Chapter 10 Pointes of Interest

POI #1: Too much creative freedom.

Having your students be able to explore is a wonderful thing. Giving them the chance to invent and improvise is truly amazing. However I believe that it is only so fantastic up to a certain point. I think of creating as a bell curve. A student should be allowed the right amount of creativity to perform as best they can. Otherwise too little creativity will create a mundane performance whereas too much may muddle what concepts need to get across to an audience member.

A few examples of this are; improvising out of key, not keeping the proper tonality, playing instruments in new ways that make them sound poor or not at all, or not following proper form to where a piece becomes inaccurate and historically wrong.

I feel that it is important to allow children to use their creativity, just as long as they retain their musical aspects. If the composition starts to turn from a round into a chaconne, do not call the piece around. You must explain to the student that they have now created a new piece that is different from a round. If a student starts to play an instrument incorrectly, it must be fixed so their musicality does not suffer. Sometimes I see teachers allowing too much freedom with their students to a point where their musicality is affected greatly.

POI #2 Crossing into other academia

I feel that creating obviously open the door to crossing content boundaries. Children may want to make up their own movements to dance or their won pictures to music. They may relate pieces to aspects of history or places that they have been. I think that having your students thinking "outside the box" about music will help them in the long run.

Fantasia is a perfect example of music and art together. Disney animators do a wonderful job of showing the music with their art. Their art also does not take away from the magnificence of the music. It combines to mediums into a wonderful piece of work. The first was so successful that they made another one in 2000 aptly named Fantasia 2000. I highly recommend these movies to anyone who has an appreciation of art and music.

POI #3: Making instruments

I love this, I absolutely love this. Making instruments is a wonderful way for students to start to understand how sound works. Making instruments shows students different aspects of instruments that they might miss. This could include the finger holes with different pitches, the resonating chambers of guitars and stringed instruments, or the vibrations of cymbals.

Having students explore by creating instruments allows them to understand concepts that sometimes do not get taught in a school setting. If a teacher can utilize how to make instruments, they can easily have more educated students. As long as the teacher is willing to explain how and why instruments make sounds, their students will start to realize how the "real" instruments that they play function.

Claire de Lune (deleted scene from Fantasia)