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MUSIC PEDAGOGY FOR THE ADULT LEARNER

Since I started to work in different institutions as a music teacher, my big concern was to get some literature on music skills acquisition for the youth. That was really hard, and today it is still difficult to find enough information about it. As a result of this unsuccessful search, I decide putting together some musical issues that in my concern are important at the moment to start studies in music. These sort of musical aspects are: Motivation, learning process, memory, rhythmic reading, good tuning, and cognitive skills. Everyone knows that the best moment to start studying music is at an early stage of life, the sooner the better. But not for everyone to start at an early age is possible or at least an easy task. Each individual, as well as we know, has certain musical aptitudes, some more than others, and musical skills that have to be developed and trained to achieve some level of capacities to understand music, and even more, how to play and instrument. This leads us to think about how youth are willing to learn and how learning happens. Without a doubt, motivation in musical learning and playing an instrument would be the most transcendent aspect, and everyone should be provided with it. Learning music, and learning how to play an instrument, may not be an unpleasant moment. Instead, it has to be a very delightful, enjoyable, and fun time. Studies by Howe and John Sloboda show that children who have being raised in an environment in which parents and teachers are giving them a high motivational experience are prompt to learn easily (Ivaldi 2011, 208). Studies conducted by Howe and Sloboda in childrens learning process of playing and instrument shows that motivation plays a fundamental role. In addition to the key factors such as family, teachers, and practice, the experience of performing an instrument is influenced by their own beliefs concerning ability, and musical values. Ability beliefs are related to self-perception and expectancy for success, which means that the way

the student is feeling at this particular activity influences the process. On the other hand, values are related to three main aspects: the level of importance when achieving a task well done; intrinsic motivation as how much a task is enjoyed; and extrinsic utility value as how useful he or she find the musical task (Ivaldi 2011, 209) By using these two indicators (ability beliefs and values) Sloboda (2005) found that children who played instruments had higher ability in self-perception and values than those who did not. Even more, they had higher values than selfperception for instrumental music. Many people are interested in just have fun playing with friends or playing alone. Also, not all of them are interested in music as a performer, study music as a major, or being involved with music at some professional level. There are many kinds of these musicians that spend a lot of time, money, and patience getting some levels of proficiency on playing an instrument. These individuals are simply overwhelmed with the complexity of music and the little help that is offered by institutions. These people are a target to reach and putting together with others musicians for guiding them through the experience of learning music with a solid bases. Besides, giving them the confidence to approach music from a perspective that addresses the process to gain the sufficient skills for playing an instrument in a band, group, orchestra, etc. If they are enjoying when doing music, music will be easily for them. On the contrary, if they will tend to be less interested doing music, this shows that music has to be something that causes pleasure. We have to acknowledge that: The learning process begins with spontaneous and immediate perception(Zimmerman 1982). As above mentioned, musician in one moment of their lives will play in a group, band or in an orchestra. Act that require play in time, play with good rhythm, good intonation, good reflex, and even good sight (Eckart Altenmuller 2006, 26). This, also happen when musicians are playing alone. Each one of these characteristics are involved in a process in which memory plays a very important role. How could memory affect our performance?

Many times have we heard stories about how famous musicians or not famous, had an episode of amnesia or memory failures. Well, those mild memory loss are very common and fortunately there exist many different exercises that help brain to recover from those bad episodes. Researches into the long-term memory suggest that: The more effectively we encode material into long-term memory, the greater the likelihood of retrieving it (JP, et al. 2005). Perhaps the most debated issue, which is subjected to criticism, may be the way that teachers insist taking care when performing technical exercises (Hallam and Creech 2010, 93). This requirement is based on the need to attain standard levels of proficiency in technical, aural, cognitive, and performance skills such as: Articulation, intonation, tune, reading music, sound quality, among others. This method of repeat it many times will give to the pupil enough time to encode properly fingering patterns in every technique aspect, multiplying the possibilities to play properly (Hallam and Creech 2010, 94). A musician could improve their skills playing often the same musical phrase starting slow and then increasing tempo slowly. And even better, playing the same musical phrase with different rhythms and different articulations, and to play them in different keys. Also, as academic musicians, we know that scales come in different categories, modes, grades, grades of difficulties, tonalities, etc. Working with scales, would give us a good sense of higher and lower pitch, articulations, and fingering techniques as well. It is our concern to guide through the precise technique in how to play scales and how to play them well due to the fact that it is very easy to fall in mistakes that will give us a false sense of confidence. It is very important to play for any audience it does not matter if they know or do not know music. It is enough if they enjoy whatever you are playing. These will help fingering and confidence. Likewise, it will help making sound better. Rhythmic reading among others musical aspects has to be understood carefully when learning to read music. The accuracy of reading music is the foundation of a good musical interpretation (Kohut 1973, 18). After working with

different methods and looking through many rhythmic literatures, I was finally able to find a method which works with onomatopoeia. This method mainly consists in giving names to different rhythmical patterns. Each syllable represent one beat inside a pattern as it is shown below.

Pattern No 1 The beat

Pattern No 2 Eighths

Pattern No 3 Sixteenths

Pattern No 4 Combination of eighths and sixteenths

Pattern No 5

Pattern No 6 Triplets

These rhythmic patterns can apply with different length values preserving the onomatopoeia. For example:

Triplets

or

Musicians should have the ability to understand and solve any rhythmical problems that he or she will face throughout his life. This will happens if they have a mentally subdivision of the beat. Even though this method is not necessary for some scholars, it works for others so it could be considered a matter of opinion. Knowing different rhythmic patterns, singing, and playing these sequences in percussions instruments or just clapping them, will give the ability to read music notation fluently. Once having achieved the correct playtime, the interpreter will acquire the enough confidentiality that allows him to focus in other musical aspects as intonation, articulation, accents, breathing, among others. Here are some examples, for the purpose of showing graphically, how the subdivision works, and the sense of pulse is asserted. Division and subdivision of the beat:

No 1

No 2

No 3

Daily practice makes a good performer. This proverb refers to the discipline the pupils must have. If students are not motivated to learn, they are going to quit very fast. They would not be willing to accept the effort that is required to learn. The sacrifice that represent a daily practice, and we know that talent is 15 percent of a musician, the other 85 percent is practice, practice, and practice. Again, motivational aspects are the most important issues that we need to be aware to achieve in order to fulfill the requirements for good learning. Good tuning Many excellent books have being written about good intonation, explaining how develop a good sense of tone, a good ear, and how to sing a song without losing the key tone. However, none of them have the last word. Listening music carefully would help a lot finding a good sense of tone. The major source of the players problems stems from poor listening habits (Kohut 1973, 99). It does not matter what kind of instrument you are playing it could be a wood wind, brass wind, bowed string , whatever instrument even percussion, all of them have to be in tone. Each

type of instrument has their rules to follow in order to be played. Tuning up them is the first step to play in concordance with others instruments. In Wind instruments we find that performers physical condition is an important factor that must be addressed. Organs such as the mouth, the size of lips, as well as the size of lungs, and cage capacity among others, are factors that influence in one or another way the performance of the tuning. Studies by Daniel Kohut on the embouchure suggest that it exists three principal factors that will affect tone quality and intonation: First of all the embouchure formation and the tension that is applied to it; second of all the velocity of the air that is being blown; and finally the size of the mouth cavity (Kohut 1973). Embouchure has to be made positioning lips correctly, blowing directly to the edge of the hole, and allowing the air to escape as a column without pressure, but with enough velocity to produce the sound as we see when the flute is being played. Controlling the pressure in lungs is the cue to control the sound and tune. High velocity or too much pressure will make the sound go up in tune. Slow velocity or poor pressure will make the tune go down. Also, the quality of sound will be affected by these circumstances as well. Additionally, instruments that require the use of reeds to produce sound will be affected in one way or another by the hardness or the softness of the reed. At the same time, the amount of pressure in your lips will produce good tone or good intonation if it is well performed. In addition, we know that when playing an instrument performers have a lot of task to make. In other words, they have to be aware of every aspect that is involved in playing. Not only embouchure, but also breath support, correct posture, vibrato, notes being played, interpretation, among others. Understanding theory Music theory involves different cognitive processes, which are interconnected with each other. Achieving a high level in theory guarantees that we will acquire a vast musical knowledge. Understanding how music works is important for musicians as well as for psychologists, pedagogues, neuroscientists, etc. Every one who is interested in play an instrument professionally will have to know theory +even if it is not a rule. Many people who do not know theory can play

an instrument and with a lot of practice they can play very well. Others, who know a lot of theory cannot play an instrument. Music has many branches and they are studied independently but they are strongly tied together. There are many points of view about how to make music, and none of them is the best. However, many of them are deeply studied in music theory: tonality, articulation, notation of music, phrase, transportation, dynamics, styles, composition etc., are common aspects in music theory, and all of them will give us a good sense of what is music about. It is worth to know that there is not only one method to learn music. Many of them emphasize in different issues of learning. Some tend towards how the brain works and how our perception would influence our performance. Others tend towards the learning of music from a different point of view that may include how to introduce, perform and understand music since an early age. As already mentioned above, none of these studies have that last word. As Susan Hallam and Andrea Creech said Combination of methods may be the most effective (Hallam and Creech 2010). To conclude, it is important to acknowledge that the most important thing about music is to be willing to put some effort and dedication while being aware of the aspects that this paper is discussing. This work is not in any way the last word but going through it could help people interested in the way music is learned by academics and not academics musicians. For instance it may be important to consider what makes us evade music when we are not university students but enthusiastic musicians? This and others questions are a matter of concern for scholars who are interested in researching about how people can approach and achieve good levels playing instruments, and getting involved with music without the pressure that carries being a professional performer. In my opinion, this does not mean that these musicians do not have enough responsibilities to learn music in an appropriate way. In the contrary, it will give them more confidence and thus they will get much better in their musical learning.

References

Eckart Altenmuller, Mario Wiesendanger, Jurg Kesselring. 2006. Music, Motor Control And The Brain. Edited by Mario Wiesendanger, Jurg Kesselring Eckart Altenmuller. New York: Oxford University press. Hallam, Susan, and Andrea Creech. 2010. "Learning to play an instrument." In Music Education in the 21st Century in the United Kingdom: Achievements, analysis and aspirations, edited by Susan Hallam and Andrea Creech, 85-104. London: University of London. Ivaldi, Antonia. 2011. "Routes to adolescent musical expertise." In Music and te Mind: Essays in honour of John Sloboda, edited by Irene Deliege and Jane W. Davidson, 205-224. New York: Oxford University Press. JP, Van Overschelde, Rawson K.A, Dunlosky J, and Hunt R.R. 2005. "Distinctive processing underlies skilled memory." Psychological Science, no. 16 (5): 358361. Kohut, Daniel. 1973. INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PEDAGOGY: Teaching Techniques for School Band and Orchestra Directors. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall of Canada, LTD Toronto. W.Passer, Michael, Ronald E. Smith, Michael L. Atkinson, John B. Mitchel, and Darwin W. Muir. 2008. Psychology: Frontierws and Aplications. Third Canadian Edition. Edited by McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. Nicole Lukach. Zimmerman, M. P. 1982. Developmental processes in music learning. Symposium in Music Education. Edited by R. Colwell. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

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