Journal #7

Studying for tests for me vary depending on the class that it is. I honestly thought that for me I would have to prepare a little bit less for music because I have such a musical background and understand things such as the different note names and values and the definitions of different terms such as melody and steady beat. However, this past year I have learned to review for tests by actually completing the study guide. For me I can understand it much more if I actually take the time to make notes about each concept as well as writing down what I don't understand and then looking back at those terms. Like I said, it was really easy for me to understand, note names, times signature, note values, and definitions because being a piano player that comes naturally to me. However, I felt that it wasn't necessary to put such an abundance of information on the study guide because taking a look at the children's vocal ability and characteristics, and their song interests for example their is such a wide range to know of that and we had no idea what would be on the test and it turned out to be only one question and I know that for a lot people that was something that they spent a long time learning when they could have been putting their time into something that was emphasized much more on the test. It was also difficult for me to remember the half step, whole step sequence because since I can remember every music teacher I have ever had has explained to me that a white key to a white key is a whole step even if there is no black key in the middle so I had to relearn that. Although, I understand what staccato and legato is I think it was completely wrong to suddenly add that to the test on the day that we were reviewing for the test not learning new information. I think that a lot of the test was confusing, for instance no one remembers at all when during this class we learned the notes that correspond with solfegee.
Some of the things that we have learned during the semester were the definitions of steady beat, the constant repetition of one sound, rhythmic pattern, the combination of long, short, and silent sounds, melody, combination of various pitches. We also learned about a C major scale as well as G major. We learned that in order to be considered C major, the notes have to go from C to C and that in a G major to follow the sequence of WWHWWWH there has to be an F#. We learned about the way the way a lesson plan should be written in this class and that some of the important factors it should incorporate are concepts and skills both musical and non musical, objectives, closure and assessment. In talking about lesson plans, we also talked about a man named Kodaly who believed that every child should be musically educated. He felt that in order to teach a child music you need hand signs such as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. He also came up with rhythmic duration patterns to refer to the different notes such as quarter, half, eighth, whole, and sixteenth. He referred to them as Ta, Ti-Ti, Ta-ah, Ti-Ri-Ti-Ri, and Ta-ah-ah-ah. Speaking of the different notes, we learned about their values, for instance, quarter note is 1 beat, half note is 2 beats, whole note is 4 and the eighth note is 1/2 beat. We also learned the corresponding rests. On Fridays we began playing the recorder and in doing this so far we know the G, A, B, C, and D notes and their fingering charts. One of the last things that we have learned so far is how to transfer a song into both a rhythmic notation and a melodic icon.
Although this is not everything that we have learned it is a very big majority and the basis of what most information stems off of. I hope that as the semester progresses and the information gets harder we will be better prepared both before and during the test.