I think it is interesting how “popular” musics is being implemented into classrooms. The way that they modeled modern band principles is the same as how we demonstrated the learning of the song Royals by Lorde in class on Wednesday. We were given instruments that of a rock band (in my specific case, an acoustic/folk band) and were encouraged to pick up instruments that we did not know how to play in order to level out the playing field. Learned all of the music by rote and helping each other understand the theory and musicality behind these instruments through inspection and discovery. This is such an interesting and progressive way of learning music, instrumentation, and specific repertoire because it is extremely self lead through discovery, while the teacher plays the role of support and checking in every so often rather than teaching to the entire class. This in itself creates a good environment for students to feel like they are in charge of their education in music. The article also talks a lot about the types of instruments used, from rock instruments to iPads as an instrument. This is interesting that this has been brought up considering the debates we’ve had in class regarding using iPads or computers as an instrument (a piano on an iPad) to replace a typical keyboard. I think that this is super important and valuable in making the instruments accessible to all students, as well as to make things a little bit more interesting in the classroom in terms of the availability and range of instruments that are used.
I also find it interesting how they question and problematized the term “popular” music. It is extremely true that popular music is always changing, and that can marginalize or single some students out. The article expresses this positively as students begin to see their own experiences reflected in the curriculum and their education. In addition, it is also important to keep new and genuine ideas of the population and their experience with popular culture relatable in the classroom in order for optimum engagement and inclusion. I like the way that they problematized it and made it so that it can be inclusive of everyone and it is definitely something I would look forward to implement and study as I become a teacher.
The MSL technique is cool to me because it starts from somewhere very natural and helps us understand the root of how music education can work for kids. It utilizes informal learning to teach music, much like how babies try to mimic what people around them say, regardless if it comes out as gibberish, because eventually they learn and begin to understand how to use the mouth and all of it’s coordinations to speak language. MSL in general sparks me as very important as it uses lots of concepts that are related to human language acquisition and just general psychology of students. An example of something that made me have a moment of “wow!” was in the first “value” of the Modern Band: Comfort Zone. We apply the “affective filter” to music education and learning and then we can see that educational zones that are negative in nature; elitist, competitive, and demeaning can cause such affective filter to be put up. But when we open to safer spaces and encourage growth and steady paced activity at any stage, students have less of a hard time want to enjoy music and performance. The rest of the values seem to travel hand in hand as they build off of each other, but I feel that none of them could exist successfully without completing the comfort zone.
In general, this method of teaching was not at the top of my list, meaning that I never really considered these sort of methods before taking this course. However, this article amongst many other experience I've had in this course has opened my eyes to many of the possibilities of music education and empowerment of the students.