Alternative+Approaches

**//Objective//: **


By the end of this wiki page, you will be able to explain:
 * The general principles of Music Learning Theory and how those principles can be used by instrumental music teachers to improve instruction with the "Jump Right in and do it!" Instrumental series.
 * The types of resources included in this series for teachers.
 * How an audiation-based approach to instrumental instruction differs from traditional methods of instruction.
 * The challenges of using this approach, the skills required of the teacher, and the advantages to using this method.

//** History: An Audiation Based Approach to Instrumental Instruction **//
The Jump Right in and Do It! Instrumental series for band, recorder and strings is based on over thirty years of research and observation into how children learn music (music learning theory). It is being used successfully by school districts across the country. It is the only instrumental series based on a comprehensive music learning theory and the only instrumental series coordinated with a general music curriculum. Because the methods and techniques used in Jump Right In: The Instrumental Series develop the “inner instrument” as well as the actual music instrument the student is learning to play, many teachers have seen a great improvement in the level of musicianship their students display. In this approach to teaching instrumental music, music reading typically begins no sooner than three months into the series - and when reading begins, it is with true meaning. Jump Right In advocates "sound before sight" for one simple reason: players become more musical if they know what sounds to expect before they play them. Jump Right In encourages beginning musicians to learn many tunes by ear right from the start, and not just those tunes that are a part of the series. Jump Right In is an instructional approach that helps teachers use the principles of music learning theory in their classrooms.

//**Music Learning Theory**//


Edwin Gordon's Music Learning Theory emphasizes the importance of audiation - hearing music in your head before playing, singing, writing, reading, creating or improvising. Music is an aural art - so developing the skill of audiation in instrumental students is crucial to their early learning and development as musicians. If they are taught to be musical and to audiate, they are able to read notation with better understanding. Gordon compares the music learning process to language. We did not learn each letter of the alphabet before we heard, imitated, and spoke language. We were immersed first. In this approach to teaching instrumental music, music reading typically begins no sooner than three months into the series-and when reading begins, it is with true meaning. The approach is similar to, but extends beyond, the "rote before note" approach. Jump Right In advocates "sound before sight" for one simple reason: players become more musical if they know what sounds to expect before they play them. Jump Right In encourages beginning musicians to learn many tunes by ear right from the start, and not just those tunes that are a part of the series.

//**What Jump Right in and Do It looks like in a band situation... **//


//An audiation-based approach to instrumental instruction differs significantly from traditional methods.//

**Rote before note.**
Singing and playing be ear are essential for developing the ability to connect audiation to the physical manipulation of the instrument. Instrumentalists should spend at least a semester playing by rote before learning to read notation. Tonal and rhythm patters -- sung, chanted, and played -- are the content of learning sequence activities. Songs are the primary content of classroom activities. Songs are musical stories, essential components of the aural/oral foundation upon which higher levels of audiation skill are built. The number of songs a student knows is an important measure of musical achievement. Learning lots of tunes by ear lays the groundwork for improvisation - the objective is for the student to learn so many melodies and bass lines that he begins to hear harmonic progressions ("the changes") and generate his own melodic lines.

**Patterns, not individual notes.**
Most beginning instrumental methods start by having students play one note at a time. Because a single note has no musical meaning, this process does little to develop audiation and the connection between the inner audiation instrument and the physical instrument. Many methods begin with whole notes, which are difficult to audiate.In //Jump Right in: The Instrumental Series// students first learn to perform basic tonal and rhythmic patterns. The first rhythm patterns they learn are at the most basic level of rhythm content (macrobeat and microbeat patterns in duple meter). These patterns are first notated as quarter notes and eighth notes in the measure signature of 2/4. Later, students read the same patterns, with the same rhythm solfege, as half notes and quarter notes in 2/2, or "cut" time. They soon encounter these same basic patterns in the songs they learn to sing, play, and read.
 * Students sing tonal patterns and songs before they play them on their instruments. They also chant rhythm patterns before they play them on their instruments. Music learning is sequenced, and classroom activities involve learning songs that include already familiar tonal/rhythm patterns and also include songs with unfamiliar modalities and meters. **

**Solfege, not letter names.**
Students learn the letter names of musical notes at the theoretical understanding level of inference learning. That level should be preceded by extensive experience audiating tonal and rhythm solfege while singing and playing by rote or from notation. Instrumental students learn to associate tonal syllables with specific fingerings in different keys. They also play songs and tonal patterns in different keys, establishing an early foundation for development of transposition skills. This curriculum uses the "movable do" system of solfege.

Jump Right In: The Music Curriculum (Bolton et al., 2000, 2001; Taggart, et al., 2004, 2006). //Rhythm Solfege//

DU DE, DU DA DI || DU BA BI DU BE || DU BE DU BA BI DU BE or DU BA BI DU BE DU BE ||
 * = Meter ||= Macrobeat ||= Microbeats ||
 * = Usual Duple ||= DU ||= DU DE ||
 * = Usual Triple ||= DU ||= DU DA DI ||
 * = Usual Combined ||= DU ||= DU DA DI, DU DE or
 * = Unusual Paired ||= DU ||= DU BE DU BA BI or
 * = Unusual Unpaired ||= DU ||= DU BE DU BE DU BA BI or

//**Resources for Instruction **//


Below is the description of the Jump Right In Instrumental Series as found on The Gordon Institute for Music Learning's website (http://www.giml.org).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Comprises many styles, tonalities, and meters <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Spans many cultures and many centuries <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For listening and play-along
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Includes high quality CDs of folk songs and melodies **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Artist faculty members from the Eastman School of Music <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Members of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rhythm & Brass
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Performances by some of the world's greatest musicians **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Progress from sound to sight in logical, common sense sequence <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Opportunities for improvisation from early stages of instruction <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students learn to read and write with comprehension <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Arrangements of over 40 songs included in the student books
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Helps develop musicianship beyond instrumental classroom **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Designed specifically to attend to individual differences <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Based on current experimental and practical research <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Incorporates the music learning theories of Edwin E. Gordon <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Includes National Standards and suggestions for measurement and evaluation
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sequential and research-based materials **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Contains lesson plans <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Includes teaching procedures <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">May be used independently or in conjunction with <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|Cre]ativity in Improvisation.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Extensive Teacher's Guide **

//Jump Right in: The Instrumental Series// is a complete method for teaching the audiation and executive skills necessary for instrumental musicianship. In addition to a teachers manual and a variety of student books, the series includes compact disc recordings of 300 tunes students can use to develop their rote song repertoire.

//**Benefits for Students**//

 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students perform on their instruments more fluently, and in a variety of meters, tonalities, and styles.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students perform with better intonation and rhythmic accuracy.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students listen to music with an understanding of the tonality and meter.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students are able to engage in higher level skills such as creativity, improvisation, and generalization.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students have a large repertoire of songs they can play with and without notation.
 * 6) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students are able to read notation with better understanding.
 * 7) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students continue as adults to listen with understanding to music of many styles.


 * A major component of Jump Right In: The Instrumental Series is the Home-Study CD. The cassette contains the following:**
 * 1) Familiar folk songs to involve the student in listening, singing, and playing.
 * 2) Tonal patterns and rhythm patterns for the student to echo with her voice and on the instrument.
 * 3) Melodic examples that the student will learn to echo on her instrument.
 * 4) Accompaniments to many of the songs the student will be learning to sing and play.
 * 5) Musical enrichment songs - "extra challenge" for the student.

//**Frequently Asked Questions (From the Parent's guide to Jump Right In: The Instrumental Series)**//
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Your child will be learning how to read notation after he possesses the necessary readiness to learn to read with comprehension. The goal is to look at the notation and be able to audiate it (hear it in your head). Remember that knowing letter names of lines and spaces, or knowing which finger to push down, is not reading notation, just as knowing the letters of the alphabet is not reading language.
 * Why isn't my child learning how to read music?**

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Research indicates that we should not. Do not be in a hurry to have your child read notation. The more experience he has with music before reading notation, the faster and better he will learn to read notation.
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Should I begin teaching my child the names of the lines and spaces on the staff and the time value names of the notes? **

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">**<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Why does my child need to spend so much time singing and chanting? ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">A music instrument is an extension of the mind and body; it simply reproduces and amplifies what is in the player’s brain. If your child does not sing in tune and move her body in a consistent tempo, what comes out of the instrument will not be musical. In other words, your child will not be engaged in musical thought. For many reasons, it is not uncommon today for a child to be unable to sing and move when first learning to play a music instrument. Also, it is easy for a student to become so concerned with the technical aspects of playing the instrument that there often is no audiation taking place. The singing and chanting activities require the student to audiate and enable the teacher to evaluate the student’s audiation progress.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">**<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">My child is a visual learner. Can’t you give him notation to make it easier? ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;">All of us, especially adults, have become better visual learners than aural learners. Music is an aural art. Recent research indicates that music cannot be taught visually or intellectually. Notation cannot teach audiation, just as putting words in front of an infant and explaining grammar will not help him learn to think or speak. Naturally, learning music is easier for some students than others. It is much more difficult for adults to begin to improve their aural skills than it is for children. This is a unique opportunity for your child to improve his aural learning skills. We will help your child develop aural skills to his fullest potential, then he will be ready to read music notation with comprehension. Note also that music aptitude has very little in common with other intelligences. In other words, if we are truly teaching audiation, many students will excel in music more than in any other subject. Conversely, many students who excel in other subjects may take longer to learn audiation skills. In the past, music was typically taught as an intellectual skill: memorizing rules, counting, mathematical formulas, letter names, and “decoding” the puzzle of notation were typically taught. Now we know that these intellectual activities actually get in the way of audiation.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">How much time should my child practice? ** <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We will be telling your child to study on his music a minimum of twenty minutes per day, five days per week. This includes time working with the Home-Study CD, singing, chanting, and playing the instrument. This time is best divided into two tenminute sessions each day. Make certain your child has a quiet place with a cassette tape player in good working condition, and help your child establish a regular time to study his music, just as he studies other homework. Remember that the quality of practice time is much more important than the amount of practice time. Some students will become motivated to practice much more than the minimum twenty minutes each day.

In the Student Book on pages 2-4 is an assignment schedule where we will be indicating your child’s assignment. At the beginning stages we will be assigning items for your child to read about the care of the instrument, posture, etc. There will always be an assignment working with the Home-Study CD. At first it will involve only singing and chanting. Soon your child will learn to echo on the instrument the items he hears on the tape. Eventually, your child will be able to play songs without first listening to the tape. Still later, he may begin working on the enrichment songs which are at the end of side two of the Home-Study CDs. These songs and enrichment activities, which are listed on page 30 of the Student Book, provide extra challenge and motivation for those students.Congratulations on your decision to give your child the gift of instrumental music! Working together we can make his or her experience as worthwhile as possible.
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">What should my child be practicing at home? **

** //Assignment//: **
Post on the discussion board your opinion of the strengths and/or weaknesses of using this alternative approach to instrumental instruction - include, if relevant, personal reflection on the method of instruction you were taught with (or teach with) - if it was traditional, did you miss out on anything that audiation-based approach might offer? Please respond to at least two posts. Post under the discussion tab at the top of the page.

//**Resources**//
"The Gordon Approach: Music Learning Theory" by Wendy Valerio, Ph.D.//[]//. Website: The Gordon Institute for Music Learning.[| http://www.giml.org]. []