“What does it mean to foster quality relationships with students?”

To be successful in the music classroom, and to have a successful teaching career, music teachers must know how to foster quality, appropriate relationships with their students. Most, if not all, quality relationships occur due to the music teacher’s ability to be inviting, trusting, relatable, and respected within the school setting and out in the community. The ability to foster relationships is evident in how performing music is a social act between musicians. Within the music classroom, fostering quality relationships with students means providing students with the respect that is being asked of them and relating to them as human beings as they learn how they fit into society. One of the easiest ways to relate to students is by providing them with opportunities to transfer the content learned in class to their daily, music-filled lives, and participate in the social music-making process with them. In doing so, the music teacher shows that they are interested in how their students interact with music outside of the typical music classroom and give them the tools necessary to associate content learned in the classroom with the music they listen to during leisure. This demonstration of interest in students’ lives fosters positive, quality relationships. Adderley and colleagues (2003) examined the “world of the high school music classroom” where they investigated the motivation to join and remain in music ensembles, the perception of the music groups by their members and school community, the value and meaning of the music ensemble to its members, and the social climate of the music classroom. They used the following list of questions to focus on the main issues stated above: 

When looking at the “Meaning and Value” and “Social Climate” sections of the music classroom, Adderley and colleagues (2003) found that the music ensemble was an environment that fostered friendships and a sense of belonging (specifically students with the same ethnicity) amongst its members. They also observed the relationship between the students and the conductors. They noticed respect between the teacher and student and played a large role in the value of their high school music experience. What this study does is echo the importance of providing students with an opportunity to express themselves, thereby creating an environment that allows students to make friends. Teachers can also show students that they care about them as people and how they experience music in the classroom. This leads lead to better, quality relationships.

Emotion and Music

One of the two master/doctoral only courses offered at the University of Oregon is Psychology of Music. One of the aspects of this class was researching and presenting on a musical topic. Mine was Emotion and Music. I chose emotion in music because I was interested in how music affects emotions but also interested in how music affects society and where in society music is the most prevalent. While researching this topic, I realized most of what I was researching could be applied to teaching middle or high school music students and using emotion in music could foster better relationships with my students. The concepts that I discussed for my presentation were perceived emotions (mixed emotions, valence and arousal, childhood development, prosody), felt emotions, diegetic and nondiegetic music, and musical closure. All these concepts are relatable to the music classroom but the concepts I can see myself using regularly to relate to my students and foster relationships are perceived emotions, felt emotions, and musical closure.

Perceived vs. Felt Emotions

Perceived Emotions

Regarding music, perceived emotion is the type of emotions that music conveys. Unlike felt emotion (below), perceived emotions do not elicit a physical response but describe, portray, or convey emotion. An easy example of this is how major chords convey happiness and minor chords convey sadness. If I were to play a major or minor chord for my students without context, they would be able to tell me what type of emotion each of those chords elicit. Perceived emotion can be a challenging concept to grasp because most people assume that the emotion(s) that music conveys is being felt rather than what it is portraying. With perceived emotion comes concepts mixed emotions, valence and arousal, childhood development, positivity effect, and prosody. Of those concepts, mixed emotions transfer well into the music classroom.  

When discussing mixed emotion, the easiest way to understand it is through Kate Hevner’s sixty-six adjectives for describing how emotion is being perceived (Figure 7). Mixed emotions occur when music conveys an emotion other than the typical binary (happy vs. sad). Music like this usually has a mixture of fast and minor modes or slow and major modes. Examples of this include Hey Jude by the Beatles (slow and major) and Dance Dance by Fallout Boy (fast and minor). I could incorporate this into a music lesson by having the students listen to a variety of music that they request and describe the emotion it conveys using Kate Hevner’s objectives. Once they have collectively associated pieces of music with certain adjectives, I would then ask them to transfer the adjectives into a particular section of the music and have them collectively associate the section with certain adjectives. What this does is give the students the vocabulary necessary to associate and think critically about music with challenging emotions as a group. This forms a stronger relationship amongst themselves and with me as their educator. 

Felt Emotion

Felt emotion, the emotivism approach, is when music makes people feel real emotions. An easy example of this is the feeling of “goosebumps,” “shivers,” or crying when listening to a piece of music. John Sloboda’s (1991) tears (crying, lump in the throat), shivers (chills, goosebumps), and heart (racing heartbeat) and Guhn and colleagues’ (2007) frisson or music–induced chill describe the feelings that music can induce. Felt emotion in music is what I consider to be the easiest to understand simply because I have experienced it the most. When explaining felt emotion to students, I would do so by having them listen to a piece of music and ask them what emotions it makes them feel. Students can come up with their own words to describe the emotion they feel or be provided with Hevner’s sixty-six adjectives (See above). After they have compiled the emotions that the music makes them feel, I would then show them a video associated with the music. An example of this would be playing excerpts of Pines of Rome by Ottorino Respighi and then playing the end of the movie Fantasia (2000) which use the Pines of Rome and see if the feelings the students had about the music changed before and after watching the movie. By doing this, I encourage my students to share the emotions they feel together and with me to form a stronger relationship with them.

Felt emotion in music also ties in well with my Philosophy of Music Education surrounding the topic of inclusivity and aesthetic experiences as well as my ability to be an effective music teacher. Regarding inclusivity and aesthetic experience, those who have aesthetic experiences in music are feeling emotion collectively with their peers. This, coupled with being in an environment that is inclusive and reaches the “Self-Actualization” section of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (See Music Importance) provides the students with shared moments with each other and with me, the teacher. How felt emotion relates to being an effective teacher, stems from my ability to show the emotion that I want my students to feel. In the Teacher Effectiveness section of this Processfolio, I describe the ability to be an effect conductor as one who provides expression in all forms. Doing things such as changing my facial expression and conducting big, small, rigid, or smooth help my students feel the emotions that I am also feeling and trying to convey. This creates a stronger relationship with my students because they see that I care about the music, take the time to study my scores, and provide them with the necessary emotions to play the music effectively (Scores). When discussing perceived and felt emotions with my students the main distinction that I want them to make is that perceived emotions are what we are trying to convey as an ensemble, felt emotions are what we feel as a group about the music when we are playing it or listening to it, and our goal is to make the audience perceive or feel the emotions that we portray. 

Musical Closure

Musical closure showcases the use of music to provide release, satisfaction, confusion, or closure to film music. Musical closure occurs mostly at the end of films, but is not limited to smaller climactic moments at the beginning or middle of a film score. Musical closure encompass many aspects of emotion in music because it uses perceived (mixed) emotions to disorient, confuse, or reassure the listener as well as felt emotion to make it more relatable or climatic. An example of both perceived and fixed emotions that I used in my presentation was the ending to Avengers: Infinity War by Alan Silvestri. The ending of Avengers: Infinity War showcases the protagonist resting after eliminating half of all living beings in the universe. The music score starts slow and minor but ends with a Picardy third as if to justify everything the protagonist has accomplished. The feeling of closure, a sense of relief or ending relates directly to Gestalt Psychology. In Gestalt Psychology, one of the core principles is the “principle of closure” which in music is the ability to connect the missing parts of a piece based on where it sounds like it is going to go. An easy example would be to play a simple chord sequence but end by playing the dominant chord and not resolving it. The listener can hear where the music should end. Mixed emotions like the example above contradict the “principle of closure” because they subvert the expectation of the listener. The “principle of closure” does however provide a greater sense of relief when the music ends where the brain assumes that it is going to end. Musical closure plays a massive role in both setting up the expectations of the listener and adhering to those expectations or defying them. 

Musical closure can be transferred and used to create relationships with students by associating the films they watch outside of school with the musical closure they hear and play in class. Like perceived and felt emotions, by tailoring the classwork to what the students experience in their daily life shows them that their teachers are interested in what music they listen to and are providing them with schoolwork that is associated with their lives outside of school. I will bring musical closure into the classroom by having the students listen to the ending of Avengers: Infinity War without showing them a video associated with the score. I would ask them to provide adjectives that describe the emotions perceived or felt by the music. Then, I would have them watch the section of the film with the music, give them context to what has happened in the film, and ask them to provide adjectives that describe the emotions perceived or felt now that they have context. This would prompt a discussion about their outlook on the music and whether it had changed based on context or if it remained the same. I would then relate the activity they just did with a piece of music that they are working on in the classroom. Another lesson activity to address musical closure would be asking students to provide a story to associate musical closure with and then play their music with that story in mind. This gets them thinking less about how the notes are supposed to be played and how they are going to fit their music into the story that we, as a group, have contrived. This will start to get the students to think critically about the music they hear in films as well as the music we are playing in class. I am creating strong relationships with my students by demonstrating how the techniques and methods that we used to learn a piece can be transferred into their daily music lives. I am showing them that I care about music outside of the traditional classroom and actively try to incorporate their personal music taste into daily lessons. 

Analysis of Popular Music

One strong method for building relationships with students is by relating the music they listen to in their daily lives to what we are playing in the music class. This master’s program gave me the opportunity to take the class Analysis of Popular Music which took traditional and non-traditional music analysis techniques and applied them to popular music. For example, traditional music analysis techniques would be analyzing chords, rhythms, form, and texture, whereas non-traditional techniques would be spectrograms, vocal timbre, spatial sound placement, and rhythmic groove and flow. Analysis of Popular Music gave me the content and vernacular necessary to relate the music my students listen to in their daily life to that of the music we are performing in class. 

Of the techniques that I learned in Analysis of Popular Music, what I consider to be the most interesting and the most easily transferrable and relatable techniques for popular music in the traditional music classroom would be spatial sound placement/texture and rhythmic groove/flow. With these techniques I can relate to my students and establish better connections by tailoring my instruction to their music tastes. 

Spatial Sound Placement/Texture

Spatial sound placement and texture go hand in hand. They also happen to be the concepts that I enjoyed the most in Analysis of Popular Music because they describe how popular music musicians place certain instruments, sounds, and voice into a sound space to convey different meaning. In this class, Dr. Nobile explained spatial sound and texture using a sound “box” and during this process made it clear that these concepts are difficult to quantify because they exist in the space that the listener is hearing the music (class handout). Within in the sound box, there is also the concept called prominence which is split into four proxemic zones: 1) Intimate, 2) Personal, 3) Social, and 4) Public (Figure 6). In popular music, this is where the singers voice, sounds, and instruments are heard in the sound space. Where sounds are being heard (right, left, bottom, top, back, forward) all contribute to the sound space and provide texture to the piece of music. This layering, much like the layering in a traditional band class, is considered texture in popular music. Texture in popular music is how the music sounds in terms of body or fullness. When listening and analyzing, questions such as “Does the music sound like it is in a big or small space (closet compared to outdoor concert)?”, “Does the singer sound behind the instrumental parts?”, or “Does the music change in texture? If so, why did the artist do this?” could be used to describe the spatial sound and texture. Artists like Billie Eilish and the girl in red [sic] use the different proxemic zones to accentuate the texture of their music to make it sound more intimate, like a private concert, or to make the music seem unstable and highlight lyrical passages (see Assignment 4 and Assignment 7 – Question 2). 

Using spatial sound placement and texture in the traditional ensemble class could look like playing a popular music song for students, discussing the spatial sound placement and texture with students (after a brief explanation of what it is), and then having them relate it to a piece of music they are playing. For example, if we are rehearsing a piece of music where the flutes, oboes, and clarinets have the melody and they are being buried by the rest of the ensemble, I could relate it to the texture and sound placement during the chorus of Smells like Teen Spirit by Nirvana which showcase the “Social Zone” of proxemic zones (Figure 6). Like how the flutes, oboes, and clarinets, are being buried by the placement of sounds (dynamics, range and number of other instruments), the lead singer of Nirvana is being buried by the drums, bass, and guitar in the chorus of Smells like Teen Spirit (Video Reference). This gets the students thinking about the traditional ensemble and how their sounds fit into the sound space in a new way that is related to popular music. Instead of being told by the band director “I cannot hear the melody in the clarinets, flutes, and oboes. Can the other instruments please lower their dynamic” they can relate the texture and balance of the music they are playing in class to what they are listening outside of class. With that, as the teacher, I am creating a stronger relationship with them by associating the music they listen to in their daily life with the music they are playing in the band class. The goal is to get students to listen and associate the music they listen to in their free time with the music they are playing in band class. As the teacher, I provide the students with the vocabulary and tools necessary to make those connections. 

Rhythm

Rhythm is the easiest concept to transfer from popular music to the traditional music classroom because popular music and music played in the music classroom both have rhythm. Rhythm also deals with two sub-topics in popular music called “groove” and “flow.” “Groove” provides insight to the underlying feel that the rhythms present in a particular song and “flow” analyzes the use of rhythm patterns to propel phrases forward in rap music. The reason I chose rhythm as one of the concepts is because it can be easily tied to many aspects of teaching in the typical band classroom. For example, if my jazz band is playing a Latin chart, I could find a song in popular music that demonstrates the use of a clave rhythm as the “groove” of the song (Analyzing Groove Assignment/Handout). An easy, recognizable song would be Gorgeous by Taylor Swift, which uses a 3:2 clave (3-3-4-2-4) every other measure in the pre-chorus snare drum line (Figure 7 – from Groove Assignment). By bringing in a popular piece of music that uses the same type of rhythms in a piece of music that the jazz band class is using, I am relating the music they are hearing in their daily life with the music we play in jazz band. The relation of our school jazz band music with popular music shows my desire to relate to my students, thus fostering a stronger relationship with them.

As for the second concept “flow,”  I would relate what I am teaching my students with finding rhythms in rap music that mimic the rhythms that my wind players or percussionist have to play on their instruments. An easy example of this would be the use of accented off beat sixteenth notes on measures 9-12 on Kendrick Lamar’s verse on Beyoncé’s song Freedom (Figure 10 – with transcribed rhythmic figure – Flow Assignment/Handout) to teach students how to play accented sixteenth notes. I would incorporate this into my lesson by providing my students with the sixteenth note figure without the accents and then have them listen to Kendrick Lamar’s verse and fill in the accents on their own. I would then have them play it at a slow tempo then eventually have them play along with the music. This lesson coupled with a piece that is being rehearsed in class that has accented sixteenth notes would make for a perfect transfer of knowledge between popular music and traditional band repertoire. Not only that, but it could also be used as accent practice with rudiments for the percussion section.

The introduction of popular music in the traditional music classroom provides opportunities to interact and relate to students with the music that they listen to. It also allows students to figure out how to make transfers from their music classes into their daily life. The hope is that the students will leave the lessons with a better understanding of the techniques used in the music classroom and how they fit into the music they enjoy. While taking the Analysis of Popular Music course, I also wrote in my Critical Summaries about how I could possibly use the information learned in this class to teach my own version of the class or relate the information to teaching middle or high school band (see the final paragraph of critical summary one and two). I chose to discuss the two techniques (Spatial Sound Space/Texture and Rhythmic Groove and Flow) I enjoyed the most while taking Analysis of Popular Music, because I found them to be the most relatable to the music I listen to. What that does not mean is that the other techniques mentioned could not also be involved in the music classroom and used to foster relationships with students. Yes, popular music can be used to foster relationships with students, but it also exposes students to different genres of music throughout popular history (rap, country, rock, pop, etc.) and artists that they can relate to. I chose to discuss three contrasting examples (rock, pop, and rap) to highlight the diversity that comes with using popular music in the music classroom. Taking Analysis of Popular Music changed my perception and approaches towards music teaching by revealing the importance of popular music in the music classroom and its ability to be relatable and foster relationships between me and my students.