Music Mentor: This is how music should be taught

Music Mentor: This is how music should be taught

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Roughly two years ago, someone wrote an
excellent exposition in the Kompas daily about how Indonesian
children are put through a torture called "music class". Instead
of learning to sing popular children songs, third and fourth
grade students are taught to read music.

"Gone is the enjoyment of learning music at school," the
author wrote, "because the children are now trained to be
conductors even though they can't even sing correctly." Two years
have elapsed since the article appeared, but the torturous music
lessons at Indonesian elementary schools remain.

Having a nine-year old child myself, I have firsthand
experience of this sad joke. Last year, this daughter of mine was
told by her teacher to learn to play the recorder because that
was the instrument used to teach pupils to read music.

Feeling sorry for my daughter, who became so frustrated
because she found it really hard to play the correct notes on the
recorder, I went to her school and met her music teacher. I asked
him very politely why he didn't just let the children use a small
keyboard, like a cheap Pianica or a Casiotone electronic
keyboard, instead of forcing them to learn to play the recorder.

"The black and white keys on the keyboard will make it easy
for the children to visualize the relationships between musical
notes," I suggested. "They will be able to see that, for
instance, there are seven notes between a Do and a higher Do.
Because of the way the recorder is played, such a visual aid is
not there," I reasoned.

Unfortunately, our teachers aren't much different from our
bureaucrats. They may make grandiose assertions that they're
always open to suggestions from parents, but nothing will ever
change. My daughter's music teacher simply answered my question
by saying that the recorder would be the tool of trade for my
daughter until she graduated from that elementary school, so I'd
better start teaching her to play that instrument whether I liked
it or not.

We really do have much to lament when it comes to our
children's formal education. If our children weren't forced to
spend so much time on so many useless and worthless things at
school, they could get much better and more meaningful education
at home using the plethora of multimedia materials available.
Music lessons, for example, could come from Music Mentor.

Digital Mentor

Music Mentor, written by Music Technologies Associates, is one
of several musical software programs available. Although the
version I looked at was already three years old, it didn't matter
because masterpieces never age.

The Main Screen, which is on the opening screen, lets you
choose what you want to explore. You can start with the most
basic knowledge of music, or you can jump to one of the five
major eras in the history of music: Early music, Baroque,
Classical, Romantic and Modern. Music Mentor is organized around
melody, rhythm, harmony, timbre, texture and form. Whether you
explore the basics or any of the five musical eras, your lessons
will be categorized according to these six topics.

You definitely need a good sound board that supports MIDI, a
pair of stereo speakers, a CD-ROM drive and a fast machine to
take advantage of Music Mentor, as the software comes with a
collection of MIDI clips -- sample music that you can listen to
in order to gain a better understanding of what you're reading.

A musical tour

If, like myself, you are also one of the uninitiated, the best
place to start -- as is usually the case -- is at the beginning
in the Basics. Clicking the button found in the left panel of the
Main Screen will bring up six buttons in the right panel.
Starting with Melody, the leftmost button in the row, is
instinctive.

Clicking on the Melody button will bring up the first music
lesson. Music Mentor is written in a rather conversational
language which makes it all the more interesting.

It explains the definition of "melody" as: "A simple
definition might be to say that a melody is a succession of
pitches which is perceived by the mind as a unity. A simple
example is the part of a song that you can sing or hum or pretend
to sing or hum." Clear and easy to read.

Music Mentor doesn't simply suggest that a melody should be
perceivable as a unity. Underneath the definition there's a music
notation and underneath it there's a button to tell Music Mentor
to play the succession of notes on the notation -- using MIDI.
When I clicked the button I heard: A succession of pitches which,
to me, didn't form a unity at all. What I heard reinforces my
understanding of what a melody is.

On the bottom of the screen is a line of buttons that allow
you to go to the recording session, to the previous or next
screen, or to get back to the Main Screen. Clicking the Next
button after each screen will take you through lessons on each of
the six topics -- from Melody to Form.

Historically rich

The history sections of Music Mentor show what composers have
done with the six musical elements since the Middle Ages. For
example, you can go to the Romantic Harmony section to get an
idea of how composers in the Romantic era used harmony. Or you
can go to the Modern era to see how rhythm has been used by
modern composers in creating their own music.

I explored the Classical era, and Music Mentor led me to the
section explaining how an orchestral work was created. There are
plenty of "Play" buttons to press to get examples of how musical
piece sound each time another instrument is added.

In fact, Music Mentor is very rich with music samples, and
although they were created using MIDI instruments, they were
played by professionals. Mozart's variations of Twinkle, twinkle
little star, for instance, would deceive passersby if played
through a pair of power speakers; they would think a concert
pianist was practicing.

And -- music teachers take note -- there is also a section
that teaches how to read music. Strangely, however, this section
is not accessible from the Main Screen. To get to it, you have to
click on the Mentor menu item and then Reading Music. Like other
sections, however, the lessons on music reading are very well
prepared and appealingly presented.

Having briefly enjoyed Music Mentor, I wonder why Indonesian
children must still endure the unpleasant experience of being
scolded by their teachers for not being able to play the
recorder. Music could be taught in a much more entertaining and
informative way.

There is so much to learn. Learning about music can definitely
be very enlightening, as long as we start from the basics and
build from there.

Music Mentor was created using Asymetrix ToolBook, so it's
possible for Indonesian music teachers to produce similar
educational material in Bahasa Indonesia. But unless property
rights are protected, who would be interested in such a time and
resource consuming venture?