Overview:
Hearing is passive, but listening is active. Listening requires a higher level of engagement and results in greater knowledge if students are actively engaged in thinking about what they hear. Essentially, listening with a purpose. Students need multiple hearings in order to grasp a concept or to make an informed observation because music is “in the moment”. The practice of listening will cultivate transferable skills for how to listen critically in other situations.
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
- Describe the rationale for including listening lessons in the elementary music class,
- Summarize the ways in which aural skills and repertoire are developed through listening,
- Identify how listening lessons can reinforce music concepts,
- Illustrate the ways in which listening activities can help to formulate students’ thoughts and opinions about different music genres,
- Describe the guidelines for teaching a listening lessons,
- Design and demonstrate the sequence for teaching a listening lesson,
- Describe how listening activities can be assessed effectively, and
- Identify ways in which technology can enhance a listening lesson.
How are Aural Skills and Repertoire Developed Through Listening?
In the earliest grades, students should learn to become aware of sounds and focus on aural stimuli. This skill should precede the expectation that students can recognize specific qualities in listening selections. These early experiences prepare the students to be able to recognize larger works, to respond to longer selections, and to develop an aural repertoire.
Multiple listening opportunities establish a selection in the students’ aural repertoire. An approach to repertoire building is to utilize a different active creative experience, such as those listed in the previous section, with each hearing of the selection. Another approach to multiple hearings is to allow the children to hear the entire piece first. Additional hearings then focus on smaller parts and a variety of conceptual emphases. For the final listening, the entire selection would again be heard. In addition, these two approaches could be combined.
How Can Listening Lessons Increase and Reinforce Music Concepts?
Listening activities in the music classroom accomplish a variety of instructional goals, particularly those related to music concepts. By the end of the elementary grades, students should be able to:
- Identify simple musical forms
- Discuss and describe music from various styles and cultures
- Identify instruments and musical textures
- Use appropriate musical terms to describe music
- Respond with movement to music