I am half and half ok with this subject. I do believe that using easier terms will help students to grasp the concepts quicker and be able to recognize and produce them quicker, but also students will not be learning the standard terms for all of these words. For example words like accelerando are second nature to musicians, but if young students were always taught "go faster," and they were introduced to accelerando in a higher level ensemble they might be left behind from the other students in grasping the concepts. I believe that using both the Italian term AND a word that is easily recognizable would be best for younger students.
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I agree with you. I think young students are capable of grasping the Italian terms, as long as they're paired with a matching English descriptive word. When I'm teaching 2 year olds at The Music Settlement, I use the terms loud and quiet, but when I teach elementary band I always introduce the terms forte and piano. I do like the provided adjective list! I think we can all use some variation in our adjective choice when describing music.
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Rocco,
ReplyDeleteI agree that using both the common (or Italian) musical term along with using terms that are easily identifiable to younger students would be the best way to present musical terms to students. I believe that it is necessary for students to learn the accepted musical terms because somewhere in their musical progression they will have to play music that utilizes the common musical terms that have been used in music over time. I think that we would be doing students a disservice by not teaching them the commonly practiced music terms. As you said, students will be left behind when they actually need to recognize those terms in music. However, as you mentioned, I do still think that it would be useful to supplement the common musical terms with descriptions that younger students could more easily relate to at that point of their musical progression. I think that terms such as forte and accelerando could be described by using simpler terms rather than replaced with the simpler terms.
Rocco, I agree that students, if they are to really learn the discipline of music, they need to learn it in proper context. Very young musicians must have these proper, Italian and German terms, demonstrated to them in a manner that helps them gain a strong comprehension of what they're meant to understand.
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