2.2 Creative responses to music learning  (Page 3/3)

Audio-visual presentations

• Dramatic performance - For example, of a poem or story illustrating the musical concept.
• Slide Presentation - The audio portion of your slide presentation can be a narrated explanation; or if the slides are self-explanatory, it can be music clips.
• Video - For example, a videotape of a dramatic performance, or a series of video and audio clips with narration.
• A talk - You can read a written report, or improvise a talk from notes. To make it audio-visual, include some visual presentation, for example, bring some objects to display, include a simple poster or a few slides, or draw on a board to help explain your talk or to emphasize the main points. You may also want to include an audio clip, or a short performance or demonstration of the concept.

The inquiry

Ask

Your question for this inquiry is: What kinds of activities seem to be most helpful for learning what I want to know about music right now?

Investigate

Begin your investigation by thinking about your current music-learning goals. Are you trying to become a more-informed listener, a better singer or improviser? What types of investigation will this require? Will you be learning, for example, about Western music theory concepts, about the cultural practices surrounding a particular music tradition, about the acoustics of your instrument? If you have no idea, consider doing the Designing Inquiry Questions or the Ways of Knowing about Music inquiries before doing this one.

Once you have decided on the type of learning you will be pursuing, consider whether you have learned anything in this area recently. For example, if you are trying to improve your music-reading skills, have you learned something useful about music-reading lately? If you want to study the history of jazz, did you learn something very interesting about that history recently?

If you have learned something in your chosen area recently, do a little extra research to ensure that your understanding is accurate and to pick up any useful background or extra information. (If possible, go back to the original source of the information to refresh your memory, and then look for at least one other resource, to gain a different perspective on the information.) Then use that learning experience as the focus for the Create step of this inquiry.

If you have not learned something in your chosen area recently, try to think of a question in that area that you believe has an answer that you will find useful or interesting, but that will not require extensive study. You are looking for something that you will be able to do or to understand after studying only two or three resources, so that your focus in this inquiry will remain on the creative process rather than the research. (If you have no idea what to ask, the following inquiry modules might help inspire a question that interests you: Designing Inquiry Questions , Listening to Unfamiliar Music , Ways of Knowing about Music , Inquiries in Constructive Music Criticism .) Find two or three resources with answers to your question (see the Finding Useful Resources for Music Inquiries module if needed). Once you feel that you have learned something useful and interesting, you can go on to Create step.

Create

Your focus in this inquiry will be on discovering what kinds of creative activities help you to practice, understand, and/or remember what you have learned. There are five categories above, with eighteen suggestions for creative activities to demonstrate what you have learned. Read through all eighteen suggestions, looking for some that you are interested in trying. Make notes on each suggestion, for example, about how possible and how interesting you believe this activity would be, and how appropriate it is for the ideas and information you have just learned. (You can print this PDF to help you do this.)

Choose three activities, from three different categories if possible, and do short versions of all three (for example, a report might be two or three paragraphs, while a video might be one or two minutes long). Although you are doing miniature versions of each activity, try to do a good, presentable job on each one. For example, if you choose to do an artwork, do a small finished piece, not just a sketch or description of what you would do.

Discuss

Choose one of your three creations to present to others.

If you are doing this inquiry as part of a inquiry group or class, present the creation you have chosen to the entire group. Introduce your presentation by describing your other two creations and explaining why you think this creation is the best way for you to present the information. The group should respond to each presentation with questions, suggestions, and other feedback.

If you are not doing this inquiry with a group, try to find at least one person who would be interested in your presentation, for example, a friend or family member, a band mate or music teacher, or, when relevant, perhaps a teacher and class in a different subject (for example, speech, drama, history, or social studies). (For more suggestions, see Getting feedback on your music learning project .) Give a short explanation of what you are doing, show them the presentation, and then ask for feedback: Did they enjoy it? Did they understand it? What did they get out of it? Do they have questions? Do they have suggestions for making it more understandable or more enjoyable?

Reflect

As you consider what types of activities might be most useful and relevant to your music-learning preferences and goals, the following questions may also be helpful:

• In what ways did each of the three creations challenge you to understand the concept better or help you to practice it or remember it?
• Did the comments that you got in the Discuss step suggest any ways to make your creative project more educational or your presentation more enjoyable and informative? Did they suggest that you might want to try a different way of approaching that type of creation, or a different type of creation altogether?
• What types of creations did you avoid, and why? Are you comfortable leaving all of these types unexplored, or are there some that you would like to learn how to do? How might you pursue these?
• Were any of your creations more difficult or easier than you expected, and why?
• Were there some types of creations that sounded interesting or fun but that did not seem relevant to this particular investigation? Might they be more relevant and useful to some of your future learning projects?
• What was it that made you choose the one creation that you presented? Would you have been comfortable presenting the others, and if not, why not?
• Have you found particular types of creations that seem ideal for you at this point? If not, what else might you try?