Now that I'm spending time researching musicality, I'm also doing a lot of thinking about how I'm already teaching it. This week I tried some new tactics with my students, some of which seemed to help and some of which flopped. I've noticed with all of my young students thus far (granted, a small sample) that they seem to struggle with simple rhythm and counts the most. Technique they learn, class etiquette they learn, but they really struggle with just something as simple as counting only four tendus and not five or six in each direction. If they were really young, 4 or 5, I could well understand that, but they're 7-10, and I would have thought that counting would be the easy part! So I tried a few clapping exercises and such, and I think if I pursue that vein of exercise, it may help.
On another note, I'm rereading/reskimming through Researching Dance and loving it, especially taking the time to read chapters I hadn't read before. I'd forgotten what a useful book it is. I found chapter 4 especially helpful on the differences between positivist and postpositivist research helpful, since the terms themselves weren't really ones I was familiar with. Hearing the terms elaborated was quite nice and I understood better how they fit into my research framework, which was already quite postpositivist--I just didn't know it was called that! I've struggled with getting all the -ologies and -ists straight in my head, so I'm very much appreciating reading about them in a way that makes sense to me and helps me get them straight.
Questions for the comments--1) have you found that your young students struggle with musicality, and if so, what ages does it start to mesh for them? Have you done any exercises for it, and if so, what? 2) How would you frame your own research thoughts in terms of -ologies and -ists?
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteCounting is often difficult for students of any age even older adults. With my younger students I have them count while doing the exercise (i.e. tendu) and we use one language (English, French, Spanish, German) in each direction. I have found that by combining counting with something different catches the attention of the students.We also occasionally count in Czech, Italian, or Japanese depending on who is attending that particular class at that moment. Finding in the downbeat or first count in a measure is most challenging for younger students under the age of twelve. I had used marches to assimilate a strong downbeat but have changed that as parents felt the class was too militaristic by using marches.
I'm curious to see how my young student will handle finding the downbeat. I'll probably be tackling that with her soon. That's an interesting idea about the different languages. I've found that my students, young or teen, seem to have the biggest problem with actually using their voices. They do NOT want to speak, even as a group. Perhaps using a new vocabulary might be enough to push over that hump.
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