Composed by Pauline Oliveros, the Worldwide Tuning Meditation is an invitation to engage in deep listening and connect with others through sound. The score is a set of directions for people to listen, breathe, and sing (or play instruments). It…
Inviting students to take an existing song and transform it stylistically is a great context for developing and demonstrating musical skills and understanding. If you are interested in this and similar approaches, I’ve explored stylistic transformation in the article “From musical detectives to DJs: Expanding aural skills and analysis through engaging popular music and culture” and the article “Toward convergence: Adapting music education to contemporary society and participatory culture.” We can also think of StyleSwaps as potential projects or context of project-based learning in music programs.
Does Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” copy Princess Nokia’s “Mine” ? I’m a proponent of music programs inviting students to engage in public forensic musicology or as “musical detectives” as a form of musical engagement and learning. Here’s a recent example…
I often enjoy listening to multiple examples of the same song by the same artist. In addition to being enjoyable in and of itself, having multiple recordings of the same music can be a nice way to have learners listen…
The following Vox video Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time, produced by Estelle Caswell, provides an introduction to the ways that rap musicians use rhyme and rhythm in their music and traces changes over time. (NOTE: The video contains language…