More than meets the ear: Why music is not “just music”
By Sonja Karlson (she/her), music teacher and Burnaby Music Educators’ Association Vice-President, Burnaby
As an elementary music teacher, I can tell you that my music class’s curriculum goes far beyond “just music.” As I watch cuts being made to music education across our province, it is clear that the people who make budget and timetable decisions do not fully understand the breadth of what music teachers do in our programs. I directly teach language arts, math, science, social studies, dance, drama, ADST, social-emotional lessons, as well as English language learning and physical education, as I teach music. Here are some examples of how music supports learning across all aspects of the curriculum.
Learning to read music teaches some fundamental language arts skills. For example, learning to track across the page from left to right and turn symbols into sounds are essential skills to read music or read text. Pitch names are like letters of the alphabet. We sing lyrics, practising reading skills. We talk about vowel sounds, consonants, and even diphthongs to create the best sounds as we sing together.
There are many mathematical skills associated with music as well. Music can be summed up as sound over time, so teaching time is imperative. We also directly teach patterns. Counting beats, grouping beats, and subdividing beats teaches number sense, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. There are also mathematical formulae used to figure out note values, intervals (the space between two pitches), and chords.
I find myself often incorporating physical education into my music program. One must have good posture to hold an instrument or to sing and produce a pleasant sound. We use dance and movement to enhance lessons and performances and to engage learners. We often combine drama to help tell the stories of our songs, show the meaning behind the songs, or to build community within our classrooms.
Science is another branch of education that we delve into on a regular basis. If teaching a wind instrument or singing, we teach about the biology of breath: how the diaphragm, lungs, and throat work to produce a good breath in order to produce a good sound. When playing percussion, we talk about vibrations and force. We need to strike the instrument with the correct force to get a ringing sound. A science lesson about vibrations makes it clear as to why they need to strike an instrument the way the music teacher has instructed. And, at times, I have even delved into pitch frequencies, sound waves, and decibels.
Now, many of the songs a music teacher chooses are thoughtfully designed to teach curricular content. We can teach children songs from many different eras, countries, cultures, in any language, and with social-emotional goals. We discuss the content of the song. If the song is from another country, from another time, and teaches the children to be a kind person, you have met three social studies goals (history, culture, geography), a social-emotional goal, and citizenship goal all at once.
The ADST curriculum can easily be combined with music lessons. Many music teachers have students create a PowerPoint of something they studied or researched in music class. We also occasionally teach children how to make simple instruments.
The music classroom often creates a level playing field for English language learners (ELL) because all the children are acquiring the ability to read music at the same time, so the language barrier is non-existent. Learning instruments and dances involves physical demonstrations that help ELL students follow the rhythm of the classroom. And music teachers choose music with lyrics from many countries so, at times, the ELL children are the knowledge keepers of the content of the music class repertoire.
In all these ways, music education is not “just music education.” When we cut funding or time to music programs, we are cutting time to learning in all subject areas. Children retain more information when learning through the arts. They also benefit from practising newly learned skills across all different subjects and in different ways throughout the school day. The music program reinforces, enhances, and supports classroom education across all teaching areas.
I hope this article lifts the corner of the veil on what happens in a typical music room, and we can rally to support elementary music programs as a collective. Because all we really want to do is teach the whole child in the most engaging way, and music is a way to do just that.