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Abstract

Adhering to a constructivist approach, this teacher focused on problem solving and group discussion as she initiated a study of traditional notation. She began with the metronome to make the steady beat less abstract for those students who still learn best through concrete operations. The students were challenged to match magnets of various proportional lengths to the number of metronome beats in each word of a familiar song. The completed colored template provided a visual and tactile illustration of the relative length of each sound. With the music map as a guide, the students replaced the colored lengths with traditional notation and added the time signature. Using the aural, visual, and tactile base provided by the metronome beat and the iconic graphic that looked the way the music sounded seemed to help the students understand symbolic notation on a deeper level than previous lecture modes of instruction.

Keywords

concrete operations constructivism general music learning modalities metronome rhythm visual tools

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Rhythmic Instruction From Square One

Abstract

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References