New Music Education > Participatory Partnerships > Contemporary Approach > Modern Methodology > Contemporary Music > Technology In The Classroom > Turnkey Technology Package > Why It Works > Benefits of Music Education > Benefits of New Music Education

"Empowering children to participate in the creative process."

-Robert McBride, Performance Today, National Public Radio

Upgrading methodology to reflect the revolution in music production makes for a more engaging and effective curriculum.

The revolution in music production has given birth to new methods for understanding and creating music that have powerful pedagogical potential.

For example, manipulating collections of, rather than individual, notes is common practice in popular music production, epitomized by "sampling," in which whole phrases may be recorded from one source and inserted into another. Similarly, the methodology at the heart of New Music Education starts with phrases. While starting with individual notes requires learning unfamiliar terms and concepts, starting with collections of notes places them in a meaningful musical context.

Note collections are organized into categories derived from contemporary popular music production, such as loops. Students readily understand the categories, which provide useful conduits to less familiar musical styles. For example, an Alberti Bass in a Mozart Sonata is easily explained when presented as a loop.

Bypassing the elemental level also gets students involved in music-making as soon as possible. Given the fluency of young people with the music inundating them at virtually all hours of the day, filling classes with baby music in order to hand-hold them through basic notation is an invitation to disengage.

Starting with collections of notes, in which individual elements are alive in their musical context, and proceeding to their assembly into sections and entire pieces, engages students, and allows them to work with musical materials much like an audio engineer might produce a multitrack recording. With this "top-down" approach, fundamentals and musical minutia are easier for the students to absorb along the way, rather than having to learn up front, in the abstract.   Learn more...