I served as Associate Instructor for an undergraduate music course about complex concepts, yet almost none of my students were music majors. I am fully aware that these students will likely never need to realize a harmonic analysis of a Rossini aria, nor will they need to subdivide eighth-note quintuplets out in the real world.
It is my hope that their newfound respect for music, along with their ability to approach and interact with once-foreign topics and concepts, will manifest and flourish in other parts of their lives.
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