What repertoire should our pupils play?

Erika Kalmanczhey considers how teacher and pupil choice of repertoire can facilitate situational learning in music

It is a fundamental question in music education to know what musical pieces our students should play. Should they engage with easy or harder pieces, should they perform classical pieces or popular melodies? Who should choose the repertoire? Are child-chosen pieces of any good quality or is it better to leave it with a teacher?

We know that different people would answer these questions in various ways. We are also aware that most musicians would only play a certain genre, tradition or style. Does it mean that we should follow these patterns or should we engage with new trends? How should we educate our students in a modern, multicultural and multi traditional country?

Teacher-assigned repertoire

Extensive research has been taken on self-motivation and on the process of learning that has confirmed our worries about teacher-assigned repertoire. The researchers have understood that external motivation (motivation that comes from a teacher) reduces the value of learning in children. This can happen even if the students love music in general. In addition, children may lose their motivation, become bored or sad. They may even practise less without significant improvement.

Self-selected repertoire

Children have a natural, built-in interest towards the world that surrounds them. When they are allowed to choose and play the musical pieces they like, something wonderful happens to them. Their natural motivation turns on and they fully regulate their own learning. The students’ attention expands and their cognitive functions increase. The time they spend practising gets longer and their emotional involvement grows significantly. What does this mean to us? Should we just cancel teacher- led musical activities in schools? Should the students only learn the pieces they really like? Luckily, no! Researchers have found the way to ‘trick’ the brain into learning.

When children follow their interest in learning, they become self-motivated, intrinsic learners. When they learn something for external rewards e.g. for praise or compliance, their learning becomes extrinsic.

Situational interest can bridge the gap in between the two antagonistic learning styles by interacting with someone’s curiosity. A sudden change in the environment or a surprising element in learning can provoke people’s interest, can turn on intrinsic motivation and self-motivated learning, even if the people were not interested in it at first.

So how can we use situational interest in music education?

The rock music lover

One of my former piano students was interested in rock music. His favourite musical piece was ‘We Will Rock You’, a song by Queen. How did I use his interest and combine it with situational learning to help him to achieve higher?

At first, I let the student talk about the piece, including what he liked about that music and why. Then we moved to the ‘play off by heart’/’by ear’ phase when I asked the child to reproduce any parts/ elements of the music, he was able to remember. He was able to sing the chorus, “We will, we will rock you!” and he could reproduce the body percussion ostinato. This student was a beginner in his piano studies, therefore the previously mentioned musical elements gave me easy starting points for boosting his learning. (Four notes, a tetrachord melody and a pair of quavers with a crotchet.)

When the pupil was ready to move on, I encouraged him to play the ostinato in different ways, including body and unusual piano percussion methods. We also looked at video clips of the ‘Piano Guys’, who frequently use their tuned instruments as percussion instruments.

As our next step, we explored a range of different ostinato patterns. We also learnt about rhythmic note values and notation. When we moved to the melodic elements, we did the same things: played some parts of the melody by ear and improvised new melodic phrases. During this phase, we learnt about pitch and staff notation too. When I introduced a new note to the original 4 note scale, we started to explore ‘fivefinger’ patterns, pentatonic scales, legato, staccato and forearm rotation techniques. Learning the lyrics and the melody contour of the song helped the pupil to understand the contrast of monotonic singing and melodic variations.

Observing the guitarist helped the student to recognise that improvisation may sound complicated but in fact is achievable and it is fun.

At the end, the learner recognised that different parts of the music are played in a certain order, which gave him an opportunity to learn about musical forms.

The classical piano student

Teaching a classically trained piano student to play pop, rock and jazz pieces is the opposite challenge. The main question of it is to find the key characteristics that can connect the student’s previous learning to the new style, as well as to provide surprising or interesting elements/ facts during learning to turn on personal interest. Pop, rock and jazz genres are famous for their rhythmical drones, repeated and improvised simple melodic patterns and chordal accompaniments.

In order to feed the student’s interest, I would encourage her to experiment with a well-known classical piece by changing the accompaniment, the melodic contour, the rhythm or the time signature to create a modern sounding classical piece. We would listen to sample pieces that would give a fun element to learning too. Later I would introduce more stylistic, technical and theoretical knowledge to support the learning in the ‘ new genre’.

Summary

Our students need to learn a wide range of styles, genres, and traditions in their music education. Child-chosen pieces can be used as excellent starting points and motivators into learning. Changing one musical element of those pieces can create surprising moments that can lead into deeper or teacher-led/scaffolded learning. By providing surprising, fun, enjoyable and achievable activities, the teacher will help the student to succeed.