Sarah Ralston

MUSE 250
Conway Reflection Paper
This article begins with explaining that students who are first coming into an instrumental
ensemble are more than likely lacking the musical-readiness that many instrumental music
teachers would like to see due to the impossible teaching situation that elementary general music
teachers are faced with. Musical readiness is a term that many music teachers use to help
determine how prepared a student is to study music based on a list of behaviors. Musical
readiness is what should be taught in beginning music classes so when a student walks into a
band, choir, or orchestra classroom, the student can focus on learning executive skills. Executive
skills are skills which entail putting an instrument together, holding the instrument properly,
forming the correct embouchure and hand position, knowing fingerings, and having the
coordination to move the fingers correctly. Although many music teachers spend a lot of time
focusing on these executive skills, there are more executive skills that need to be taught such as
audiating tonally and rhythmically. Audiation is the act of hearing the music you see on the page
in your head without playing or singing it. Rhythm patterns are patterns of rhythms grouped
together and teachers will often do a call-and-response activity with these to help students learn
different patterns of rhythms they will sing in music. Tonal patterns are patterns of different
tones, be it a triad (do, mi, sol, etc.) or any other pattern that is taught the same way as a rhythm
pattern. Tonal patterns allow students to become familiar with hearing and singing tendency
tones and their inversions, the key of a piece of music, and major and minor triads.
The authors case about when to teach notation demonstrates a sound before sight
experience for the students. Notation isnt introduced until students can successfully keep a
steady beat (macro) and successfully subdivide in duple and triple patterns. I agree with this

very much because this allows students to learn for themselves by hearing the beat and the
rhythms before seeing them.
The author pointed out that teaching students the songs that they are about to play by rote
is very important so they can hear the pitches themselves since they are creating them with their
mouths. Something I enjoyed from this was the author said that students should learn the rote
songs in both major and minor tonalities as well as in both duple and triple meters.
My musical preparation in elementary school was pretty decent. The music class itself
didnt really prepare me for anything, but my mother and family were the ones that started me on
piano and guitar and were always singing around me. My elementary music class did help me to
learn how to keep a steady beat and how to play an ostinato pattern on an instrument while others
were singing. I was very happy with my preparation in elementary school because I went into
middle school band already knowing how to read music and rhythms.
My early performance class experiences were not very similar. We learned as we played
in my middle school band classes. We picked up the instruments after learning how to read
music, and we just learned as we went. We did absolutely no singing nor call and response
rhythm patterns.
A few points I will focus on as a teacher are making sure my students can play in time
with rhythms, and teaching those with a sound before sight perspective. I feel students learn the
most from that.