Sounding the Teaching III: Facilitating Music Learning with Music Tec Sounding The Teaching III | Page 18

SOUNDING THE TEACHING III /
EXPOSITION
Analysis
A snapshot of a time log of Student A’s work
is given. From here, we can glean the musical
decision-making process, not just view his
final output.
During this lesson, he was working on
creating the bassline. The columns, from
left to right, show the timing of each event
and the description of the event or decision
the student made as captured on screen.
The events were then categorised through
different themes. Within some themes, a
sub-theme would be attached to a particular
event. For example, between 03:35 and
05:49, Student A goes through a cycle of
trying out the sounds of new bass guitars
before finally deciding on the Fingerstyle
Bass. I categorised these events first under
“Instrument / Timbre” while also noting
that it was an “Exploration”. Student A then
adjusts the volume for the bass guitar,
presumably to hear the bassline as clearly
as possible. He starts recording the bassline
from the beginning to the end of the song,
albeit a simple bassline of 4 beats per
bass note. This was categorised under
“Music Creation” and the sub-theme of
“Bass Pattern”. After which, Student A reviews
his own recording, under the theme of
“Self-assessment”.
FINDINGS
Overview of Themes
The table below shows the different
thematic categories. The themes were
arranged according to the frequency of
decisions that Student A made.
Table 1: Thematic Categories
NO. CATEGORY
FREQUENCY
1 Self-assessment 41
2 Learn Musical Concept 29
3 Instrument / Timbre 22
NO. CATEGORY 4 Music Creation 17
5 Distraction 7
6 Dynamics 4
7 Practice 4
16
17
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FACILITATING MUSIC LEARNING WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
Drum patterns
8 Volume 1
9 Articulation 1
10 Accidental 1
“Self-assessment” refers to the event of
improving his own work through listening,
deleting, editing and re-recording. A closer
look at this theme will be explored below.
Significantly, there was a large occurrence
of Student A deciding to self-assess. This
would correspond to the student’s desire
to improve or check his work.
Click or scan QR code to view example
2. “Learn Musical Concept” refers to the
event of watching or referring to the video.
It also includes the teacher’s intervention
or demonstration. A high frequency is
unsurprising as students were instructed
to view the video tool to learn different
concepts. The videos were supposed
to enable students to be self-directed
learners. However, some students are
unable to transfer the knowledge to their
own context. For example, the video guide
used Pachelbel’s Canon in D which has a
different set of chords.
(FOR STUDENT A)
3. “Instrument / Timbre” refers to the
selection or changing of an instrument in
GarageBand’s library.
Click or scan QR code to view example
4. “Music Creation” refers to the sequencing
or recording either through the MIDI
Click or scan QR code to view example
of music creation — drum patterns
Click or scan QR code to view example
of music creation — bassline
Bassline
1.
keyboard or the piano roll. This theme is
differentiated from “Self-assessment –
Re-recording” as “Music Creation” is the act
of creating an original layer of music.
FREQUENCY
(FOR STUDENT A)
5. “Distraction” refers to the non-musical or
unrelated-to-task decisions. A common
occurrence was surfing the Internet. It
could suggest Student A’s lack of focus at
times. On the other hand, it might have
helped Student A with his workflow since
he tended to complete the task early and
he decided to do something unrelated to
take a break from the intensity of his work
and to motivate himself.
Click or scan QR code to view example
6. “Dynamics” refers to the adjustment in
the velocity of notes.
7.
“Practice” refers to events where the
student is heard rehearsing his part on
the MIDI keyboard. The low occurrence
for practice could be due to Student A
being an adept keyboard player. This
confidence was displayed through an
immediate “Music Creation” or
“Self-assessment – Re-recording”.
8. “Volume” refers to the balancing of
volume between the different tracks in
GarageBand. In this case, Student A did not
do a thorough job of balancing the tracks
towards the end of the task mainly due to
a lack of motivation to finish the task well.
9. “Articulation” refers to editing the notes
on the piano roll so that it changes from
legato to staccato or vice versa. There
was only one instance of this as this was
not covered in the video guide and not
explicitly taught by the teacher.
10. “Accidental” refers to the student
unintentionally deleting a track inside
EXPOSITION
GarageBand. This was counted as a
decision as there was some deliberation
before he acted.
Sub-theme of Self-assessment
On further analysis of the theme of
“Self-assessment”, the most common
occurrence shows Student A listening to his
work before further action as indicated in
Table 2. This establishes the critical aural skills
that all students of music should develop
during their course of study and reflects a
conscious decision made by the student to
assess the quality of his own work.
Table 2: Sub-theme of Self-assessment
IMPROVING WORK THROUGH: FREQUENCY
Listening 15
Deletion 10
Editing 9
Re-recording 7
“Deletion” features quite regularly in
Student A’s work. This type of deletion tends
to be wholesale, instead of the music industry
practice of deleting bits and pieces that are
undesirable. I wondered if Student A preferred
wholesale deletion as it involved only a single
click as opposed to selective deletion which
requires finesse and a greater deal of practice
to master. Besides, the different methods of
editing were not explicitly taught to students,
maybe signalling the helplessness of students
who would resort to the only solution which
students know of – which is to delete the work
in its entirety.
“Deletion” also frequently precedes
“Re-recording”, which demonstrates his
preference to record an entire passage. While
Student A is an above-average keyboardist,
the action reflects his musical know-how
of performing part of a song instead of
mechanically playing the entire song. Ultimately,