Literacy

The second edition of The Music and Literacy Connection expands our understanding of the links between reading and music by examining those skills and learning processes that are directly parallel for music learning and language arts literacy in the pre-K, elementary, and secondary levels. This edition includes two new chapters: one dedicated to secondary music education and teacher evaluation, and another that offers a literature review of latest literacy research in education, neuroscience, and neuropsychology. Readers will find extensive instructional examples for music and reading teachers so that they may enrich and support each other in alignment with current initiatives for twenty-first-century curricula. Instructional examples are aligned with The National Core Music Standards and the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Media Arts. Readers will find an in-depth review of the benefits of music learning in the listening, viewing, speaking and writing literacy as well as comprehensive information for children with special needs. The Music and Literacy Connection is a valuable resource for professional development, college literacy courses, and curriculum administrators.

Being literate implies using, understanding, reading and writing the language as exemplified in the attainment targets of the National Curriculum for English (DfEE, 1999a). In addition to these different dimensions of literacy there are also different types of literacy, in different social situations, in different applications of language (such as advertising) and in relation to different cultures, styles, genres and traditions. Not all of the dimensions are equally important, or found at all, in the different types of literacy. For example, reading and writing are not vital to an oral tradition of joke telling. The National Curriculum for English aims to recognise the breadth of what constitutes being literate.

While music theory can provide many tools for interacting with music, for an undergraduate music student, a narrow understanding of music literacy, not theory, is what acts as a barrier to advanced engagement in music analysis. In this essay, I explore how music literacy, typically understood as facility with five-line staff notation, as it is taught in undergraduate music theory curricula prevents meaningful progress out of music theory’s white racial (and male) frame and perpetuates a hidden curriculum at odds with diversity efforts by theory pedagogues (Ewell 2020; Palfy and Gilson 2018). Despite pedagogical and curricular efforts towards inclusion of musics by BIPOC and female composers, and the development of modular curricula that are becoming more common in music departments, the expectation that music literacy comes before deep engagement with notated and un-notated musics constrains this admirable work towards equity and diversity. I investigate the implications of a staff notation literacy focused theory core and advocate for a broadened understanding of music literacies. I offer avenues of incorporating a range of literacies into the undergraduate theory core, focusing on a unit I designed which includes music theory research experience at early stages in the core curriculum.

In this quantitative study, we sought to determine the connection between music literacy and music-related background variables. The sample consisted of 178 students (66 boys and 112 girls). We assessed music literacy in terms of the Hungarian National Core Curriculum objectives, which are rooted in Kodály’s oeuvre. Our results suggest that overall students’ music literacy is far from being satisfactory as compared to the requirements formulated in the Hungarian National Core Curriculum. Several factors affected student achievement including school type, extracurricular music education, family background, musical taste, music consumption, attitude toward music classes, and instructional methods. We also investigated the combination of these background factors and their interactions.

Defines cultural literacy, relating it to verbal and musical literacy. Discusses how reading with comprehension compares to listening to music. Describes what musically literate people know, and the level of their knowledge. Maintains that to attain musical literacy one needs to know some cultural data but primarily one needs to listen to music.

The Society of Music Analysis report indicated that digital music often sits uncomfortably within a curriculum where the main focus is on the non-digital. This article takes as its starting point a broad definition of digital music as both a type of music and a way that music is represented. It will examine how digital music has altered the music landscape within informal and formal educational settings, and it will explore conflicting notions of music literacy while suggesting that traditional arguments about the value of notation fluency in the digital age may be misdirected. Ultimately, it will propose a definition of ‘critical music literacy’ in which Western standard music notation is not the crucial consideration, with implications for the design of music curricula and for progression.

Denne studien har hatt som formål å studere omgrepet timing i kor. Dette har blitt gjort ved å gjennomføre semistrukturerte intervju med tre profesjonelle kordirigentar: Eirik Kaasa, Marit Bodsberg Weyde og Kjetil Almenning. Transkripsjonar har så blitt analysert gjennom ei hermeneutisk tilnærming der fortolkingsteorien til Paul Ricœur har vore sentral. Dette prosjektet er difor eit kvalitativt bidrag til forsking på timing.

På grunn av mangelen på forsking som omhandlar timing i kor, er teorikapittelet basert på eksisterande forsking på timing i solistiske situasjonar og i andre ensemble. I tillegg er det inkludert teoretiske perspektiv på kommunikasjon, kognisjon og motorikk som har stått fram som relevante for det å forstå timing i kor.

Resultata frå fortolkinga av intervjua i lys av eksisterande forsking og teori om timing viser at mykje av forskinga på timing som er knytt til andre ensemble også er relevant for kortiming. Kortiming skil seg frå andre ensemble ved at det er kroppen som er utgangspunktet for både igangsetting og produksjon av lyd. Ved å forstå kortiming på ulike nivå, kan det involvere element knytt til den individuelle korist og dirigent, kommunikasjonen mellom dei og korleis timing av organisatoriske prosessar kan vere viktig. Medan timing oftast vert forstått som korrekt rytmisk plassering, kan timing i kor også omhandle korrekt toneproduksjon. Kombinerer ein dette med at ein skal synkronisere koristane, kan ein definere kortiming som kollektiv presisjon i toneproduksjon og rytmisk plassering basert på felles idear. Denne definisjonen kombinert med nivådelinga av timing står fram som ein mogleg konklusjon på korleis ein kan forstå timing i kor. Forsking på kortiming vert til slutt drøfta i lys av diskusjonar knytt til kor, musikkpedagogikk og musikalsk kvalitet.