Week 5

One part of the reading for this week (Bauer, 2014) that really resonated with me was the description of the various ways that human beings intuitively respond to music.  The outlining of Hallam's research into the types of responses to music (p.105) made a lot of sense.  Physiological responses are the very reason that we employ things such as fight songs or stirring national anthems.  Motor responses have been the reason for work songs and dance music.  Intellectual responses explain the continued popularity of Bach's fugues and inventions, while I have an aesthetic response every time I hear Barber's Adagio for Strings or Daniel Barenboim's Chicago Symphony recording of Nimrod.  While I accept that these reactions are culturally conditioned, they are still very real to me and thousands of others.  Part of our responsibility as music educators is to help our students understand why these responses are appropriate in our culture, while also helping expand their awareness of how these same type of responses are generated in different ways by the music of other cultures.

The piece of music software that I ran across and chose to use for the evaluation review (EarMaster Pro 6.1) was one that I had not been aware of previously.  The more that I worked with the free trial copy, the more impressed I became.  In my opinion, it is a tremendous tool to help students with ear training, sight singing, rhythmic and melodic dictation, theory and many other aspects of musicianship.  I definitely plan to purchase and make use of this technology in my classes.

Learning to properly use Diigo was another technical challenge for a "digital immigrant" like myself.  I am starting to get the basics, but I am sure there is a lot more for me to learn in order to be able to make effective use of it.  This does provide another nice addition to my PLN and adds one more way to become acquainted with other resources that can enrich my teaching strategies.


Bauer, W.I., (2014). Music Learning Today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing and responding to music. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.