Week 6 - Responding to Music

Thinking of listening and responding to music led me to three thoughts this week: what to listen, how to listen, and how to respond.  Bauer’s text and our assignments gave me a few new tools to assist me in bringing better and more interesting activities to my classes.  The chart of “Responding to Music Activity Types” starting on page 122 is a wealth of activities with suggested technologies organized by specific curriculum areas.

Spotify is a new tool that helps me with the first thought, to what to listen.  I like that I can choose music, put it in a playlist, and then share the playlist with my classes.  There are quite a variety of genres and it is easy to use.  While I was searching for some sonata and concerto tracks, I found some tracks that students could play along.  The piano accompaniment was louder than the solo, although unlike Music Minus One, the solo could still be heard.

Teaching students how to listen is always an interesting challenge.  I use listening maps in my elementary classes, I make some and find others to use.  My students can also create a listening map.  But my middle school students need a different way to create a listening map.  Soundcloud could be a tool for students to create a map or call chart right on the track.

How to respond to music can be as dull as writing an essay.  Searching through the book’s accompanying web site lead me to Fakebook.  It is one activity from Classtools, a collection of online games, quizzes, activities, and diagrams.  There are so many different activities on this web site.  I had an enjoyable time investigating all the different tools!  The web site also reminded me that I need to find other ways for students to show their response to listening using 21^st century tools.