creativity and creativity and music teaching

8/12/2019 Creativity and Creativity and Music teaching

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Creativity and music teaching

Introduction

Creativity is at the heart of the music curriculum. It is ever present whether pupils arecomposing, performing, improvising or listening and appraising music

Creative approaches are at the heart of the most successful whole school musicprogrammes. Musical innovation and intensity result from creativity approaches to leadership,planning, delivery, musical exploitation of resources, the breadth and depth of music makingopportunities/events and the development of productive external partnerships e.g. with artsorganisations, ensembles or visiting artists.

A common misconception about creativity is that it somehow just happens, is alwaysinspirational, effortless and comes like a bolt out of the blue. The following quotation from A isfor Aesthetic by Peter Abbs (Falmer Press) dispels this myth:

We think of Shakespeare as prodigiously inventive – a genius of originality – yet he was alsothe master of all plagiarists, the best of the magpies, assembling the materials for his art fromwherever he could find them. (A is for aesthetic, Abbs - Falmer Press)

Implicit in the quotation are two important and inter-related aspects of the creative processwhich inform teaching and learning in the music:

• The importance of building up and accessing a mental or ‘dynamic library’ (e.g. ofinternalised techniques, devices, melodic or rhythmic gestures, stylistic nuances orgestures), which can be accessed and reapplied in new contexts to meet new creativechallenges.

• The importance of learning from or taking ideas from others and applying them in newcreative contexts.

Importantly, creativity flourishes working within a framework of restrictions (in some casesthese are situations of adversity). This applies to both the creative process (example 1) andthe creative approach to teaching (example 2).

Example 1: When composing, pupils compose within a framework of restrictions e.g. givenstimulus or ‘commission’, the instruments that are available (and their limitations), a deadline,the style or genre demanded, the performing capabilities of the group, the performance spaceand any given starting points e.g. a scale or a given rhythm etc. which are provided in order tofacilitate the creative process.

Example 2: the teacher who approaches their role creatively is one who makes the best useof a whole school’s musical resources by tailoring performances and events, exploitingindividual strengths, bringing together pupils and adults of all ages and making meaningfullinks between classroom, instrumental and extra curricular music making.

An analogy can be made between the second example and the court of Esterhazy in the 18thCentury where Haydn worked for 30 years under the patronage of Prince Nickolaus JosephEsterhazy. Haydn’s work as Director of Music took place in the context of:

• an isolated ‘feudal’ estate under the employment of an enthusiastic, demanding andsupportive patron (would he have achieved the same without this support?)

• a small ever-changing mixed ability court orchestra and community of musicians

• an apparently overwhelming calendar of musical events.Furthermore, Haydn fulfilled a multiplicity of roles, hence his title Director of Music i.e.:

• composer, conductor, repetiteur, performer, teacher, vocal coach, manager ofinstrumental and vocal staff, special events organiser, librarian, writer, repairer.

In this context his achievements are even more astonishing. Haydn approached his job(s)with exemplary creativity (and humour!). As a creative musician he developed and effectivelyestablish a distinct ‘classical’ style along with several new genres such as the string quartet



and the symphony of which he composed 104. As Director of Music he made the most of andexploited the limited resources available to him and created a musical environment that wassimply ‘buzzing’.

Very real parallels can be made between the work of Haydn and the teachers who create anddeliver successful whole school music programmes. The most effective Coordinators, Heads

of Music and classroom music teachers are those who know the musical resources of theschool, work within and creatively exploit existing restrictions in schools and create at all costsmusic making opportunities and events which are compulsive, engaging and potentially lifechanging.

Indicators of good practice

Much has been written about good practice in relation to the development of creativity in thearts. The following indicate how planning, good teaching and resourcing can facilitate thecreative process:

Planning

Planning for creativity:• Plan the build up (by ‘drip feed’) of pupils’ mental or ‘dynamic library’ i.e. internalised

western and non western techniques, devices, melodic or rhythmic gestures, stylisticnuances/ gestures etc. so that they can access and apply them to new creativechallenges.

• Build restrictions into creative tasks in order to fire the process e.g. limit the resourcesavailable, impose deadlines, identify work spaces and plan tasks that can be achievedrealistically, without unnecessary stress.

• Scaffold creative tasks with starting points or ‘hooks’ and suggested sequences of tasksthat take into account differing levels of ability and confidence.

• Know pupils’ individual strengths, weaknesses and current levels of attainment andensure that a balance of open ended and structured stimuli are provided so as to engagepupils, provide appropriate levels of challenge and personalise learning.

• Make best provision for pupils to work creatively a) as a class, in groups, in pairs andindividually and b) outside school.

• Teachers should always be true to themselves as musicians; an original composer islikely to get original work out of pupils; a structured commission composer is likely to getstructured commissions out of pupils. Both are valid. (The Creative Dream – NAME)

Creative approaches to whole school planning:

• Look for ways of joining together and exploiting the resources of the whole school i.e. itscollective and individual strengths.

• Create extra curricular groups which cater for all interests allow all pupils access.

• Plan concert items and programmes that link whole class curriculum work and extracurricular music making.

•

Plan a calendar of events which is realistic, high quality, provides opportunities for pupilsof all interests and abilities and includes some surprises.

• Target the input of visiting artists and animateurs in order to maximise impact on aparticular or different groups of pupils.

Good teaching• Use other pupils’ successful work as a stimulus; it is a great motivator and allows

reinforcement of the key learning objectives to be done through something which isclearly attainable by them. (The Creative Dream – NAME)

• Time and energy in setting up and modelling tasks is time well spent. Time spent onmodelling a task using pupils, will mean that pupils can complete the task more quicklywhen they start work on their own. (The Creative Dream – NAME)

• Manage group work in ways that ensure that work is productive and musically focussed

e.g. a pair of pupils work together before teaming up with another pair. Ideas are sharedand group work becomes more purposeful in its interaction.



• Set short term targets with regular feedback in order to make the creative processdynamic and focussed.

• Teachers must teach composing as well as facilitate it. They should not be afraid to haveopinions and ideas and make musical suggestions. Learning by copying has nobleprecedents. Pupils tend to gain their own ideas because of the teaching as well as inspite of it. (The Creative Dream – NAME)

• Be fussy about sounds that are being produced. Encourage pupils to use their ears. Askquestions about what they hear and the creative decisions made.

• Expect, accept and exploit the unexpected.

• Build in regular opportunities for pupils to listen and appraise compositions in class andlearn from each other. In particular capitalise on unexpected approaches or outcomes.

• Good examples of carefully presented, formally notated work should be displayed on thewall alongside graphic scores, to value it and create a curiosity and acceptance of it (TheCreative Dream – NAME)

Resources• People. Music making brings together people of all ages and abilities:

a) Tailor music making opportunities bringing together and creatively exploiting the

musical strengths of pupils, teachers and the wider community.b) allow pupils to work alongside professional artists and creative adults.

• Music ensembles. Be flexible. Develop and broaden the range of music makingopportunities in response to the changing resources of the school and changing interestsof pupils. Make best use of the instrumental and vocal resources available.

• Instruments and voices. Challenge pupils to creatively exploit whatever classroominstrumental and vocal resources are available. Provide stimulating, relevant and goodquality instruments including instruments from a range of cultures and traditions.

• Ensemble instrumental sets. Non Western instruments should be integrated into thecurriculum in order to create opportunities for pupils to enrich, apply their musicalknowledge and understanding in new contexts, and enhance their own performances ofcurriculum work in concerts and presentations.

• Space. Restrictions of space inspire creative solutions. Exploit the music making potential

of different areas of the school. Pupils respond enthusiastically to a) working b)performing and c) composing in, and in response to stimulating, unusual orunconventional spaces.

• Instrumental and vocal tuition. Be flexible. Develop and broaden the range ofinstrumental tuition in response both the changing interests of pupils and the particularneeds of a school. Make links between the classroom and instrumental lessons andinvolve instrumental staff in the delivery of the music curriculum.

• ICT. ICT can be liberating. Creative use of ICT depends on a thorough knowledge andunderstanding of the capabilities and potential for enhancement of a particular resource inorder to inform its use and support the objectives of a particular lesson / unit or wholeschool project.

Examples of creative music teaching

Foundation stage:

A teacher who is delivering a topic of animals plays the nursery class Ballet of the Un-hatchedChicks from Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky. The children create movements torepresent the chicks hatching from their shells. The teacher encourages them to capture thebusy mood of the music, move at different speeds and with different parts of their bodies andseek space to make their movements. One child in the class makes a series of contrastingmovement s that coincides with a contrasting aspect of the music. The teacher creativelyexploits the opportunity and draws attention to the pupil’s response. The teacher asks thechildren then develop their own responses by creating different movements for differentaspects of the piece.



During big circle time the teacher talks to the children about the Ballet of the Un-hatchedChicks and asks them to create vocal sounds to depict the tapping sounds, busy chicks andthe mother hen.Three groups are then formed, each responsible for one of the vocal sounds. A single child isthen asked to conduct the group and create a piece that sequences the sounds. The childcreates additional gestures to control the dynamics (volume) and tempo (speed) of the piece.

The teacher places a range of different instruments the music table the next day for childrento explore with, select from and create their own chicks music.

Key stage 1

The year 1 RE topic for the term is Moses and the Plagues. The teacher is a particularlycreative curriculum planner and immediately sees ways of making meaningful cross-curricularlinks with music and plans a series of composing activities which link with the RE topic i.e.:

• Paired composing i.e. pupils compose, perform and score a short sequence of musicdepicting the slaves and their slave drivers. They will be asked to think about timbre andtempo.

•

Small group composing i.e. pupils work with a teaching assistant to compose, practiceand perform a short piece of music to describe the burning bush

• Whole class composing i.e. pupils work co-collaboratively selecting instrumental, vocaland body sounds to depict specific events in the story of Moses (eg the grievingEgyptians & plagues of frogs, hail, flies, river of blood etc.) paying attention to dynamics,tempo, duration, timbre, texture and structure.

In the classroom the teacher elicits imaginative compositions from the class and records eachof them. After appraising recordings of the completed ‘episodes’ with the class, the teachersuggests that these could be linked to form a longer whole class composition. They discusshow the episodes might be sequenced taking into account the musical characteristics of each.To create a seamless link between each episode, the teacher uses the refrain from thespiritual Go down Moses i.e. ‘Let my people go’ followed by a child from the class in role as

Pharaoh replying NO!

The class rehearse and perform their composition in their class assembly to an audience ofpupils and parents. It is captured on video by the music coordinator and shown to prospectiveparents during an open evening.

Key stage 2

A small group of year 6 PMLD students in a special school are involved in a multi-sensoryproject on the theme of deserts. As part of the experience the teacher projects a series ofdigital video clips of desert scenes on to a large screen. They are accompanied by anatmospheric CD track of an Egyptian piece called Ansam (breezes) which is in two sections,the first freely improvised by an Egyptian flute and the second a ‘composed’ melodyaccompanied by drum rhythms (Saydisc – Listening to music KS1, track 8).

The activity elicits a positive response from the students and the teacher considers ways ofdrawing upon the pupils creativity in order to enhance the experience further. In preparationfor the following lesson the teacher a) pre-programmes a sound beam to an Arabic scale, thepitch and rhythm of which can be manipulated by the finger movement of one of the pupilsand b) pre-programmes three Egyptian rhythms into the computer programme Magix MusicMaker , which allows sounds to be activated, layered and manipulated by applying pressure tocomputer linked touch sensitive pads.

During the lesson pupils use the sound beam and touch sensitive pads to create their ownimprovisations to accompany each video image. The teacher records each improvisationusing a mini disc recorder.



As a presentational tool, the teacher uses the programme Videowave to combine the audioand video clips. The completed piece is presented in a school assembly and them posted onthe school website.

Key stage 3

A class of year 7 pupils is developing their knowledge and understanding of syncopation byperforming a North East African Wedding Chant Halawaya on class percussion instruments.

At the same time and as part of the departments spiral curriculum a class of year 9 studentsis developing their knowledge and understanding of rhythm by exploring West Coast Africanpolyrhythm. The class perform Take me to your Africa by Stephen Chadwick (Music Filevol.2), a piece with a complex polyrhythmic accompaniment derived from the Ghanian Africandrumming tradition.

In anticipation of the curriculum work of both year groups, the teacher buys in an Africandrumming group, complete with a set of Djembe drums, to work with mixed groups ofstudents from both year groups in order to develop and deepen their understanding and inorder for them to ‘feed’ from each other as a ‘vertical’ group.

Building on the enthusiasm created by the workshops the teacher borrows a set of Djembedrums from the LEA Music Service, develops the work further in the classroom and invites aclass from each year group to perform in the end of year concert. The teacher combines thedrumming groups with the school choir in a performance of African Kyrie which leadsseamlessly into a processional finale composed by the teacher based on a traditionalCongolese song Si, Si, Si for wind band choir and African drums.

Key stage 4 and post 16

Throughout their GCSE course three pupils have rehearsed and performed close harmonyvocal trios extensively in the rock genre and have developed a very high standard of

performance.

To broaden and deepen their knowledge and understanding the teacher plays them arecording of a minimalist vocal trio by Phillip Glass called Liquid days. The students arecaptivated by the piece, learn the vocal parts and perform them using the CD as a backing.They want to perform the piece as a final assessment but the accompaniment lies beyond thecapabilities of the school instrumentalists and also the teacher.

The teacher finds a solution by giving an A level music technology student the task ofsequencing the accompaniment on a computer providing an audio recording of the piece anda piano score to work from.

In rehearsal the trio combine with the sequenced backing and discover that it is difficult to

coordinate the slow introduction and ending with the sequenced backing.

The teacher asks another GCSE student from the group to arrange the introduction andending for the school brass quartet of which the student is a member. The students meet in alunch time to rehearse the piece and find that the brass introduction and ending solve thecoordination problem encountered previously but require amplification to balance theperformance.

A high quality of performance is achieved and the teacher includes the collaborative piece asan item in a school concert. A recording of the performance is submitted for each pupil’scoursework assessments.

creativity and creativity and music teaching

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