Music Soothes the Psyche - Essay Example

Pan Lin Prof. Lindamood Music 261 Nov. 2, Midterm Paper Music sooths the psyche since it elicits passion, commitment, and determination. It is paramount to acknowledge the crucial nature of music in enhancing the communal wellbeing since the commencement of livelihood in diverse societies. As such, one of the most distinguished statements is “Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below” said by Joseph Addison. It is fundamental to acknowledge that since birth our life is filled with music, the greatest gift ever created. This gift had always played a colossal role in my existence. Around me, I have an adoring music family; my father is a big fan of opera while my mother enjoys all classical and country music. Interestingly, both my grandparents listen to the old Taiwanese song every day and my sister who likes heavy metal and rock songs. In addition, I also play different categories of instruments since I started kindergarten. From the reading, Burnsed and Gordon took Piaget’s ideas of perceptual development and concept formation and applied them to music. Burnsed discusses Gordon’s application of Piaget’s four stages of development in relation to musical skills. First, sensorimotor stage, a child who is under two years old may identify the loudness, timbre, and pitch of the sound (Barrett, McCoy & Veblen 23). Secondly, pre-operational stage whereby a child who is between three to seven years old may include many movement experiences such as tempo. Thirdly, “concrete operations stage”, a child who ranges from seven to twelve can initiate intricate mental operations (Burnsed 27). Finally, from prescribed operations stage, a child who is above 12 can comprehend the cause and consequences. From these statements, it has allowed me to have a better acquaintance of how perceptual progress relates according to my music experiences (Burnsed 27). According to my parents and every child I have interacted with, it is evident that we are all very sensitive to any sounds since we were infants, especially the songs with high pitch and shrill timbre. My mother indicated that during our tender years she used toy with the small sands to make whispery sound to get our attenuation when she feeds us. When she talked, she has to talk in a lofty pitch accent like Mickey Mouse with a funny facial expression to make us chuckle, the same goes for my father. If they did not, we would just stare at our parents until they hoist their voice and make goofy faces. Moreover, my mother said that I have always needed the animal musical mobile when I sleep. Therefore, she often “wakes up in the middle of the night” because I was crying since the musical mobile would stop playing (Barrett, McCoy & Veblen 12). As an infant, I was perceiving and identifying different sounds. I did not need any basic music acquaintance to understood music. Many people say that they do not understand music because they never played an instrument or have a music background before. However, they are wrong, we have been practicing music as infants but because our brain is still maturing, the brain arrangement did not permit us to evoke any musical experience as infants (Burnsed 28). After I went to pre-k and kindergarten, I started to experience diverse instruments. Such as the “triangle, castanets, tabor, side drum, glockenspiel, xylophone and piano” (Lee 23). I remembered my teacher teaching us how to use the triangle, castanets, tabor and side drum to count beats as we sang (Lee 12). We would follow our teacher as we tap the instruments repeatedly until we could catch up with the rhythm. We also danced as the children song prayed to practice the rhythm every morning. After we understood how to count the beats, we started to play glockenspiel and xylophone (Barrett, McCoy & Veblen 23). I have always loved to use the “xylophone to play twinkle twinkle little star” because each of the keys had different colors (Lee 12). These familiarities helped me when I first learned the piano in kindergarten. I even had a piano solo part during my kindergarten graduation but I could not remember the song I played, I only remembered the pink white dress I wore. The reason I still remember this is that my mom always indicated me how proud of me she was, and that I was the only child to not have stage fright during the graduation ceremony. Overall, most children start to use instruments and denote dissimilar types of music when they go to school (Barrett, McCoy & Veblen 23). During school, with they provide musical three fundamental erudition: psychomotor learning, cognitive learning, and affective learning through to class lesson (Anderson & Lawrence 34). As a student, we have more opportunity to develop dissimilar physical skill and abilities in music such as playing instruments, understanding the musical notes and the style period. This demonstrates the pre-operation stage that school contains many different lessons to help the students understand and experience a higher level of music other than to just identity the sound. In elementary school, I was attracted to the recorder thus I joined the recorder team alone with the chorus team for half the semester. I do not recall much of the chorus team since I did not go to any competition with the team because I was busy with the swim team training. The process that I remember was when we sang some Chinese children song every morning while we practiced and it always makes me hungry afterwards. In addition, my friend and I would sing the song that we have learned just from the chorus team while we skipped the ropes during gym class. For the recorder, I recalled that I learned it very quickly since my sister was in the same team before. She would tutor me after I come home. I had two music classes every week and we always played the recorder in the music class. I still memorize how to play it and I still love it. Comparing my experience to the concrete operations stage and “Song in their heads: Music and its meaning in children’s lives” by Campbell, I see myself as a teacher who has the ability to do multiple things at once (Campbell 112). I did not notice it until I did the observation of children playing music. Most of children who are below first grade cannot really do multiple things at once, such as jumping rope and singing. As indicated by Campbell, these processes improve the operations and understanding of children (Campbell 112). Time flies, and I am in college now. It is interesting looking back and seeing how many different music experiences I had, such as the piano, recorder, xylophone and ocarina that I have played in middle school. However, as time goes by I feel more like the addressees than the artist. I prefer to go to special types of performances and concerts since college. The only time I will be a performer is in the music class because other than that I am not professional musician. In addition, Campbell points out that children, due to lack of much vocabulary, are much comfortable expressing what they feel or want through music. This clearly shows that music provides an easier way out for children to carry out communication. Campbell continues to state that children not only communicate through music, but they also find joy and entertainment in singing. In my livelihood, as far as music is the subject, I have always felt that it is entertaining, since I was a child. Campbell is also quick to note that music offers children refuge from worries that exist in their lives due to their tender vulnerable ages. On comparison with my life, I think that this is true as I always took music as a no worry zone while I was young. Music offered a harbor with no worries as we used to integrate singing while playing, thus adding fun to the games. I am in college and music is a completely different world on comparison to the music while I was still a child. However, it still has various similar aspects. Looking back at my life’s experiences, like playing dissimilar music instruments, such as the “piano, recorder, xylophone, and ocarina”, I find it interesting in various ways. However, as occasions come, I feel more as part of the audience than an entertainer (Campbell 112). This is because, since college, I have developed a habit of attending different types of performances and concerts rather than exposing myself as an instrument player. The only time I find myself being a performer is during music class, where I have to have my hands on the instruments to practice and learn. Upon comparison of my life’s experiences as I develop my music skills to Piage’s ideas, I see my skills developed in accordance to his concepts. This is so because when I was a child, under the age of two years, my mother used high pitch to communicate to me. This clearly shows I could recognize high accent and deafening sounds, thus, displaying sensorimotor. After the age of three, I exhibited Piage’s second ideology where at this age I could sing and display tempo in my songs, as I vividly recall. Between the two remaining ideologies of Piage, I clearly recall displaying prescribed procedures, his fourth idea as after the age of twelve, I had a sense of consequences and was able to comprehend the cause of various things in music. Thus, with all the above-mentioned aspects of Piage, I was able to develop my music skills fully. Auerbach, once said, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life (Campbell 112).” I add that music gives me refuge to display my affection towards something so exquisite to the ears. It sooths the heart and displays a feeling which cannot be formed in any other way. Music is and will always be a fundamental ingredient of my livelihood, both as an entertainer and listener. Works Cited Anderson, William. & Lawrence, Joy. Integrating music into the elementary classroom. Thompson Shirmer. Belmont, CA. 2007. Print Barrett, Janet., McCoy, Claire., & Veblen, Kari.. Sound ways of knowing. Schirmer Books. NY, 1997. Print Campbell, Patricia S. “Getting the Inside Scoop on Children.” The Mountain Lake Reader. Spring (2001): 25-29 Campbell, Patricia S. (2010). Songs in their heads: Music and it’s meaning in children’s lives. Oxford University Press. NY, NY. Lee, Amy F. “Take Note of Orpheus.” The Southwestern Musician. XX, 1996. Print Robinson, Nicole., Hall, Suzanne., & Spano, Fred.. Teaching Elementary Music: Integrative Strategies between Music and Other Subjects. Dubuque, IA. Kendall Hunt Inc, 2010. Print Burnsed, Charles. The classroom teachers guide to music education. Thomas Publishers. Springfield, IL, 1999. Print Mannes, E. (Director). The music instinct; Science and Song [DVD]. United States: PBS, 2009. Print Read More