#gordon mlt

[music-ed-notes-blog]

Gordon MLT, Part VIII

Today I continued to read about Gordon MLT in the MLT guide: http://giml.org/docs/AboutMLT.pdf

This continues the reading I described in http://music-ed-notes.tumblr.com/post/112134436493/gordon-mlt-part-vii.

Instrumental Learning

Instrumental learning is like normal audiation learning with an extra step of learning to 'sing' through an instrument. Student still learn to audiate through singing first. But they also practice playing simple patterns through their instruments. So that they gradually learn to control their instruments like their voices.

The MLT guide gives three general principles for instrumental learning:

Learn songs by rote first. Students develop a feel for their instrument when they learn by rote, without thinking about notation.

Learn to play patterns, not individual notes.

Think in terms of solfege names, not note names.

Improvisation

The MLT guide offers some advice on how to learn improvisation, and states that sequencing is important.

It recommends this sequence for learning improvisation: 1. Sing first. 2. Learning tunes by ear. 3. Learning bass lines. A good improviser should be able to hear at least three tracks: the bass line, the original melody, and the new improvised melody 4. Start simple. 5. Focus on hearing. 6. Improvise with chunks of patterns.

General Thoughts

I like the MLT guide's approach to instrumental and improvisational learning. Both focus on making the instrument an extension of the player. So that playing the instrument becomes more like singing, rather than operating a machine.

It's interesting to think about how to teach instrumental playing through online technologies. Traditional instruments may be out of the scope of online learning.

However, there maybe potential to teach audation and instrumental learning through new online instruments. I've recently been reading about New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME). One idea couldbe to have everyone who studies through a particular online pedagogy learn a new online instrument. For example, a special phone app instrument. This would have the advantage of creating a shared context for everyone learning with the pedagogy, and provide distance from traditional instruments.

Sort of like going on a retreat. When you go to a new place, you think new ideas and you're not constrained by the rules of your old world.

[music-ed-notes-blog]

Gordon MLT, Part VII

I continued to read about Gordon MLT in the MLT guide: http://giml.org/docs/AboutMLT.pdf

This continues the reading I described in http://music-ed-notes.tumblr.com/post/112046667708/gordon-mlt-part-vi.

Classroom Activities

MLT does not prescribe full classroom lesson plans. It instead gives teachers knowledge and tools to complement what they already do.

MLT LSAs should only be a small part of what teachers do in class. The other parts of class should include exposing students to new musical content through listening, moving, dancing, chanting, and singing. The MLT guide refers to these activities as 'Classroom Activities'.

The guide gives some examples of how to coordinate MLT's general principles with classroom activities. For example, this is one possible sequence for learning a song by rote :

Listen to the teacher singing the song unaccompanied

Listen and move to the macrobeats

Listen and move to the microbeats

Listen and move to both macrobeats and microbeats together

Audiate the resting tone while listening

Audiate the entire song

Sing the song without accompaniment

Sing the song with accompaniment

The guide notes that teachers should sing for students, not with them. When teachers sing with students, the students can simply imitate without really audiating. Singing without guidance challenges them to audiate.

The guide also recommends teaching music before words, and also teaching students to hear bass lines.

Coordinating Learning Sequence Activities (LSAs) and Classroom Activities

The guide discusses how to coordinate LSAs and classroom activities.

One recommendation is to coordinate general content rather than specific patterns. Teachers shouldn't worry about tightly coupling specific patterns to specific songs. Instead they should coordinate general types of patterns and skills. So instead of thinking 'Let's do pattern #827, da-da-dum, because we're doing a song that has da-da-dum in it', we should think 'We're doing a song in duple meter, let's do a few patterns that use duple meter.'

It also recommends that new skills appear only in LSAs, and that new content only appears in classroom activities. I like this because it can use LSAs to help build metacognitive awareness. "We're learning right now, and we know it.".

My General Thoughts

The sections I read today helped me understand more about how MLT's LSAs work in a classroom setting.

I think of the relationship between LSAs and classroom activities through the analogy of behind-the-scenes movie clip. LSAs ar like a short 'behind-the-scenes' section that you might see at the end of a movie. The classroom activities are like the movies themselves. The short clips help you understand what you have already seen in a new way, and they make you notice new things when you see other movies later. But these clips are not the movies themselves, and they are not interesting without the movies.

I'm also wondering how the MLT guide's coordination advice relates to online music education. One of the key differences between online and offline music ed is that there is no unmediated classroom experience in online teaching. That is, in online music ed the classroom activities either don't exist, or they happen through a medium which makes the experience less immediate. Does that change how we teach audiation skills online?

I think it must have some effect. In a classroom setting students can dance, move, chant, and sing. They get immediate, nuanced feedback. They can see and hear a live teacher and see all the subtle things she does. I don't think that media in the present or the near future can reproduce those experiences.

But are there other experiences that mexia can provide? For example, we can teach songs as online musical quest games. Playing these games would offer a different experience from a live classroom. Some aspects of these games might not be as good as classroom learning. But other aspects could be good.

This is what I want to explore.

I think MLT has some good ideas, which have been proven and tested in classroom teaching. I want to see whether they can be adapted to online teaching.

[music-ed-notes-blog]

Gordon MLT, Part VI

Today I continued to read about Gordon MLT in the MLT guide: http://giml.org/docs/AboutMLT.pdf

This continues my reading from http://music-ed-notes.tumblr.com/post/111953698823/gordon-mlt-part-v.

Tonal Content

Tonal activities in MLT are aimed at developing a sense of tonality and building a vocabulary of tonal patterns. MLT organizes patterns by tone type (major, minor, etc.), and pattern function (tonic, subdominant, etc.) . Patterns go in sequence of familiarity. This means starting with major tonality with tonic/subdomininant patterns for Western learners.

In MLT the word 'tonality' encompasses the idea of modes such as dorian and dorian and phyrigian. It's like the overall set of spices you choose to cook with.

The phrase 'resting tone' refers to the solfege syllable associated with a particular tonality. For example, 're' is associated with dorian tonality.

The word 'keyality' refers to pitch center. For example, a piece in Bb Major has a keyality of Bb and tonality of major.

Early tonal patterns are typically arpeggiated in MLT because larger intervals force students to audiate. With smaller whole/half-step intervals it is easy for students to simply imimate and not audiate.

Tonal solfege in MLT uses a movable do with a la based minor. This has the advantages of (1) associating a solfege syllable with each tonality, and (2) associaing intervals with pairs of syllables. For example, the interval beween do and mi is always a major third in this system.

Rhythm Content

Rhythm activities in MLT focus on developing a sense of meter, and a vocabulary of rhythm patterns. Patterns are organized by meter (duple, triple) and function (macro, micro, divisional).

As with tonal activities, rhythm activities are sequenced by familiarity. For Western learners this means focusing on duple meters first.

Elements of Rhythm in MLT

MLT describes rhythm in terms of macrobeats, microbeats, and melodic rhythms. Students should audiate these elements together to establish the syntax of rhythm.

Macrobeats are what we perceive as the longest beat. I think of this as the beat we tap our feet to.

Microbeats are equal divisions of microbeats, usually in halves or thirds.

Melodic rhythm is the ongoing series of rhythm patterns in music. This part is not clear ot me yet.

There is some subjectivitiy in defining the macrobeat. Some people might hear the microbeats as macro, and vice versa. An interesting result from Gordon's research is that students with higher initial aptitude often use longer macrobeats. Interesting!

Meters

Meters describe how macrobeats are grouped and divided. Usual meter has macrobeats of equal length, usually in twos or threes. Unusual has macrobeats of unequal lengths, for example 5/8 time (1-2, 1-2-3).

Rhythm Function

MLT explicitly focuses on identifying rhythm elements through audiation rather than notation. _I especially like this focus. Beginners can get caught up in decoding rhyhthm notations and miss the sound and feel of a rhythm.

Rhythm functions progress in order of audiational difficulty, as tested through teaching experiments. This sequencing is in contrast to other methods that sequence by notation. The MLT guide notes that notation-first approaches can be counterproductive because longer notational rhythms like whole notes can be harder for beginners to audiate.

Rhythm patterns start from duple and triple meters, and then go into division patterns, elongation patterns, rest patterns, and tie patterns.

Rhythm solfege is based on how rhythm is audiated, not how it is notated. MLT uses Gordon solfege, which offers these featuers: (1) it is based on how rhythm is heard, (2) it is comprehensive and can uniquely describe rhythms.

My General Thoughts

I like many aspects of the MLT for teaching rhythm, especially the focus on hearing rhythms. I think it is easy for many beginners to get caught up in decoding rhythm notation, rather than hearing the rhythms themselves.

I also like hearing about how Gordon MLT has tested these theories, by doing actual experiments. I met a music ed. researcher here in Cambridge, who told me about friends of his who worked as research assistants for Gordon. He talked about how they would observe students and log their progress. This gives me more confidence in the method.

[music-ed-notes-blog]

Gordon MLT, Part V

Today I continued to read about Gordon MLT in http://giml.org/docs/AboutMLT.pdf .

This is a continuation of my reading from yesterday: http://music-ed-notes.tumblr.com/post/111862048323/gordon-mlt-part-iv

I started to learn about the Learning Sequence Activities (LSAs) that Gordon MLT uses.

There are several basic characteristics of the LSAs.

Basic Characteristics

Separation of Tonal & Rhythm Content

The guide states that children have difficulty keeping track of tone and rhythm together. Many untrained children who hear the same tone pattern but with two different rhythms won't be able to tell that it's the same tone pattern. This seems to be true for many adult beginners too, in my experience. MLT LSAs separate tone and rhythm at first. Tone is practiced without rhythm. Rhythm is practiced with toneless syllables.

Teaching to the Levels of Individual Students

MLT gives different LSAs to students based on their aptitude. MLT teachers have classified LSAs with different difficulty levels, based on testing LSAs with students. All students practice 'easy' LSAs. Only more advanced students practice 'advanced' LSAs as well.

I still don't understand this bit, and how aptitude factors in. How and when does a teacher provide 'advanced' LSAs? Do MLT teachers separate students into tracks? How do they account for changing skill levels as students learn? Does everyone eventually practice the 'advanced' LSAs?

Individual Performance

The MLT guide states that it is important for students to perform individually. If they don't do solo performances, they can progress by imitating without really audiating. The guide gives an example of a someone singing in a chorus who can follow his part only if the others around him are singing. True audiation is achieved only when a student can perform solo. Solo performance shows that a studnet can conceptualize music, and is thus audiating.

Teaching Modes

MLT has three teaching modes.

Teacher Mode

A teacher gestures to an individual student, and the student performs the pattern with the teacher.

Evaluation Mode

A teacher peforms a pattern and gestures to a student. The student performs solo without the teacher.

Class Patterns

A teacher performs a pattern and the entire class echoes it together.

Almost all online training exercises are in 'Teacher Mode' or 'Evaluation Mode'. I haven't come across any that use 'Class Patterns'.

Pattern Delivery

The guide describes basic aspects of pattern delivery.

Tonal Patterns

The teacher establishes tonality by singing a scale or a chord. Then she sings a pattern. When she finishes the pattern she uses conducting motions to signal to individual students or the entire class to echo.

Rhythm Patterns

The teacher establishes rhythm to singing a macro/micro beat pattern that establishes the meter. Ideally the students follow the pattern by moving their heels to the macrobeats and tapping on their thighs to the microbeats. Then the teachers sings a rhythm pattern, and as the pattern finishes she conducts the students in to echo in rhythm.

My General Thoughts

Many aspects of Gordon MLT pattern delivery seem amenable to online training. The call-and-response aspect of the delivery would work well with online media.

I also like the note about keeping LSAs short, to just a few minutes. I think this is important for maintaining concentration, and also encouraging daily practice over time. Rather than binge practice.

I am somewhat concerned about how to encourage people to move while doing rhythm exercises. Motion seems very important to rhythm. The physical presence of a teacher may be an essential model for students. I am not sure about this.

There may be ways to represent a dancing teacher in an online exercise or game. Perhaps by having a background image or character that keeps dancing. Like flicking blades of grass, or clouds in the sky. For example, the game Patakong uses a shifting background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc1Ixsvc27M

I am also concerned about 'class patterns'. It's not clear to me how essential this is to learning in MLT. But this would be difficult to implement in online media, because it would be technically difficult to coordinate groups of students online.

[music-ed-notes-blog]

Gordon MLT, Part IV

Today I continued to read about Gordon MLT in http://giml.org/docs/AboutMLT.pdf .

This continues the reading I described in http://music-ed-notes.tumblr.com/post/111566519058/gordon-mlt-part-iii

Inference Learning

Inference Learning is a level that encourages students to make their own discoveries.

It gudies students in using the patterns which they learned in Discrimination Learning to identify and improvise with unfamiliar patterns.

I think of this like learning to recognize the meanings of words by finding common stems. For example, you notice that the words 'communicate' and 'community' begin with 'co'. You also notice that their meanings relate to 'togetherness'. You subsequently can guess that other 'co-' words deal with togetherness.

Discrimination Learning teaches what to learn and how to learn it. Inference Learning only teaches how to learn it; the student teaches herself what to learn.

There are different levels and activities within Inference Learning.

Generalization

Students learn to audiate unfamiliar patterns by comparing them to familiar patterns.

This happens at the oral/aural level, the verbal level, and the symbolic level.

At the oral/aural level, students can determine whether two patterns are the same or different.

At the verbal level, students can hear a pattern without solfege, and then repeat it with solfege.

At the symbolic level, students can sight-read unfamiliar notation.

Creativity/Improvisation

At this level students learn to create and improvise with the patterns they learned in Discrimation Learning.

Creativity is open-ended: students can create whatever they want with no constraints.

Improvisation is constrained: students create with some rules. For example, creating in minor tonality, or in duple time.

Activities in this level typically consist of call-and-response cycles.

Theoretical Understanding

This is the level at which students learn music theory.

Music theory describes structures and patterns in music. Its function for music is similar to the functions that grammar or linguistics provide for thinking about language. It gives students a way to describe and classify patterns in music.

The MLT guides states that it is better to teach music theory after audiation skills have developed. If music theory is taught earlier then it may be harder for students to learn audiation skills, because they are thinking in terms of theory rather than intuitively hearing.

My General Thoughts

I think I understand the idea of Inference Learning more now. It focuses on learning through pattern analysis and generalizations. It uses the idea of learning to see larger patterns from what you know.

This type of learning and teaching may be difficult to do online. I'm not sure yet what the specific learning activities look like. I'm interested to find out.

It also makes me think about choosing methodologies and sequences for online learning. Does it make sense to adapt the methodology to the medium?

An analogy for this could be painting. You are thinking about making either a sharp, graphic-style painting, or an impressionist painting. You only have watercolor paints. It is hard to make sharp lines with watercolors, but it is easy to make impressionist blends. So you choose to make an impressionist piece. The choice of medium affects which style you use.

In an ideal world the medium would not be a factor. We would be able to beam in a live teacher to every student who wants to learn. And it's possible that there may be one best teaching methodology for live teaching.

But in the real world we do have to deal with constraints of media.

On one hand you can adapt the medium to fit the teaching. You can try to make games and exercises that capture the ideas of the teaching method.

But does it make sense to also adapt the teaching to the medium? For example, for an online teaching methjod, do you make a new teaching method that places less emphasis on performance, because it is harder to evaluate performance with web technologies?

There are likely many different ways to teach the same thing. It is also likely that some of these ways will be better fits for online media. Consequently, the goodness of a method can also be considered in how well it can be communicated on a certain medium.

[music-ed-notes-blog]

Gordon MLT, Part III

Today I read more about Gordon's Music Learning Theory (MLT), in http://giml.org/docs/AboutMLT.pdf

This is continuing the reading I did yesterday: http://music-ed-notes.tumblr.com/post/111472886853/gordon-mlt-part-ii

Learning Sequence Activities

Learning Sequence Actitivies (LSA) form the 'part' of the whole/part/whole curriculum. LSAs are exercises that help students focus on individual aspects of audiation. They break down the process into skills, and focus on a subsect of the skills.

The goal of using LSAs is to help students reach greater understanding by helping them recognize and understand the elements that music is made of. I think of this as learning to identify the units of music. Like learning to identify molecules, or primary colors, or to hear words in a foreign language.

The Three Learning Sequences

There are three learning sequences: 1. skill learning 2. tonal learning 3. rhythmic learning

At any given time, a skill learning level is combined with a tonal or rhythmic learning level.

Two Types of Skill Learning

There are two types of skill learning: 1. discrimination learning 2. **inference learning **

Discrimination learning is rote learning. Students are aware that it is being taught and practiced. They are conscious of it.

Inference learning is conceptual. Students teach themselves, in their own minds. It happens unconsciously. I think this is like 'Eureka!' learning? But I'm not sure.

Discrimination learning teaches students to recognize patterns. It teaches them to recognize the basic 'vocabulary' of music. It must come before inference learning, because concepts can not be learned without the ability to recognize the elements that define the concepts.

Levels of Discrimination Learning

Aural/Oral Level

The most basic level. Students learn to hear and repeat what they hear. Aural = listening. Oral = performance, usually singing.

This is best done in a continous loop, so that the aural/oral parts interact with each other. 'Ah, this thing I'm singing is what I just heard.'

There is no concept of naming patterns. Tones are usually sung as 'bah', and rhythms as 'bum'.

Verbal Association Level

In this stage, students learn names for the patterns they learned in the aural/oral level. This is like assigning wrods to concepts. These names are necessary, because we have difficulty keeping track of more than 10 patterns without names. Why 10? Interesting...

There are two types of naming: 1. Solfege: (do-re-mi, rhythmic solfege) 2. music theory terminology (major, minor, 4/4, 3/4, etc.)

It is important to note that music theory is not introduced at this stage; only the names are taught.

Partial Synthesis

In this stage students learn to associate syntax with patterns. They are given a set of patterns without solfege, and then try to identify common elements like tonality or meter.

I think is like learning to categorize sets of patterns? But I'm not sure. This part is not clear to me.

Symbolic Association

Students learn to associate notation with sounds. It is essential to note that students are not decoding the notation. They are only learning to associate a given pattern with a specific image. That is, each notation example is a unique image, not an encoding.

_I like to describe this as thinking about notation examples as faces. Each face is unique. We learn to recognzie the face as a whole, immediately, intuitively. Rather than saying 'The nose is 2 inches long, the eyes are 4 inches apart, ah, this must be Jenny.'

I also like the way the Gordon guide describes this: "When symbolic association is properly taught, students are able to bring meaning to the notation, rather than trying to take meaning from the notation. The notes on the page sing to them."

Composite Synthesis

In this level students learng to identify notation patterns. Kind of like the combination of the partial synthesis and notation stages.

I don't understand this part yet.

My General Thoughts

I like this sequencing, how it builds up a basic, intuitive, immediate understanding.

I especially like the idea of learning to recognize, rather than read, notation.

I don't understand the 'synthesis' levels. I want to read more about those levels, or see what activities for those levels look like.

I'm interested by the need to name patterns in order to keep track of them. This makes intuitive sense to me. I just find it interesting. I also want to know how they found out that we could only keep track of 10ish patterns without names.

I think it will be a challenge to implement these activities as web games. One significant challenge to me is how to make games and exercises that are interactive, interactive in a way that allows for singing and rhythmic motion. It is not easy to create technology to process sung notes (especially in noisy contexts), or to sense motion with the precision necessary for rhythm.

I'm wondering if it is still useful to make 'quasi-interactive' games. These would be games that don't require singing or motion, but have some kind of 'virtual performance' aspect. Like tapping a virtual drum. Are games like this still helpful? If they turn out to be counter-productive, then we would not want to use them.

There could be another approach in addition to interactive games: games that guide. These games wouldn't measure user performance, they would just prompt the user to perform, and then cue the next stimulus. This could still be useful I think.

[music-ed-notes-blog]

Gordon MLT, Part II

Gordon MLT, part ii

Today I read more about Gordon MLT in http://giml.org/docs/AboutMLT.pdf .

This is a continuation of my thoughts from http://music-ed-notes.tumblr.com/post/111382289933/today-i-read-about-edwin-gordons-music-learning

These are a few notes from my reading.

Audiation

MLT focuses on how to learn audiation, and when to learn it.

Aptitude

MLT assumes that people have different levels of innate musical aptitude. Tests can measure aptitude. Teachers should teach students differently based on aptitude. Consisder aptitude with caution. "All students have the potential to achieve.", "It is NOT the purpose of the aptitude test to identify students for inclusion or exclusion."

I don't think it is good to place so much emphasis on aptitude. The potential for labeling and prejudice seems too great. The temptation to use aptitude as an excuse is too much. Aptitude has the potential to make us value more important things like motivation, persistence, and practice. We have to fight against being too aware of aptitude.

I recognize that the initial aptitude students varies. Not everyone can dunk like Michael Jordan. But I doubt that it can be measured, or that it is fixed after age 9, or that it has much affect on learning. I want to know more about the research that justifies Gordon's assumptions about aptitude.

Method

Method is the order in which sequential objectives are introduced. What to teach, when to teach, why to teach it. 'how' to teach is Technique.

"Rote First vs. Note First"

One way to describe curricula is as rote first or note first. In Rote first audiation is to taught first, and notation and theory second.

In Note first' notation is taught first and audiation second.

Gordon MLT is Rote First. It emphasizes that audiation should be taught first because this leads to a deeper intuition and feel for music.

The MLT guide compares rote first approach to the process of learning language. It describes the stages children pass through when they learn language:

Absorbing sounds: no meaning, no thinking, just learning to hear and distinguish sounds

Repeating sounds: babbling; meaningless improvisation, still without meaning or thinking, just sound production

Thinking in language: understand what sounds mean, that sounds can relate to concepts and things

Meaningful improvisation: communicating thoughts and ideas through sounds and words

Reading and writing: processing and creating written representations of words and sounds

Grammar: learning to communicate about the structure of language

MLT seeks to follow a similar progress for learning music. It leaves notation and theory for later, like reading and grammer. With the hope that they processing notation while be more an act of recognition than decoding.

Whole/Part/Whole

MLT emphasizes a whole/part/whole approach (also know as synthesis/analysis/synthesis). In this approach, the first step (a 'whole') is to provide an overview, so that students gain familiarity with the material.

In the second stage (part), the students focus on a specific aspect of the content. So that they learn to understand and manipulate one aspect.

In the third stage (back to the whole), the students return to the larger context. But now they understand it differently, with their added knowledge of one specific aspect.

For example, say we are learning about dynamics. A teacher starts by playing a Beethoven symphony. Then the teacher tells students to listen for louds and softs. "Listen for how Beethoven suddenly quiets the strings, then brings them up slowly". The students learn to recognize volume changes. Then the teacher plays the piece again. But now the students hear it differently because they are aware of the volume changes. They learn how the dynamics add another level of structure to the piece, to create tension and release.

Patterns over Notes

MLT focuses on chunks of rhythms and notes, not individual notes. Patterns are the basic units. Other analogies for this: molecules over atoms, words over letters.

Compare & Contrast

MLT emphasizes learning to identify by hearing what something is not. Learn major by hearing minor and major side-by-side. Learn syncopation by hearing straight and syncopated next to each other.

Always learn within a musical context.

MLT emphasizes having a musical context. Don't just learn a pattern of notes. Learn it relative to a resting tone or tonic. Learn rhythms in the context of a meter.

Rhythmic Movement

MLT emphasizes physical movement. It assumes that rhythm can not be understood purely through mental thought. You must also use movement, you must move to understand rhythm.

My Thoughts

I agree with many of the concepts and ideas in MLT, with the exception of Aptitude. I like the comparison with language, and the idea of 'rote first' learning to build intuition.

This does change how I think about Musikata and the design of online music education resources.

One thing that stands out in my mind as being particularly tricky is rhythmic motion. It is hard for web technologies to accurately capture motion. This will be a challenge. And one that's worth thinking about, because rhythm is tricky.

[music-ed-notes-blog]

Gordon Music Learning Theory, Part I

Today I read about Edwin Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (MLT).

I was interested because I want to know more about the sequences of learning music. How do people learn skills. In what order should those skills be presented?

I read about MLT on Wikipedia’s Gordon Music Learning Theory Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Music_Learning_Theory

The wikipedia page provided an overview of the theory. One of the key components of the theory is the idea of Audiation: The process of hearing and understanding music. The analogy for audiation is that audiation is to music as thinking is to language. Gordon says, “audiation is to music what thought is to speech”. Audiation is an internal process that we use to comprehend, and then design music. In the same way that we would process language, and then think of things to say.

(Or sometimes not think, in my case ;p )

Another concept in MLT is the idea of musical aptitude. As I understand it currently (which may be flawed), musical aptitude is a measure of someone’s initial, innate musical ability. For example, someone who can repeat any rhythm you clap has a high aptitude for rhythm repetition.

I find this concept confusing, and the language potentially damaging. ‘Aptitude’ brings to my mind the idea of ‘talent’. It seems to give undue weight to ‘nature’ over ‘nature’.

The word ‘Aptitude’ disturbs me. Because it seems to suggest that potential can be determined from a test. This seems flawed to me, for several reasons:

a test can be flawed or inaccurate

even if a test can measure innate ‘aptitude’, there are other factors that have more of an effect on learning.

For this second point, I mean factors like desire, support, persistence. Grit. I feel like the term ‘aptitude’ has the potential to obscure these other, more important factors. It gives weight to talent over time. That bothers me.

I’m confused by why the idea of ‘aptitude’ appears in MLT. ‘Aptitude’, as I currently understand it, doesn’t seem to jibe with what Gordon’s overall beliefs and values. He believes in teaching, he believes that people can learn. So I am confused by the emphasis on aptitude.

I suspect that Gordon’s intention is to use aptitude testing to design better, customized training for individuals. If you see that someone has trouble tapping rhythms, you can then focus on working on rhythms with that person. That seems like a reasonable idea to me. I’m hoping that is what he means by aptitude.

I need to read more to understand it. I’m going to look more at the Gordon institute’s ‘about’ document: And from the Gordon Institute’s ‘about’ document: http://giml.org/docs/AboutMLT.pdf

In any case, it is interesting. And I want to find out more.

I also enjoyed this interview, in which Gordon talks about learning from Gene Krupa.

http://www.comechildrensing.com/pdf/other_articles_by_MEP/2_A_Conversation_with_Edwin_Gordon.pdf

This is one of my favorite parts:

I have learned more from you about movement than I have from any movement specialist. How did you become aware of the importance of movement in relation to rhythm development? That goes back to my days with Krupa, when he said to me, “Hey, man, I’m paying to feel you not to hear you—and if you ain’t movin’, I can’t feel you.” [Edwin Gordon spent several years on the road performing as bass player with Gene Krupa, the world-famous drummer. Krupa could not read music.] He opened my mind to a lot of things. I remember one day he took me into a back room during intermission. Totally exasperated with me, he said, “Man, if you ain’t movin’, there’s no way you can understand what you’re doin’, ‘cause there ain’t no way to play just by movin’ your fingers. If you can’t put together your hips with your fingers, man, I hear it; and I don’t like it.” I began experimenting with movement, and I realized what Krupa was saying—that we need to get the body to send information to the brain so the fingers know what to do. The great majority of persons teaching music are trying to teach children to be rhythmical through the brain by counting half notes, whole notes, and beats in the measure. It’s the body, it’s movement that is most important. If you can’t move, you’re not going to have rhythm. And, if you don’t have rhythm, you don’t have anything, because musical expression is essentially rhythm. From: http://www.comechildrensing.com/pdf/other_articles_by_MEP/2_A_Conversation_with_Edwin_Gordon.pdf An interview with Mary Ellen Pinzino, Musicstaff.com, 1998.