Wk 5: Music - Performing and Playing

I was very excited this week to be starting music. Out of all of the creative arts strands we are exploring this semester music is my strongest point. My experiences from music last year are quite positive and I was very much looking forward to developing my knowledge and skills further.

Firstly we recapped what was learnt last year such as the values of notes and rests, as well as the names of the notes. We then moved on to the focus of this weeks tutorial was on percussion and reading simple rhythms and melodies on percussion scores.

After a bit more discussion of the different types of instruments and their names we began to explore reading through a percussion score. Highlighting that different colours in the score represent different instruments. I volunteered myself, along with one other student, to play the melody of the main song we were looking at. I was quickly reminded of the challenges that go with performing music. I was required to be aware of when my part going to begin, therefore listening for the tune other instruments played that signaled my part to begin but more importantly to be able to keep time and beat, as well as playing the correct notes and lengths. Turns out it has been quite a while since I have engaged in this kind of music exploration and I was a little bit rusty.

However this experience helped me to realize the importance of catering for differing abilities in a music lesson. In our tutorial there are people that come from a strong music background and those who have never played an instrument until this subject started in 1^st year. This will be the same with the students at school, it is very likely that those who do not have a musical background will at first be quite apprehensive and will need lots of encouragement and guidance. Choosing appropriate music that allows all students to equally participate is important.