Music in context

Project-based music learning

Project-based music learning can be excellent for exploring a topic in depth – not just learning about music, but using music as an explorative tool for an inquiry unit about almost anything – another culture, mathematical concepts, local history.

The driving forces behind a music project can be diverse. Perhaps your school feels that the music students are ready for a challenge or you would like to introduce fresh ideas to the program or grow the skills of the teaching staff.

The best way to understand what might be available through project-based music learning is to look at a few examples. Here are three examples of project-based music learning.

Blackburn High School

Blackburn High School undertook a project for their Year 9 music students called A Moment’s Notice. Steve Sedergreen, an accomplished jazz musician, had recently returned from a tour of the Northern Territory, doing workshops with indigenous students in the Tiwi Islands. At Blackburn, he worked with the students, exploring a concept called ‘deep listening’ – using an awareness of the environment and surroundings to stimulate improvised music and eventually composition. The students created a suite of works, which they performed with a Tiwi Islander group. A video about the project is available on the Blackburn High School website.

Mallacoota P–12 College

In 2014 Mallacoota P–12 College began a music project with two local musicians, Padma Newsome and Nick Fischer. The project was developed by the school’s Arts Committee in collaboration with the school’s music teachers and both artists, and centred on Gabo Island. Gabo Granite Rock gave students opportunities to gather field recordings, create compositions in situ and write original music and perform music inspired by the environment of Gabo Island.

Watsonia Primary School

Watsonia Primary School partnered with artists from Musica Viva for a project called ‘Message of the Jungle Drum’. Using music as an exploratory tool and as the learning stimulus, the school devoted an entire year to a whole-of-school enquiry about jungles, tribes and elders. They began with a full day of professional learning for the teachers, designed to let them experience enquiry-based learning by collaboratively creating a chant, then a rhythm and eventually melodies. This experience allowed the teachers to see how music learning in the classroom can be linked to learning in mathematics, history, geography, visual arts and the capabilities. Back at school, the project culminated in a whole-school performance of stories and songs composed by the teachers and students.

 

Malacoota P–12 College

Back to Top