Music Introduction

Problem Centered Teaching and Learning in Music

When school music making is confined to the culture of the classroom, learning experiences are not as compelling as when they are connected to the culture of the community outside the school. School music teachers have long taken advantage of the motivation inherent in public performance. In communities where school ensembles are important components of public events, students are motivated to participate. To the extent that school music making can be connected to students' culture outside the classroom, the more authentic learning becomes. 

In many cases, however, musical problems are designed and solved by the teacher with little student input. An ill-structured problem would involve students in decisions concerning what, where, when, how, and for whom to perform. As students create and rehearse their performances, they make musical decisions and create an authentic musical community within the classroom. Through musical decision making, they learn how to make music and how music relates to the world around them. Their analysis leads to understanding the structure and synthesis of musical events as they are set in culture, history, and the other arts. This understanding will be incomplete if the learner has not created music in a social context through playing, singing, and composing or improvising.