Senior Paper

Music Teaching
In early 20th century, teaching music education was to encourage students to come together to create marching bands and school orchestras or other musical groups. Teaching music to students was to get to do what they enjoy. Music has had a positive impacted on education, teachers and students throughout history. The history of music education goes from the earliest 18th century up to the 21st century. In the 18th century, the very first singing school was founded. It was founded in Boston in the year 1717. The reason the school was created was because Reverend Thomas Symmes wanted to improve the church’s singing and music reading. In the 18th century, music began to spread as a regular curricular subject into other school districts. Not too long after music expanded to all grade levels and the teaching of music reading was improved. What also happened was that not only did that improve; music reading was not the only activity being taught. By the end of 1854, music in public school spreaded throughout the country. The 18th century was made up of a lot of composers. They composed and performed their own songs. The composers are named Mozart, George Frederic Handel, Bach, and Joseph Haydn. Each of the composers had a different life story, which makes it different for each song of that specific artist. In the 19th century Lowell Mason and George Webb formed the Boston Academy of Music with the methods of teaching singing and theory as well as the methods of teaching music. Mason created a book that could help music teachers. This handbook actually became very famous by many singing school teachers.
From 1837-1838, the Boston School Committee allowed Lowell Mason to teach music in the Hawes School as a demonstration temporarily. In 1838 the Boston School Committee approved the inclusion of music in the curriculum and Lowell Mason became the first supervisor of elementary music. Around the middle of the 19th century, Mason became the role model to starting music education programs around the world. In the year 1635 we didn’t have T.V’s, cell phones or computers with internet. There was not even a radio until the mid-1900s. They did not have cars to travel around, they either had to walk or horse and buggy led them everywhere. Back in 1635, they only had very few classes in high school. Now, we have all kinds of different subjects. We have English, Math, Science, Music, P.E and electives. All the games they had back then, they went to see in a theatre, and the only movies they saw were the plays people did. High school is different as each generation goes by. As the generations passes by, more objects get made and the people in those generations learn how to equip themselves with those objects. Examples include cell phones, new laptops, cars and new games that come out. The very first high school was The English High School. It was founded in the city of Boston in 1821. The first headmaster was Dr. George B. Emerson, an early leader in educational form. The English High School only accepted boys for the 150 years, and did not become co-ed until 1972. Leading from the very first high school to high schools now, it’s drastically changed. The curriculum, courses, after school activities, and anything teenagers are interested in. In the very first high school, they did not have much technology like we do now. English high’s curriculum was preparing their students for majors such as, business, mechanics, engineering trades, and college, ministry, and scholarly pursuits. English High school is still open today, which their curriculum is different than it originally was (English High School of Boston). They opened their curriculum to include more liberal arts programs such as foreign languages and writing as well as performing arts and more college preparatory courses. The extracurricular activities are the average sports teams. Teams such as football, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, track, etc. Music Education is the field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. Music education teaches students about music. “Modern music in education is jobs such as music teachers, college professors, and singers. Every child ought to have in public school the privilege of one music lesson each day, if he so desires. An elective study, or better still, a major study, if you please, with credit toward graduation. Three-fourths of the colleges and universities now accept music credits for entrance.” Bob Furst (Music World). Today’s modern music is genres such as rap, rock, metal, techno, and Christian (Today’s Music Genre’s Making Any Sense?). I listen to music like rock, rap and metal because I like the beat. Meanwhile another teenager could listen to a different genre like hardcore metal. Each genre depends on your personality. When teaching music, there is an old way of teaching it and a new way of teaching it. Either way you still learn about music. The old method of teaching music is the best way in my opinion. There are a few methods that you can learn, which is the Dolcrose method, Kodaly method, Orff Schulwerk, and the Suzuki method. To sight read, you would use the hand motions as you see below:

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The old method of teaching is when elementary school children can play keyboards, use recorders, play the triangle, and beat rhythm sticks. The methods for middle and high school kids are you can learn the different rhythms of the songs. You get to learn songs you can sing and play in concerts for. The reason why music teachers teach the music is because they love what they’re doing.
A method is the Dolcrose method, which you learn music by doing movements. An example of the Dolcrose method is dancing. You can learn the beats, measures and notes by listening to the song repeatedly, while learning the dance music. The Dolcrose method announces that music is the fundamental language of the human brain and therefore deeply connected to what human beings is (Music Education).
Another method is the Kodaly method, which is the usual way you would learn. The Kodaly method teaches you how to sight-read, which is by hand signals. Kodaly teaches how to learn music by musical shorthand notation and rhythm solmization. His primary goal was to instill a lifelong love of music in his students and felt that it the duty of the child’s school to provide this vital element of education.
Another method of learning music is the Suzuki method. This method states that "all children can be well educated" in music, and that learning to play music at a high level also involves learning certain character traits or virtues which make a person 's soul more beautiful. The method for achieving this is centered on creating the same environment for learning music that a person has for learning their native language. This 'ideal ' environment includes love, high-quality examples, praise, rote training and repetition, and a time-table set by the student 's developmental readiness for learning a particular technique.

The benefits of the teacher teaching middle and high school chorus new songs is when they put all their hard work into a song and they finally get it right. It’s like the gates of heaven opened up. Another benefit of teaching middle and high school students is that they are more mature about the songs. A benefit of all teaching kids music is that music study enhances teamwork skills and discipline. (Children 's Music Workshop) One of the benefits of teaching music is how it affects them. Teaching the music to the students makes them feel better. Both the teacher and the students get their energy pumping when they play music, just like football player’s get pumped up playing music before a game. The teacher’s energy is pumping kind of like when a kid gets a reward for being good. The same methods apply in learning music for teachers and students, but it just depends if the person is teaching it or learning about it. If a student is learning about music, then it’s different. A student is getting graded and the teacher is getting paid. A student gets to learn about the music for the fact if they want to make a career out of it. The benefit of being a student and learning about music is your energy level. The energy level of a student and a teacher are different. The energy level of a student is so much higher than a teacher. They get excited about the simplest stuff. Examples like, food, clothes, boyfriends/girlfriends, etc. A benefit of being a student is whenever you get something right. Elementary children would get a reward for getting something right, such as a math problem, or knowing their ABC’s. The benefit would be the treat the student would be rewarded with. The treat would usually be a candy bar, or some kind of eatable product.

Works Cited Page
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© 2000–2007 Pearson Education. 03 Oct. 2012
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Cited: 2. Williams, Roger. "Historical Events for Year 1635." Today in History, Birthdays & History Articles. Glam Family, 2001. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. 3. "Music Education." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Mar. 2013. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. 4. "English High School of Boston." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Mar. 2013. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. 5. Furst, Bob. "Facts about Music and Its Effect on Education." Facts about Music and Its Effect on Education. Music World, 2002. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. 6. Vicino, Stephen. "Today 's Music Genre 's Making Any Sense? | Alt Rock Live Blog." Alt Rock Live Blog. Alt Rock, 10 Sept. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. 7. Phillips, Carolyn. "Twelve Benefits of Music Education." Twelve Benefits of Music Education. Children 's Music Workshop, 07 Mar. 2003. Web. 03 Oct. 2012. 8 10. Jacquez- Dolcroze, Emile. "Music Education." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Mar. 2013. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.