However, for purposes of guided listening, the music should have a good phonograph and a variety of

records to suit the objective desired. This should not prevent the teacher, however, from utilizing live
music whenever this is available.

If the teacher is a capable and trained performer, either in vocal or instrumental music, he himself may
prove to be a rich source of pleasurable listening for the children.

All listening lessons should be done where no disturbances will distract the children’s attention. The
acoustics of the room should be conducive to clear and pleasant hearing.

7. Techniques

a. The music teacher should always introduce the music to be played. Some facts about the
composer, circumstances about the composition, or what the children will hear in the music
may be given adequately to show that the music teacher should gather as much information
about the music and its composer before using it in a listening lesson. There is no sense in letting
the children hear a piece of music that the teacher herself has not heard nor read about.

However, all information beyond those needed for the enhancement of appreciation and enjoyment of
the music must be given. The purely theoretical aspects should be kept at a minimum especially in the
lower grades.

b. The selection used should be played a few times if necessary so that one thing may be attended
to at one playing.
c. All selections should be chosen on the basis of the interest and intellectual capacity of the
children involved.
d. Children may not be patient enough for long selections; therefore, short and easy pieces should
be chosen for them.
e. Melodies that are easy to follow, with well-marked rhythms and clearly said lyrics, should be
features of music to be used In listening lessons.
f. Listening should not be isolated as a special activity in the classroom. Listening activities are
numerous and varied and can therefore permeate any music lesson.
g. Levels of appreciation are not uniform throughout the children in a group. What the teacher
should be clear about is the goal and values of the lesson rather than the visible manifestation
of appreciation.
h. listening lesson may have more than one objective at a time.

8. After all the aforementioned discussion, it seems logical to follow it up with objectives of the listening
activities. Following are some:

a. To develop good habits of listening intellectually and esthetically .

b. To awaken interest and to develop the love and appreciation for good music
c. To acquaint the pupils with some of the masterpieces of musical literature
d. To train the pupils to be intelligent listeners.
e. To develop music memory and a listening repertory
f. To provide music through listening for self-expression.
 g. To develop the formation of musical taste through creative listening to fine music.
h. To develop intelligent music criticism through listening
i. To develop the knowledge of proper concert manners for preserving the atmosphere of dignity
in the surroundings.
j. To encourage a discriminating, critical, and generative listening.

C. Creative Work

Relatively important in pedagogical terminology, particularly in the field of arts, is the term
creativity. Many times we read the terms like a “creative teacher,” “creative response,”
“creative activity,” or just plain “creative” which terms we should be able to interpret properly.

Primarily, a music teacher should have a clear concept of what creative music really is. It is not
just the old-fashioned simple-faceted idea of writing original music (composing) or building or
making toy instruments but a much broader term involving experiences in singing, listening,
rhythmic movement, and instrumental playing.

A school music program is known to have its five aspects- the singing area, the listening area,
the playing area, the rhythmic area, and the creative area. However, although these five areas of
music learning activities appear to be separate components of the music program, creative
music is not a separate subdivision. In a program designed for the promotion of musical growth,
creative responses should be evident in all the music activities. The creative phase should
permeate as well as coordinate the other four and it must go on throughout the music program
all the while.

This principle of creativity, therefore, involves both creative teaching (on the part of the music
teachers) and creative response (on the part of the learners).

3. The Different Instrumental Groups

We shall mention here only the three instrumental groups we usually see or hear in our
communities.

a. The Rondalla

The rondalla is composed of stringed instruments or chordophones. The mandolin and the
banduria usually play the principal parts, the octavina plays the obligato above the melody, the
laud serves as the alto of the group, the guitar plays the chordal accompaniment, while the bajo
de unas is the bass of the whole group. Drums and cymbals or other percussion instruments
were not part of the original rondalla but are sometimes used nowadays to add color or
different timbre to the music.
Rondallas are commonly found in many of our communities and are considered as our folk
instrumental ensemble although they bear Spanish influence in the rhythm and melodies
played.

B. The Orchestra

The symphony orchestra uses western instruments which are grouped as the string section
(violin, viola, cello, and contrabass), the brass section (trumpet, cornet, trombone, tuba, French
horn, Sousaphone), the woodwind section (flute, piccolo, oboe, English horn, bassoon), and the
percussion group (cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, kettle drums or tympani, chimes, celesta,
glockenspiel, etc.)

C. The Band

The instruments of the symphony orchestra, except the strings, compose the band.

While symphony orchestras often perform on a concert stage, the band is able to assist in
community affairs such as town fiestas, parties at home, funerals, and religious activities.

E. Movement

Two abilities that the children should be able to develop as a result of their rhythmic
experiences are the perception of rhythm and movement in rhythm. They should be able to feel
what the rhythm of the music is and to identify it, as well as make appropriate rhythmic
movements to the music whenever asked to.

Children love to move rhythmically and they want to do so in large movements. All they need is
a clear and interesting motivation to do so and freedom to choose their own movements as they
interpret from the music.

Rhythmic movement is an interesting way of interpreting music. It may be performed in the

following forms the fundamental bodily movements such as walking, running, or skipping,
rhythmic activities like swaying or clapping the hands or dangling, participating in rhythm band,
or other bodily movements.

There are two kinds of bodily movements locomotor movements which are progressive
movements like stopping, hopping, jumping, etc. and axial movements which are performed in
space like swinging the hands, rotating the arms, or falling. The axial skills are performed in
standing, kneeling, or lying position. For purposes of creativity different kinds of movements
may be combined in rhythmic interpretation.

There are several directions in which locomotor movements may be done, e.g. forward or
backward, in a circle or semi-circle. They may be varied in rhythmic character such as slow or
 fast or long or short. They may be in different intensities, too, that is light or heavy or smooth or
staccato (short). Locomotor movements may be executed in different meanings.

Here are some rhythmic movements which children may use in creative interpretation of music:

1. Soft or light movements may indicate soft-stepping animals or light objects like clouds or the
wind.

2. Heavy movements may mean heavy-stepping animals like the elephant.

3. Sharp or jerky movements may describe movements of the frog,

4. Popcorn, or the giraffe. Smooth movements may suggest climbing or flying planes or
skating.

5. Directional movements may suggest climbing or flying planes or sliding up and down.

6. The rate of movement should suit the rate of movement of the person or thing or animal
described thus, fast movement may be used for fast animals or vehicles and slow movements
may show flowers opening or drooping or sucking fearfully, etc.

Creative movements may be approached from different means:

1. After a discussion of the meaning of a familiar song, the children may be led to create
different types of action to depict different movements suggested in the song.
2. Interpretative movements may be suggested by the sound made by animals or objects; of
jingles, rhymes, or of selling calls; and greeting and farewells.
3. Music heard or performed may suggest varied movements. Dance steps can be adapted to
different moods of music.
4. From dance, skills and movements may be made involving the use of the body or its parts in
space patterns, different speeds, and different intensities of movements.

Teaching Strategies

Some foreign teaching strategies have caught the attention of Philip- pine music educators.
Some are partly adopted to enrich previous traditional practices.

A. The Kodaly Method

Zoltan Kodaly, a Hungarian, believed that music belonged to everyone and that music
education should be designed to teach the spirit of singing to all, should educate all to be
musically literate, should bring music into everyday living for the home and for leisure
activites, and should educate concert audiences.

The Kodaly method has the following components: (a) system of rhythm duration symbols
such as using rhythm syllables ta, ti, ta-a, etc. to indicate one-beat, one-half beat and two-
 beat tones, respectively, use of the movable- do system; and the use of hand signs which
indicate notes of the scale, from do to high do. (Please see the illustration of Kodaly hand
signs.)

Some features of the Kodaly method are:

1. The use of singing as the basis of musical training.
2. The use of folk music as learning materials.
3. A highly organized sequence of steps according to the child’s development

The following are children’s characteristics which are considered in music teaching.
A. limited vocal range.
B. Difficulty in singing half steps
C. Ease in singing
D. Use of so-mi which is considered a universal chant
E. More ease in singing skips than steps

4. Use of the following note groups

So-mi la-so-mi
La-so-mi-do
In-ti-do-re-mi-so

After mastery of the pentatonic scale

Major scale
Minor scale (natural)

5. Use of walking to begin rhythmic activities.

6. The children can learn to play instruments, if they wish to, but they should master the use of
the voice first. They should be ready to meet the technical problems of an instrument
through their musical competency which will enable them to play in a musical manner with
good tone and intonation.

B. The Orff-Schulwerk Method

The approach of Carl Orff (of Munich) in music teaching is an experiential method based on
rhythm and improvisation, building on what the children themselves find natural, e.g.,
strolling, skipping, running, swaying. Etc. and the minor third.
Orff devised simple rhythms and chants to serve as the basis for sequential development
activities. Speech patterns were taken from chants, games, and vocal sounds in the child’s
vocabulary. The patterns were chanted, clapped, danced, and sung.

His emphasis on rhythm led him to the use of percussion instruments in music education. He
developed an ensemble of percussion and string instruments designed to create the proper
timbre for the music. The instruments can be played even without training.

The children do much imitation and improvisation and are led to create their own music
from their inner feelings and imitation of environment sounds. Thus, they become sensitive
to sound and develop other sounds from these

The first melody to be used is the downward minor third. Then they learn the pentatonic
scale.
The Orff-Schulwerk appeals to the children because it involves creative activities using
singing, playing, and natural movements.
The method uses children’s speech as the basis for musical development. Children learn
musical concepts from the texture, dynamics, pitch patterns, and rhythms of speech.

A few activities may be:

1. Warming up movements while classic music is played

2. Playing rhythmic games
3. Using bodily movements with music
4. Interpreting music with their own movements.
5. Mirror imitation by two children
6. Using instruments to follow a rondo form
7. Using a movement canon to follow a song
8. Rapping Pilipino poems or songs

C. The Dalcroze Eurythmic Approach

Contrary to the traditional style of “lifeless and theoretical” interpretation of music which he
found mechanical and frustrating, Emile Dalcroze thought up a novel idea that musicianship
begins with and resides in the whole body. So he trained the students to respond to
rhythmic problems by thinking of the body as it relates to space, and as a musical
instrument that can perform with any speed or intensity.

The method introduces musical concepts of tempo, dynamics, duration, and rhythm through
movement with the help of piano accompaniment. A few examples are:

1. For Tempo
 A. Imitation of the movement of mechanical devices using different tempos.
B. Walking to show different emotion.
2. For dynamics
a. Making big motions for loud dynamics or small ones for soft
b. Using the crescendo and decrescendo to interpret growing or fading,
as one imagines himself to be the subject (eg., a growing plant or
fading sunlight)
3. Duration

Using foot and arm movements together to follow long or short duration

4. Rhythm

Showing simple rhythm patterns through movements like clapping, tapping, waving, tiptoeing, etc.

D. The Carabo-Cone Method

The Carabo-Cone Method provides a sensory-motor approach in music foundation and “intellectual
stimulation for academic achievement.” It was observed by psychologists Piaget and Bruner that “the
learning and thinking of children are linked to the concrete, the seeable, and the touchable.” (Mark from
Carabo-Cone, 1969)

The grand staff and its notation becomes an environment the image of which the child sees everywhere
in various sizes, direction, etc. Constant feedback from the physical is produced in the mental. Through
his personal experience, the concepts of varied directions (lower, higher, below, etc.) are learned as well
as some mathematical concepts of sequence and equality

Some ideas to explain this method further are as follows:

1. Play in the method and the music is the point.

2. Fun, familiarity and participation are needed to unravel the music symbols,
3. Singing and listening while playing make the musical concept alive and ingrained in the
children’s mind.
4. Perception and musical concepts are developed from simple to complex as the children
experience movement and touch, and under- stand the musical symbols.
5. Activities suggested by the approach- use of cards with symbols or words, drawings of symbols,
giant replicas. Movements of different parts of the body are done as play activities.