Brother Randy Hickey
formerly Dubversion
excuse the preamble:
my best friend is an english teacher out in Singapore who's introducing a basic Theory of Knowledge unit for certain GCSE-equivalent students. They're covering all the basics in that regard but his main push is regarding aesthetics, which he feels is taught as being "softer" than proper sciences when it comes to TOK. So he's trying to engage the kids in these "what is art?" basics and traditionally it seems to be done with visual art (y'know, here's an early Picasso which is a beautiful reproduction, now here's a late Picasso which looks primitive, what's going on here kinda thing?). But most kids of the age he's teaching don't give a damn about visual art and instead are music-fixated.
So yesterday we had a drunken discussion about how he might tackle the "what is music" issue, and he's looking for some useful, illuminating pieces - not TOO odd, these are fairly young kids - to get them thinking.
I suggested he use a field recording of, say, a waterfall or similar. then play something like Nurse With Wound's Salt Marie Celeste, which is almost a "fictional field recording", in a sense. Then ask if the kids consider it music, and if not, why not? and move further in towards what's conventionally considered music and get them to examine their assumptions...
SO (hungover preamble over). Recommendations wanted for interesting, ideally fun, pieces that would challenge kids' notions of what music is or isn't that he can use as a tool in his lessons?
my best friend is an english teacher out in Singapore who's introducing a basic Theory of Knowledge unit for certain GCSE-equivalent students. They're covering all the basics in that regard but his main push is regarding aesthetics, which he feels is taught as being "softer" than proper sciences when it comes to TOK. So he's trying to engage the kids in these "what is art?" basics and traditionally it seems to be done with visual art (y'know, here's an early Picasso which is a beautiful reproduction, now here's a late Picasso which looks primitive, what's going on here kinda thing?). But most kids of the age he's teaching don't give a damn about visual art and instead are music-fixated.
So yesterday we had a drunken discussion about how he might tackle the "what is music" issue, and he's looking for some useful, illuminating pieces - not TOO odd, these are fairly young kids - to get them thinking.
I suggested he use a field recording of, say, a waterfall or similar. then play something like Nurse With Wound's Salt Marie Celeste, which is almost a "fictional field recording", in a sense. Then ask if the kids consider it music, and if not, why not? and move further in towards what's conventionally considered music and get them to examine their assumptions...
SO (hungover preamble over). Recommendations wanted for interesting, ideally fun, pieces that would challenge kids' notions of what music is or isn't that he can use as a tool in his lessons?