First of all, "dispersion" leads to the diversification of music education models.
The United States is a country with highly decentralized educational administrative power. It has 50 states, below which are counties. In terms of education system, there are school districts below the state level. There are more than 600 university districts (primary and secondary students 1 10,000), more than 3,000 middle school districts (2,500 to 1 10,000) and more than 0.2 million primary school districts (less than 2,500 primary and secondary students) in China. The education authority of the school district is the Education Committee, which is responsible for formulating education policies and teaching plans (including syllabuses of various subjects).
The U.S. Federal Department of Education has no uniform regulations on the teaching plans, syllabuses and teaching materials of each state. Each state can make its own teaching plan and outline, but this kind of plan and outline is not rough, but only instructive to each school district, not mandatory. Only the school district is the real educational entity. Dr. Howard gardner, a famous child development psychologist at Harvard University, wrote in the article "Differences between Chinese and American Art Education": "The highly decentralized education in the United States is in sharp contrast with this (China). The policies of 50 states are different, and sometimes the school districts of 16000 are fragmented, resulting in great autonomy. Differences are not only tolerated, but also encouraged and locality is respected. It is precisely because the administrative power of education is so highly decentralized, coupled with the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural background, the educational model of primary and secondary schools presents a diversified phenomenon, and the musical education model naturally presents a diversified phenomenon.
Among many modes of music education in American schools, the following are dominant: Orff's teaching method, Kodaly's teaching method, Dalcross's teaching method and comprehensive musical sense teaching method. These teaching models have their own unique charm and blend with each other. They complement each other and make the garden of music education in American primary and secondary schools present a colorful and vibrant scene. Although most of the above-mentioned music education models are foreign, they have long been compatible and absorbed as an organic part of the American music education system because of their close combination with the reality of the United States. We should regard them as an American music education model.
Second, "creation" has become the theme of various models.
There are many modes of music education in American primary and secondary schools. On the surface, they may feel varied and even disorganized. As mentioned earlier, the music teaching syllabus of 16000 multi-campus is different, and the teaching materials are diverse. Even different schools and even different teachers in the same school use different teaching materials and teaching methods. However, from this superficial chaos, we can easily see its internal order. In this varied teaching mode, there is indeed such a theme-creation.
We believe that the music education model with the theme of creation must be a model that encourages children to actively explore and innovate in the process of music learning, and is by no means a model that requires children to passively imitate. Below, the author makes a brief analysis on several modes and creative themes of contemporary American music education.
1. Orff's teaching method and creation
Carl orff's music education method for children is an experimental method that emphasizes the training of creative thinking. Its essence is to let children create their own music through rhythm. Children master some musical vocabulary through a series of deepening performance activities: speaking, exercising, singing, playing and playing. This teaching method does not require students to sing and play music soon, but requires students to be exposed to music practice. Orff believes that if students can sing and play, they should first love music and integrate their ideas into it. Students don't need to completely imitate the songs or dances taught by teachers, but need to engage in creative activities with teachers and students to form new things.
A successful Orff class often gives people a magical feeling. It can give students an illusion that it seems effortless to feel music, and a wonderful feeling can be produced instantly in a relaxed and happy performance. Participants (students) can create their own music even without much skill or theoretical background. In the training process of Orff teaching method, children can experience the sense of ensemble that is usually only available to professional musicians. In a word, the most important purpose of Orff's teaching method is to cultivate children's creativity through musical activities and elemental music.
After this teaching method was introduced from Germany to the United States, it was welcomed by American music education circles. They combined this teaching method with the reality of the United States, and added some American and African folk musical instruments to the inherent orff instruments. In teaching, they not only adhered to the spiritual principle of Orff's teaching method, but also localized this teaching method, making it an important method in music teaching in American primary and secondary schools. 2. Kodaly's teaching methods and creation.
Kodaly's music education thought is mainly a national and universal music education thought. He hopes to improve the quality of Hungarian citizens through music education, and advocates that children can exert their creativity and enrich their lives through music. The main purpose of Kodaly's teaching method is to (1) cultivate the cultural level of music-the ability to think, read, write and create in traditional music language.
(2) Give students a sense of cultural identity by using their own national music heritage, and learn more about other nationalities and cultures through their own national music knowledge.
(3) Improve the performance ability of all students-singing in classes and choirs, joining orchestras and orchestras-and participating in collective music activities as a way to enrich their lives.
(4) Let the great music works in the world become the wealth of students.
In order to achieve the above goals, Kodaly emphasized that each class must focus on several different musical goals, such as: singing in chorus and singing in parts; Read and write music scores; Practice ear, inner hearing and memory skills; Identify and use music forms; Move with the music; Listen to music; Obviously, improvisation is the highest stage of this teaching method and one of the most important contents.
Kodaly's teaching methods were adopted by some American music educators, including T. Bachmann, L. Choksy, M. H. Richards and D. Bacon.
Dr Bachmann combined Kodaly's teaching methods with American music education practice. When introducing notation to children, he used single-line notation, and other lines were introduced when necessary. He separated the rhythm from the melody, and further emphasized the rhythm by letting students learn and use it (which led people to combine Kodaly teaching method with Orff teaching method). He attaches great importance to developing children's musical memory through dictation, especially to the teaching of musical creation. He believes that "if children are familiar with music writing, they can better master singing music according to the score." Let children realize from an early age that the music they have learned can be played by themselves or by others. "
In order to effectively cultivate students' creativity in singing teaching with Kodaly's teaching method, Americans also attach great importance to the use of black soul songs, a highly impromptu singing form, so that students' musical creativity can be better developed.
Like Orff's teaching method, Kodaly's teaching method has become an important method of music education in American primary and secondary schools. Americans also combine them to form the Kodaly-Orff teaching method, which focuses on cultivating children's creative thinking ability. As Michael L. Mark said, "These two methods complement each other and make children more creative and rational when learning music.
3. Dacrox teaching method and creation
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze's teaching method has been introduced to the United States for a long time, and it is still very popular in the United States. This is a teaching method aimed at developing children's musical ability and creativity. Although people often think that body rhythm is the Darkross teaching method, in fact it is only one of its three major contents. The other two aspects of this teaching method are solfeggio and improvisation.
In the body rhythm class, students regard the body as a kind of "musical instrument". With the music moving freely, teachers (sometimes students) improvise on the piano. Students create their own movements corresponding to the music they hear by walking, running and jumping. Everyone has a different understanding of the music they hear and acts accordingly. This maximizes the development of students' creative thinking.
Solfeggio requires students to sing intervals and songs by name, especially impromptu vocal music. This kind of solfeggio class, which develops students' creative thinking, is very different from the traditional professional solfeggio class.
Improvisation is mostly performed on grand piano or other musical instruments. The purpose is to help students form a free response to music in the process of playing, and students can practice improvisation at any speed.
Dalcross even adopted this improvisation method in theory class. He asked students to improvise melodies or melody fragments as part of developing their understanding of intervals and helping them get familiar with harmony.
All of these, the purpose of Dalcross teaching method to cultivate children's creative thinking is very clear. Therefore, this method has been popular in primary and secondary schools all over the United States since it spread from Switzerland to the United States around 19 15, and has been further developed and multiplied in the United States, forming an American-style music education model.
4. Comprehensive Musical Sense Teaching Method and Creation
The comprehensive musical sense teaching method is a kind of teaching method that really originated in the United States. It is a course based on the "spiral quality training outline" in the famous Manhattan music syllabus. Originally, it was a professional music learning course (including quality training in seven aspects: musical tone, rhythm, melody, harmony, form, tonality and structure). Pitch, timbre and dynamics are all included in music). Later, it was extended to the field of non-professional music education, and it was found that the teaching effect was better in music education in primary and secondary schools. Because this teaching method focuses on cultivating students' creative thinking ability, Americans directly call it "the teaching method of exploring creativity". The basic contents of the comprehensive music sense teaching method are as follows: (1) Teaching ideas. We should completely change the traditional teaching methods, which mainly focus on imparting knowledge and training skills, and develop people's creative thinking through the conscious cultivation of musical sense to adapt to the new wave of industrial revolution. (2) Teaching content. Comprehensive music history and music theory knowledge for quality training (five aspects of quality, sixteen cycles). (3) Teaching methods. Taking students as the center, teachers are only guides, exploring students' potential creativity, helping them to have the desire to create and realize the results of creation. (4) Classroom structure. Free exploration, guided exploration, improvisation, planned improvisation and consolidation of concepts (five links). (5) Change "I want to learn" to "I want to learn". Feidi paper network
The teaching activities of the comprehensive musical sense teaching method are in six aspects: (1) Hearing is the basis of quality training and the tool of exploration, which makes students feel the significance and fun of exploration. (2) Performance-Give full play to students' independent opinions and artistic creation, and don't force the final unity. (3) command-the comprehensive response of various qualities, can not let any student lose the opportunity to command. As long as you can express music, don't pursue command skills. (4) Creation-improvisation and planned improvisation. The works are not restricted by any procedures, and students' free innovation is fully exerted. (5) and (6) evaluation, analysis and comment-record and record students' discoveries, creations and performances at any time, play them to students in time, organize analysis and evaluation, improve aesthetic ability, develop thinking ability, and extend, summarize and synthesize what they have learned.
The above activities can encourage students to make their own judgments on the comprehensive understanding and knowledge of music, and actively participate in the process of music creation, so that students can gain the ability and experience of music analysis and creation. The comprehensive musical sense teaching method has become one of the important modes of music education in American primary and secondary schools, and plays an important role in cultivating and improving the quality of American citizens.
In addition to the above teaching methods, Karabo-Cohen teaching method is also used in music teaching in American primary and secondary schools; Suzuki's gifted education method; Pop music teaching methods (mainly jazz music teaching) and other teaching modes. No matter what mode of music teaching method, the theme of "creation" runs through it. Here, I would also like to mention the teaching methods of jazz.
Jazz is an outstanding contribution made by the United States to the world music culture, and it should be called real American national music. Since the 1940s, the nature of jazz began to change. It has changed from ordinary entertainment music to intellectual music, that is, players pursue subjective improvisation. The melody, rhythm and harmony adopted by this new type of jazz music are very different from pop music, which indicates that jazz music has gained a new life and began to bid farewell to pop music. At the same time, I also bid farewell to most of the ordinary listeners. The content comes from the real estate paper network
When jazz music went from vulgarity to elegance, and its performance was at a low ebb, educators took a fancy to the great advantage that its improvisation can cultivate students' creative thinking, and gradually incorporated it into music courses, and jazz music was revived on campus.
1968, the National Tujue Music Educators Association was established, which is considered as the implementation of the spirit of Tanglewood Conference, a famous national music education conference. The association wrote in its goal: "to promote the application of jazz principles in various teaching materials and teaching methods;" Cultivate and encourage suggestions and adoption of contemporary composition, adaptation and improvisation courses. "It can be seen that although the teaching of jazz music can not form a complete model, its principle has been encouraged to be applied to all music teaching, and this principle is the creative principle.
Third, the origin of innovative education thought in music discipline
1. The influence of western pioneering spirit on later generations
Americans' creative education thought stems from their ancestors' pioneering spirit in the west. 1492 When Columbus arrived in the New World of America in early 1992, it was still a desolate land, but today, more than 500 years later, the United States has developed into the most developed capitalist economic power in the world, with its nuclear bomb explosion, satellite launch, spacecraft landing on the moon and information superhighway network all over the country and even the world ... Seeing these, people have to think of their spiritual national treasure-development and creation. For many years, the pioneering spirit of immigrants, especially the pioneering spirit of the west, has been regarded as the pride of history and the symbol of American enterprising in the United States. Day after day, year after year, this creative spirit has gradually formed the American tradition, which can also be said to be the American national spirit. This spirit is fully reflected in their education, and the music discipline will naturally be affected in this way.
2. The vibration caused by Spartak 1
After World War II, American school education entered a certain misunderstanding, and its educational purpose largely stayed at the lower level of improving living standards. At that time, the level of basic education declined, and art education did not receive due attention. 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched the world's first artificial satellite-Spartak I, which shocked the American ruling and opposition parties. Americans realized that the Soviet Union had surpassed the United States in space technology. "Therefore, the need to improve education is no longer based on the requirements of improving living standards, but on the struggle for national survival." They think: "In the era of great records in Russia, an education system was established, and a group of men and women who needed to reach the peak of technology were trained for their rulers ...". They also saw that the Soviet Union attached great importance to basic education and subjects that could cultivate people's creative thinking, such as music. In this way, Americans put the focus of their research on the education system and went deep into the field of art education. They realized: "To become the most technologically advanced country in the world and cultivate a large number of senior talents, we must attach importance to art education, because art education can develop students' imagination and creativity to the greatest extent ..."
Therefore, the federal government began to pay attention to basic education, especially art education. From 65438 to 0959, with the support of the Academy of Sciences, the Federal Ministry of Education, the Air Force and Rand Corporation, and under the auspices of the Education Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, the famous Woods Hole Conference was held in Massachusetts, which was a great event in the history of American education. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the problem of science education and put forward some suggestions to solve the problem, including attaching importance to art education.
In the same year, the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) issued a statement in response to the cold reception of art education: "We advocate a balanced curriculum, in which music, performance, painting, poetry, sculpture and architecture should keep pace with other important disciplines, such as mathematics, history and science ..."
The educational research and development task force composed of American scientists is an expert advisory group of the federal government. They put forward the following views: there is a certain relationship between the Excellence of scientific achievements and the breadth of human individual experience. The best scientists are not necessarily those who only focus on their own majors.
People, to some extent, are familiar with art and humanities, which will make a good scientist's observation more acute. Einstein's success is regarded as a typical example. Known as "Copernicus and Newton in the 20th century", this great scientist is also a musician. He thinks that his success in science is inseparable from music. He said: "There is always a musical factor in scientific thinking. Real science and real music need the same thinking process. " As a result, the idea that music is conducive to cultivating people's creative thinking has been recognized by people in the United States.
Participants in the Yale Music Education Seminar held in Yale University from June to June 28th, 65438 agreed that it is very necessary to stimulate individual musical creativity and independence in music education. And emphasizes that creativity is a way to develop musical ability. Therefore, the view that music education should focus on cultivating people's creative thinking has been further confirmed.
1967 The Tanglewood Conference held in Massachusetts from July 23rd to August 2nd was a milestone in the history of American music education. The purpose of the conference is to discuss and clarify the role of music education in the face of rapid social, economic and cultural changes in contemporary America. At the same time, the participants also put forward suggestions to improve the efficiency of music education.
They think that music teaching and experience are carried out in different environments. If creative music education is to be successfully carried out, then teaching facilities and teaching methods must meet the specific requirements of education and should not be restricted. Teachers should have enough imagination and be willing to make teaching always new. The meeting also stressed: "both pre-service and in-service training of teachers should emphasize creativity." This emphasizes the creative theme in music education again, and encourages teachers to be innovative and eclectic in teaching methods. The flight of "Spartak I" made Americans clearly understand the relationship between music education and rejuvenating the country through science and technology, thus attaching importance to music education and forming the theme of creation in music education.
Fourthly, the enlightenment of American music education to China music education.
A variety of music education models with creative themes are conducive to cultivating and improving the quality of American citizens, fully developing people's creative thinking ability, and adapting to the reality of various regions and nationalities in a multi-ethnic country like the United States. At the same time, it is also enlightening to our national music education.
Revelation 1: It is necessary to clarify the music education purpose of super music.
In the United States, the purpose of music education in ordinary schools is not to cultivate musicians, but to cultivate and improve the national quality, and the most important thing is to cultivate people's creativity, which is the need of building a modern power across the century. As Dr. Herbert Sipper, a famous American composer and educator, said, "Learning music is not only for art and entertainment, but for training the mind and developing the body and mind. Music is very important in this respect. "