One of the most important activities that music educators need to do is encourage our students to listen to music and to expose them to new music. Listening to music provides exemplars and a target for students to reach for. It also fosters musical maturity and appreciation. The difficulty is that this takes time.
Like most classrooms, time in a music ensemble rehearsal is a very precious commodity. It is a struggle to determine what is the best way to spend that time as we need to divide it between warm-ups, rehearsing, announcements, and various other activities and discussions, such as listening activities.
Technology could hold the answer to this dilemma. Music has come to exist mainly online now, rather than in record stores, and thus it has become much more accessible. Increased Internet speeds and technologies, such as the iPod, have increased accessibility and changed the way that we are able to listen to music.
This means that these listening activities could occur at home without the need to spend precious rehearsal time doing so. This however creates a crop of new issues/problems:
· What if a student doesn’t have access?
· What technology is the most effective to use? Podcasts? Internet radios?
· How do we monitor and hold students accountable for listening?
· How can we assess their understanding of what they are listening to?
· Copyright and fair use issues
I believe in the end, the solution must address these issues for it to be a worthwhile and truly make a difference. The ultimate goal is to expose our students to new music and develop a deep understanding of music.
