Cultural Comparisons of Music Analysis
Music can enhance learning in any subject area and teachers can capitalize on children's affection for popular songs. One of the most effective uses of music as an educational tool is to adapt popular songs or commercial jingles to the syllabus. For example, a teacher can turn the multiplication tables into a song, or elements on the periodic table. Music is already used as a teaching tool: such as the alphabet song. However, music is not used as often or as extensively as it could be. Teachers therefore need to be creative when incorporating musical elements into their teaching style. For example, a teacher can introduce a unit on animals through song. A common domain tune like "Old Gray Mare" can be adapted for the lesson: by singing about each animal in turn with its unique characteristics and habitats. "A grizzly bear lives in the California woods, in the California woods, in the California woods. All summer long he hunts and hunts for food and in the winter he sleeps all day."
Songs stick in the head; they are catchy. If teachers need proof of how powerful songs are for children and how they stick in their heads, all they need to do is listen during recess, when children sing popular tunes recreationally. Educators need to look more to music as a legitimate and effective learning tool. Moreover, teachers will stimulate their creativity while designing their lesson plans and will be encouraged to think outside the box.
Children memorize songs far easier than they memorize a list of items or an arbitrary set of numbers or words. Students will anchor the concepts in the syllabus to the tune itself, creating automatic learning and memorization of facts. Therefore, teachers can use songs to deliver content and make content more meaningful and memorable for students. Students will also respond better to a lesson taught musically than to a lesson that is dry or uninteresting. Increasing student responsiveness will lead naturally to increased interest in the curricula. Using music as a teaching tool also helps all students participate, because many students with disabilities can follow along joyfully through song.
