Do teachers use background music in classrooms in your school?

Background music is used extensively throughout society, particularly in marketing, retail industry and medicine. It is used to reduce stress, create an illusion, manipulate perception, alter people’s emotional state, and to enhance well-being.

There are two reasons teachers will experiment with using background music in classrooms.
1. To improve classroom behaviour and atmosphere
2. To improve the quality and/or quantity of work

Appropriately chosen music can address the demands of objective number 1, which in turn improves learning outcomes. As a general rule though, the more complex the learning task, the more distracting background music becomes.

Most students like having background music in the classroom. I have researched and spoken about this in many schools, and students report to me the following positive benefits of using background music:
• It shuts out distractions
• I get immersed in my own world and become more productive
• It puts me in a positive frame of mind and a better mood
• It gives me a general feeling of well being
• It calms me before a large task and I stay focused for longer
• It makes time go by fast
• It helps me work quicker
• It’s good for repetitive homework tasks
• It helps me reflect
• It helps my creativity (Einstein is well known for associating music and creativity)
• It makes studying more enjoyable

And let’s not forget the associated benefits for the teacher. Knowing when to turn the music on or off will come with teacher experience, but there are some fundamental principles that apply when selecting background music for general school classrooms.
1. Do not let the students select the music. This is not about entertainment, but about establishing an environment to improve learning arousal.
2. Use instrumental music only. There are some exceptions such as Latin text in Renaissance choral. Students listen and even sing with lyrics, detracting from their cognitive attention. My research, including a master’s study found that the most distracting background music is fast, familiar vocal music chosen and liked by the student. I refer back to point 1.
3. The volume level must be low. Research shows that the physiological and psychological effects of music listening occur whether or not people are deliberately attentive to it. Volume preference is highly individualistic, but people are less tolerant of loud music rather than soft music. The louder the music, the more distracting it becomes.
4. The volume level must be consistent. Most playlist compilations source tracks from several sources, so there is discrepancy in volume levels. Most computer based mp3 players such as iTunes and Win-amp have built in devices or plug-ins designed to iron out and condense dynamic variation. In iTunes go to Edit/Preferences/Playback/Sound check and
a consistent volume level will be applied to a playlist. Furthermore, shuffle the playlist to keep it fresh.
5. Expect a settling in period. The introduction of background music in classes often requires a period of adjustment. Students might complain about the style of music, and also offer their preferences as a substitute. Most research on this subject has found an adjustment period of up to 2-weeks, so do not give in. Within this time frame grumblings will subside and listeners will be comfortable with this new addition to the environment. Then the positive effects of this music can work its magic in transforming your classroom.

How is music chosen to achieve different goals?

Listening to music is mainly a gestalt experience, but certain components have more effect on our mood and physiology than others. In particular, tonality, tempo, pitch and texture all play an important role in affecting our mood. For example music of a major tonality is recognised to be happier and more positive than minor music. Faster tempi raise the heartbeat and music with lyrics demand more cognitive processing resources. It is musical constituents such as these that should determine playlist selections.

The most important factor is the choice of music, and this is where I can help you get started. I have provided playlists for schools from Australia to Luxembourg, and I have compiled a new 8 hour playlist for the classroom. For this, contact me at griffin@musiceducationworld.com. The product can be sent to you on a CD data disc, or downloaded as a zip file from a link. A fee applies. My selections will give you the confidence to occasionally ‘top up’, or in the fullness of time you can contact me again to request a booster pack. If you would like to read my masters dissertation, you can download at http://www.musiceducationworld.com/files/MG_Masters_Background_Music_in_Education.pdf. I have presented workshops on the psychology of music listening in school classrooms and during homework in around 25 countries. Navigate to ‘Study, Stress and Music’ on this page:
http://www.musiceducationworld.com/workshopsforstudents
Michael Griffin
M.Ed Studies, B.Ed (Music), A.Mus.A
www.musiceducationworld.com

Michael Griffin has graciously offered to giveaway an 8-hour playlist of the background music he’s compiled! Just leave a comment below to be entered in the drawing. A winner will be selected using a random number generator at noon (CST) on Thursday, 26, 2012.

When I asked her recently, one of my students who has struggled with this for at least a year affirmed the above statement. She didn’t, in fact, think that fingering was important – contrary to what I’ve been telling her every week. So, it was time to come up with a creative and memorable (i.e. sticky) way to convince her that this reluctance would be her undoing in several years if she didn’t put in the effort to fix it now. We discussed it briefly and she was anxiously anticipating what I would come up with to convince her.

After considerable thought and prayer, I finally settled on an object lesson of sorts that I thought would do the trick. Enter: Dot-to-dot drawing sheets!

I printed off two of each of the following free dot-to-dot worksheets:

Smiling Flower

Underwater Seahorse

Since this student comes with her brother, I gave each of them a pencil and clipboard with the smiling flower dot-to-dot affixed. I instructed them to complete it as quickly as they could and that the winner would receive a complication coin (part of our An Italian Intrigue practice incentive theme this year!). The only hitch was that on my fingering-challenged student’s worksheet, I erased (via a computer program) all of the numbers.

Her brother finished a split second before her, but she didn’t seem to notice the lack of numbers and it didn’t faze her too much. On the second one however, it was a different story altogether! When I gave the signal to begin her brother was rapidly connecting dots while she sat in confusion connecting a few random dots, then erasing, then trying to figure out where to draw next. Eventually she got them all connected, but it didn’t look like a seahorse, and it took her almost a whole minute longer than her brother.

As I handed him his second coin, I explained that doing a dot-to-dot without the numbers is like trying to play a piece of music without using the correct fingers. At an early level you may be able to get by okay and play the piece how the composer intended it to be played, but at higher levels, it will take much longer to learn a piece and you may or may not be able to perform it as the composer intended it to be played. Using the correct fingering can make all the difference in the continuity, accuracy, and musicality of a piece.

When I finished the brief analogy my student was smiling (in spite of the fact that she lost out on two coins!). Only time will tell if it works, but I think she finally gets the importance of fingering now. She asked if she could keep the dot-to-dot coloring sheets and take them home with her. Of course I readily agreed. And added that she should display them prominently on the keyboard rack of her piano so that she is reminded to use good fingering every time she practices.

[Update: There were a lot of requests for the numberless version of the connect-the-dots pictures I used with my students, so I've uploaded my file and made it available for easy download and printing. It's just a simple Word doc with both the numbered and numberless version of each picture embedded. Click here to download and use with your students!]

Georg Frederic Handel – March in G HWV 419/3
Henry Purcell – Air in D Minor ZT 676
Domenico Scarlatti – Sonata in C Major K. 73B
Franz Joseph Haydn – German Dance Hob. IX/22 No. 3
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Minuet in F K.2
Daniel Gottlob Türk – ‘Horn With Echo’ from 49 Pieces for Beginners at the Piano
Robert Schumann – ‘Soldier’s March’ from Album for The Young Op. 68
Theodore Oesten – ‘Echo’ from Mayflowers Op. 61
Robert Fuchs – ‘Sad at Heart’ from Album for the Young Op. 47
Cornelius Gurlitt – ‘The Rope Dancer’ from Little Studies Op. 130
Stephen Heller – ‘Scabieuse’ from Album for the Young Op. 138
Friedrich Burgmüller – ‘L’Arabesque’ from 25 Progressive Studies Op. 100

The entire book can be downloaded as a pdf file for free! At the end of the book are a couple pages with teaching notes for each piece. And as an added bonus, students can visit his YouTube channel to listen to recordings of each piece. What a great resource!

HT: Repertoire Reviews (be sure to check out the weekly podcast of contemporary piano pieces for intermediate to early-advanced level students!)

I especially love using them with beginning students. They are such a simple, handy tool to have on hand. Just stick them on the student’s assignment sheet or a blank piece of paper and use them for all sorts of assignments! For starters, I just draw a little “x” on select keys and the student has to write the name of the key under each “x” on the keyboard. I’ve also used them for scales, chords, fingering patterns, etc. No doubt, there are plenty of other creative uses for these ingenious little labels, too!

I haven’t used the program much in the past year, but several weeks ago it came to mind and has been the perfect solution for a recent situation! You may remember that I’ve begun teaching via Skype, and one of my long-distance students has been working on a composition. It’s been really fun to work on it together over the internet, but I was thinking it would be really cool to get it notated so she has a printed copy to keep.

I could have just done it all in my Finale notation program and then converted it to a pdf and e-mailed it to her, but that seemed pretty cumbersome. Enter: Noteflight. The interface is sleek and intuitive, and I can input notes as we work on it during the lesson. My student has the link to the notated composition and can check it out at any time, listen to it playback, and print it out on her computer. Needless to say, she is thrilled to see her work on the screen and on paper! I think we’re going to be using this a lot more in the days ahead!

Pinterest is an intriguing concept. Here’s their official description, “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.”

In addition to other ideas, I thought it sounded like a neat way to collect and share teaching and studio-related inspirations. I’ve just barely started using my pinboard, but I’m excited to [hopefully!] put it to more use in the future. If you’re on Pinterest, let me know!

ManiacTools.com is my latest greatest find on the world wide web! Tagged “The Best Music Tools,” you’ll find a treasure trove of helpful software programs for a variety of needs. I was impressed with their free m4a to mp3 converter, so I signed up for their newsletter to be alerted to new developments and additions.

They just released a free YouTube to mp3 Converter Studio that I’m super excited about! YouTube has become my go-to site for musical performances and I have often wished there was a good way to capture the audio for later listening. ManiacTools.com has made that wish come true! You can add multiple YouTube videos just by copying the links and then download them all simultaneously. By default, the downloads are saved to the My Music folder as an mp3, but you can change the output folder and also elect to download as a WAV file instead.

The program is intuitive and easy to navigate. And so far it works seamlessly!